From the time my child was born, we signed him up for early-learning programs, interest classes, and then many after-school lessons through kindergarten and the beginning of primary school. Some nights he came home exhausted, still unable to finish his homework at ten o’clock. He would fall asleep with his head on the desk.
I kept asking myself: Why did we sign him up for all these classes? If it was supposed to make his life better, what did “better” even mean? I think we parents had a desire for our child to succeed, but we were also being pulled along by the environment around us. He was already trying to adjust from kindergarten to primary school, and rushing between lessons meant he was not really absorbing what he learned.
By the time he was further into primary school, we began to understand that effort can fail when its direction has drifted far from its original purpose. We gradually cut back. Letting a child grow in a healthier way seemed more important than how much knowledge he could collect. I did not solve the feeling all at once, but little by little, I stopped struggling with it. I made peace with it.
From the time my child was born, we signed him up for early-learning programs, interest classes, and then many after-school lessons through kindergarten and the beginning of primary school. Some nights he came home exhausted, still unable to finish his homework at ten o’clock. He would fall asleep with his head on the desk.
I kept asking myself: Why did we sign him up for all these classes? If it was supposed to make his life better, what did “better” even mean? I think we parents had a desire for our child to succeed, but we were also being pulled along by the environment around us. He was already trying to adjust from kindergarten to primary school, and rushing between lessons meant he was not really absorbing what he learned.
By the time he was further into primary school, we began to understand that effort can fail when its direction has drifted far from its original purpose. We gradually cut back. Letting a child grow in a healthier way seemed more important than how much knowledge he could collect. I did not solve the feeling all at once, but little by little, I stopped struggling with it. I made peace with it.
