So, that said: I have two goals when I teach my kids: 1. teach them that if they keep trying, they can understand something that looks "too hard" initially, and 2. don't make them hate learning by pushing #1 too much. Easy to write, hard to implement
You know, Val, I agree with this. You kind of put into words what I try to do. Number one is very important for my children because we have been attempting to ward off some pretty significant perfectionism issues. I know that if perfectionism becomes an ingrained habit, it could be pretty counterproductive to their success as adults, and even as kids sometimes!
Especially for youngest daughter I worked on this over the summer. She would literally shut down if something didn't immediately(and I truly mean immediately) register. Then her self confidence was affected, she's smart enough to know she's smart but that conflicted with her belief that she should know everything right away, KWIM.
So there were a few tears, but gently I would ask her to just relax, and think. I showed her how to slow down her breathing to self calm. Wait a minute, then look at it again. In most cases, she was able to figure it out, then she would acually laugh and say it was easy and continue!
I think she was developing an extreme fear of "failure" and I put that in quotes because I'm still not sure what she thinks failure is. I did, however, know we were starting to travel down a bad path and I really think whatever was happening in school last year really exaserbated this for her.
I would not ever push them to learn something that they were not ready to learn or to the point of significant distress. But I do think my mommy instincts are pretty good at knowing where this is for my children.
Children develop self esteem by facing a challenge that looks difficult, maybe not even sure if they can accomplish it. Then accomplishing it. Isn't that the best? Who can argure that it's not just an awesome way to develop great self-esteem. Most kids get that during the course of the school day at some point. I will argue, not so in most cases for HG(+) kids.
