Instead of putting pressure on your child to bring home good grades, an American specialist suggests to parents a method that goes against certain educational principles.
We know that there is no miracle recipe for helping your child succeed at school. You can hire a private teacher, buy him all the revision books that exist, there is no guarantee that he will have good academic results. On the other hand, what can have an impact is the behavior that we adopt as a parent with our child. In any case, this is the observation made by Jennifer Breheny Wallace, American journalist, in her book Never Enough: When Achievement Pressure Becomes Toxic — and What We Can Do About Itfor which she surveyed 6,500 parents with the expertise of psychologists and a researcher from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
The specialist’s analysis
For parents, it is legitimate to ensure that their child is on the right track and that they have all the tools to succeed. Except that in many cases, Jennifer Breheny Wallace has noticed that parents tend to transmit (sometimes unintentionally, because they themselves are stressed) a certain pressure to their offspring. Which is counterproductive, because it can ultimately harm their child’s mental health and theirs too. Without forgetting, the environment at school which can already be a distressing environment for some.
The secret to academic success
For the expert, on the contrary, you should slow down your child and not “encourage him for every opportunity.” In fact, she told CNBC: “The parents I met who had the most successful children were the ones who sometimes held their children back.” If your child is feeling anxious and pushing himself to do more and more to get good grades and make you proud, it may be time to step in and insist that he slow down.
According to Jennifer Breheny Wallace, it is also important to implement healthy habits on a daily basis, both for the child and for the parents. “You need to have time to relax with family and loved ones. You need to take breaks.” With this in mind, you are giving your child every chance to do their best at school!