Zuzu poolside with a hefty tome
This post originally appeared earlier this week on my new blogging community, The Chicago Moms. I hope that you will swing by and check out some of great voices being featured there.
My father came to visit us recently just because it had been a few weeks since he had seen my kids. That’s the kind of grandfather he is: adoring, devoted, and very hands-on. He played Geotrax with my son; he listened to Zuzu describe the rich inner lives of her American Girl Dolls and he took us out for a nice brunch. It was a lovely visit.
But there was one moment of the visit that stood out. At one point, my dad expressed an interest in hearing Zuzu practice piano. She happily practiced for him and even played a few of the songs that she had recently finished working on. But she walked away before practicing one of her new pieces: a particularly difficult piece (for her) entitled “Song Without Words” by Fritz Spindler. When I asked her why she had not practiced this piece, she whispered: “I didn’t want to make a mistake in front of Poppa.”
This was not the first time we had heard a similar sentiment from Zuzu. One day, last spring, I picked her up from school only to have her fall into my arms sobbing. What terrible thing had befallen her that day? For the first time, she had not gotten 100% on her weekly spelling pre-test and as a result, she did not receive the “challenge” spelling words for that week. I couldn’t believe that she was so upset over a missed spelling word. Why did my 6 year old put so much pressure on herself? Was it something that her father and I were doing?
School and academics have always come easily for Zuzu. This is both a blessing and a curse. Obviously, it is wonderful for my husband and I to see Zuzu succeed in school and at her music lessons. But at the same time, we have noticed that Zuzu tends to panic when things do not come easily for her. Zuzu’s self-image is that of a girl who is good at school, and it seems as if she needs a constant stream of victories to bolster that self-image. And so, she tries to avoid situations in which she, heaven forbid, runs the risk of making mistakes, or at least, mistakes that others might see.
Her teachers have noticed this as well. Zuzu’s wonderful piano teacher has told us that when confronted with a piece of music that looks hard – lots of sharps and flats and chords – Zuzu will simply announce, “I can’t play that.” Zuzu’s first grade teacher, Mrs. D., also noted that while Zuzu needs to be challenged – she will goof off if she is bored — if Mrs. D. presented her with a task that was several levels up from where Zuzu had been working, Zuzu would simply shut down. “That’s too hard,” she would say, “I can’t do it.” Luckily, Mrs. D. got quite adept at slowly increasing the difficulty of Zuzu’s assignments. And my husband and I felt very grateful to have such a wise teacher for our daughter.
My husband and I are trying to work on creating an environment where Zuzu knows that it is okay to make mistakes and to try something and fail. We try to praise her for a good effort, more than for results. We laugh about our own mistakes and failings. This is obviously an important message to send to our little girl. But chances are that perfectionism and a fear of failure is a part of Zuzu’s personality and it will be something that she will always struggle with. Perhaps my husband and I need to take a page from Zuzu’s teachers’ book and stop viewing this aspect of Zuzu’s personality as a character flaw to be fixed, but rather as a learning style to be accommodated.
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