When A Child FEELS Stupid
Has your child ever said anything like:
“I am not smart”
Or
“I am not good at _____”
Or, in some other way, expressed that they feel stupid?
Hearing that may have felt horrible to you. It’s tough to hear. If this happens there is something very important to consider.
The Power Of Expectations.
In this case the child’s own expectations
A lot of really smart children fall into the trap of feeling stupid. And sometimes other people in their life assume it too. They make assumptions about intelligence that are just not true. And when they do they impose their expectations on the child.
A Horrible Experiment
Have you heard of the experiment by psychologists that tested the effects of teacher’s expectations on children?
It was a horrible experiment that should have never been done. What they did was assign fake intelligence scores to children and then gave their teachers the scores. At the end of the year, they checked the scores against the children’s grades.
The children’s grades almost exactly correlated with the FAKE IQ’s.
Terrible to think about the children that were given the fake low scores. Did that affect them for their entire lives?
How Are Expectations Affecting Your Child?
Could that be happening to your child now?
Children tend to live up to what people expect of them. And that means if people think they are not intelligent, they start to become that. They slide backward to fit the expectation.
Poor grades do not mean low intelligence!
Poor grades mean something is going wrong! The way your child is wired to learn is not matching the way they are being taught.
However! Trying to change the school system is an almost impossible task. So don’t go that route unless you want to commit your entire life to it (Some Do) Instead, simply help your child learn in different ways. Which gives them a huge advantage anyway.
There are many potential learning strategies.
We can think in different ways. And developing these different ways is actually a huge advantage in life.
It makes us:
- Logical when we need to be logical.
- Creative when we need to be creative.
- Emotionally intelligent when we need to be emotionally intelligent.
There are more ways than one to use that magnificent brain.
And if you do, your child get’s to keep their gifts and learn new ones too.
The Building Blocks Of Learning
We do this by developing the learning micro-skills. These are the fundamental building blocks of learning.
And when we help a child develop these building blocks of learning they naturally develop a variety of learning strategies.
When they have many learning strategies they can easily adapt to different teaching styles.
They can choose the most efficient learning strategy for whatever they are trying to learn at the moment. Without even thinking about it.
Author Quote
“
Mindset can be magical
”
Expectations Are Critically Important
When a child like yours struggles It’s never because of intelligence.
Unfortunately, kids assume it is. They quickly assume they are “stupid”. And once they assume that they will do everything possible to not let anyone else discover their “secret”
They’d rather get in trouble than let anyone discover it.
They’d rather be seen as lazy than let anyone discover it.
To them, it’s a deep dark secret and they’ll do anything to hide it. Even though it’s not true. They just think it’s true. And they think no one will like them if it’s discovered.
This is the root of their loss of self-esteem.
This is the reason for them acting out.
Key Takeaways:
1
Expectations affect a child's future success
2
Try to have extremely high expectations. Even if it's difficult to do
3
Parents affect children the most. Teachers are second
When a teacher assumes that a child is not intelligent this reinforces the child’s belief.
Or it can actually cause it.
The child will then begin to live up (or down) to that belief. Because of this, you have to be very careful with things like IEP’s (individualized education plans) or official diagnosis. Although these things can sometimes be helpful they can more often be damaging.
Simply because they reduce the expectations for the child.
The remedy?
High expectations!
That’s not to say ignore the problem.
That’s not the idea at all.
Acknowledge the current difficulty, but also expect to get through it.
Expect your child to excel. Even when it’s hard to do so.
Author Quote
“
Children would rather be thought of as lazy or as troublemakers than be thought of as stupid
”
Over and over I’ve seen this simple, but not easy tactic work wonders.
I’ve worked with kids and set my own expectations way beyond what anyone believed the children were capable of. I didn’t know if they were capable but I simply set in my mind that they were. This caused me to act as if they were. And eventually, they proved me right.
Expect it until they make it!
It’s a difficult mindset to have. Especially when you are super worried.
But mindset can be magical.
