-
Good enough IS good enough
Thursday 2 September 2010
Categories: Growing up, Media Influence, Parenting, Self-esteem
How can we teach our daughters that “good enough” really is “good enough”? Too many girls have low self-worth. They put enormous pressure on themselves: to achieve in every academic area; to be slim and pretty; to be clever and popular and yet, as we know, perfection is not only unachievable but is a dangerous aim.
It’s like the fabled pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and chasing that leads to madness and mayhem.
Hopefully girls are beginning to learn that air-brushing presents them with pictures that are lies and that auto-tuning technology does the same for X Factor hopefuls. But will they truly believe it or will they still, in their bedrooms, in their mirrors, see themselves as falling short of some mythical idealised image?
As they write and rewrite their coursework are they heading for a lifetime of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, because it could always be better?
As they resit their modules do they see themselves as failures?Whatever happened to the principle that parents expect you to do your best and that that is “good enough”?
We hope and expect so much, perhaps too much, of our children. More than we ever achieved. Perhaps because we see them as extensions of ourselves we want them to succeed where we failed, to shine in every sphere. We should be teaching them is that it is who they are, not what they look like or how they do in exams that matters. That everyone makes mistakes but it is whether you learn from your mistakes that makes you a stronger, more successful person.
In GCSE maths children learn a method called ‘Trial and Improvement’. You make a stab at a solution, see where it gets you, and then make a better guess. And you keep improving your solution until till get as near as you can to the solution. Not a bad system for tackling most of life’s problems!
We must nurture our daughters’ individuality, praise them for their personal qualities, and ensure they have worthwhile values and a positive sense of self.
And instead of hiring tutors, pushing them into after school clubs and take up hobbies we wish we’d done we should teach them the really important stuff…how to mend a dripping tap, change a fuse, sew on a button and bake a magnificent cake for their mum’s birthday. Mine even had fireworks!
Thank you for awakening me to my faults! I have been uncertain of the motive behind sending my daughter to various dance and other activities which I hope are not plying too much pressure and expectation in achievement onto her.