Kids and School - Lihanna

Assalamualaikum

this is a belated response to the topic brought up by kak chik. Ni jawabjuga sebab dah dipanggil nama ... from kak chik's email -- "To me, ikutkeaadaan dan kesesuaian. Really appreciate kalau Lihanna boleh kasipandangan from psicologist perspective....  "

(this will sound like a lecture, bukan nak tunjuk pandai, but just trying tomake this quick, so the lecturer mode will just have to be used :)) OK, let's see. From the ed psych's perspectice, actually, streamingespecially with children in primary school, is not recommended, and if it's done, it should be flexible (like not setahun sekali baru reshuffle but atleast twice a year), but hakikatnya, schools do this all the time and only once a year. So what can we do as parents then?

Nak tukar polisi sekolah susah, so we need to work with our children.

Even though self-esteem (SE) and academic achievement (AA) are related (my own research found this too), the thing is those are *correlational* studies, so they find only relationships, not a cause and effect pattern, soal though most children who perform better in school tend to show better self-esteem but it could be that the high SE leads to better performance (or it could be vice versa -- we just cannot use the research findings to conclude this). The thing is we cannot say let's have our kids score more A's so they'll have better SE, or that if they're not doing well that's going to be bad for their SE. It's not that simple largely since

 a) like I said earlier, SE-AA studies are correlational, mostpsychologist think it's a two-way thing

 b) even the relationship is not 100%, a lot of other things canplay a role, like what significant others (read, parents, teachers, peers etc) react to the AA.

So let me focus on (b).

Kalau kita cakap pada anak kita, his/her value is mainly if not mostly dependent on AA, then yes, poor grades will be crushing.

But on the other hand, as parents, we also want them to value education andstudy, and have that effort be reflected in their AA.

So like other things in life, this is another balancing act to do.

 

We know our children best (since I believe we all here are very hands-on parents), so you'd know whether they've been slacking off or not in school. So kalau the results are due to slacking off, we should call them to task. Tapi kalau sebab lain then give more encouragement to them. One of the  things we should do is not just look at their marks, but go through the exam with them, and see if there are patterns to their mistakes.  Some children are just not academically inclined. But given the curriculum, I think the average child should be passing all the classes, maybe he's not getting all A's, but he shouldn't be failing. But anyway, then it is also our duty as parents to see where they can excel and encourage them in that area (see Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences perspective – my browser's acting out, so can't google the pages right now).  As much as we'd like the kids to have all A's, it may actually not be healthy in the long-run. Mmm... kak chik, try to get Hada to ease off on her perfectionism, she needs to learn we all make mistakes and that it's okay to do that if we can learn from those mistakes. So if she's aware she's careless, then teach her how to go through her answers to check for mistakes, what sort of mistakes to look out for. Briefly, what we can do

a)   set realistic goals *with* them (with younger children, put more focus onthe short-term ones) -- attainable ones but ones they have to work at, kalau too easy for them pun the success becomes less meaningful.

b)   school/grades is not all there is in life, allow them other areas where they can explore and experience success

 

Actually, kak chik, I think you're doing all these, so just let me give an 'expert' stamp of approval :)  -- (I'm never comfortable with the 'expert' tag since I personally think there are still so many things out there still unknown).

 

Cukup dulu :).

-Lihanna