Over the weekend we had an interesting experience that made me think about how children often don’t hear what we think we are telling them. We spent the weekend at my brother-in-laws house and their children attend a public school. They had just had parent teacher interviews and had been told that their daughter would be able to do the accelerated senior math and English programme if she started working to her potential. Their daughter is nine months younger than mine. When we were driving home Casper said to me that she wondered if she was as smart as her cousin because her cousin doesn’t like to play number games with her and Casper is often teaching her new words. I have often told her that she is really good at maths and that she could really excel at maths if she put her mind to it. It turns out, though, that her experiences in public school had left her with the idea that I was just being generally encouraging because she genuinely thought that she was not good at maths.
This conversation has resulted in a renewed focus for Casper’s studies as she now believes that she can be good at her academics. She has decided to really apply herself to maths. This has always been a struggle because while she was at the public school she realised that she didn’t need to work at maths to get average marks and was always bored but, for some reason, believed this was because she wasn’t good at maths.
The other thing that came out of this conversation was a decision that she was interested in training as a piano technician. This is now a problem because there is only one place in Australia that offers such a course but they only take four students every 6 months and it’s mega expensive.
So this weekend has resulted in a positive redirection of effort but also some frustration as I try to find a suitable course for my daughter to pursue her passions.