Report cards finally came out. You may remember I hadn’t seen any of Tommy’s grades other than a B on a practice test. So I was relieved when he got 4 As and a B, but I knew he would be disappointed in the B. I just didn’t realize how much.
“Wow, honey, that’s a great report card! Almost straight As — you really worked hard!”
“I didn’t even look at it. As soon as I opened the folder and saw stupid Honor Roll [straight As is Principal's Honor Roll, you see] I shut the folder and puched myself in the head.”
OK, I admit my first instinct was to laugh. Who punches themselves in the head in the middle of class? Oh, my kid. The same one who covered himself with the “towel of shame” after a less-than-stellar swim meet. The same one who cries when he strikes out in baseball. That kid. I really don’t understand why he puts so much pressure on himself; we’ve tried to make it clear that we’re proud of the effort, not necessarily the result. But he is wired to scorn less-than-perfect.
Maybe he will grow out of it. Or maybe I will be forever comforting my “shameful” son who only makes the “stupid” regular honor roll.
OK, I realized after I posted this that I MAY have told Tommy, when I saw his pretest B, that he could do better. So perhaps I am that mom who grade-pressures her child into panic attacks. I’ll work on that. But I swear, I have NOTHING to do with sports pressure!
Hey, as your local gifted educator, I have plenty of advice. Maybe we should have a talk at some point about perfectionism in gifted students and what you should do about it.
Actually Emily is a gifted gifted educator.
I had to laugh when Mack’s report card came home, and I saw he made the honor roll – because the “certificate” that came home was bent at the bottom from being stuffed in the folder, had staple holes in it from some stupid coupon they attached, was copied onto the page slightly crookedly, and had a school logo at top that was placed wrong, and therefore cut off on the side of the page. Oh, and the principal’s signature was a stamp.
Way to let the kids know how valuable their hard work is, folks! They should have just sent home a piece of paper that said, “We’ve half-assed it! Why don’t you?!”
Oh, and I wanted to get a copy of the honor roll for his keepsake box – but can’t find one. Apparently there is no actual honor roll listed anywhere. Isn’t that supposed to be the point – to list all the nerds in one place to make it easier for the bullies?