Reply to Competitive academics - what to tell the smart, hard-working kid who isn't "the best"

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Reply to "Competitive academics - what to tell the smart, hard-working kid who isn't "the best""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Op, the reality is - and you’re not going  to like this - some of those kids are just smarter. They don’t have to work as hard. Particularly the ones also excelling at sports. They aren’t “winning” because they’re doing so much more. This isn’t all of those kids, but a chunk. The lesson is that there is always going to be someone smarter than you, better than you, richer than you, someone less smart, less gifted, less affluent. Comparison is silly. Success is not pie, someone having some doesn’t mean you can’t have any. Sure it may for these honors right now, but not in any big picture sense. Let her make peace with being average. Average is okay. [/quote]

+1. OP, it sounds like you’re doing a great job telling your kid this. But the assumption that all of these kids are “winning” only because they work harder does make it sound like you are not fully at peace with this either. Though I do think most of us here do struggle with this too…[/quote]

The thing is, this is the best explanation even if it's not true.

If you tell a 15 year old "those kids are winning all the awards because they are smarter than you," it's too demoralizing. It might be true in some cases, but you can't tell a teenager who cares about this stuff that. You don't want to give your kid a reason to give up.

Also, hard work actually DOES matter. And an academically inclined kid who really, really wants to win some top academic prize (a scholarship, an honor, whatever) can do it even if they don't have the highest IQ. You absolutely can close the gap with discipline and perseverance in most cases. It's true in sports too. That doesn't mean you HAVE to put that work in -- you might decide that the amount you'd have to work in order to do as well as someone who is just inherently more talented than you isn't worth it. And that's fine. But most of the time, it is possible. In fact, among the kids who are winning all the awards, they are probably both -- inherently very intelligent/talented and also super hard working.

There's just no reason to tell a child "well yeah, those kids are just smarter than you." Especially if that child actually really cares about school and wants to pursue academics. You need to leave open the door for them. And you can do that with "okay you didn't win this time but if you really want it, you can work at it and get it." This is a no brainer to me.[/quote]

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