User post: My daughter is struggling in school and that's OK with me!

My older daughter is one for whom school has always come easy. She is a great reader and a wonderful writer. I have never had to push her to study or do her homework. This year she is taking pre-algebra as a sixth grader. It is an eighth grade course. She was the one who insisted that she could do it. I had doubts but I let her make her own decision.

Here we are a month and a half into school and she is struggling. There have been tears, oh so many tears. The usual "studying" isn't working. This class is just plain old difficult for her. And guess what? I am fine with that.

It sickens me that our society has become so obsessed with being the BEST and having the highest grades that she actually told me that some of the students (and their parents?) chose not to take the class simply because they didn't want to mess up their straight A's. Even the teacher, who has been wonderful, was worried about how I might react to a C on her interim report. The grade is the least of my concerns.

I want my child to struggle sometimes. I want her to experience possible failure. Why? Because life is not about always being the best at things and having everything come easy. Too many parents shield their children from every negative experience and "fix" everything that goes wrong. I want her to learn about overcoming adversity in a controlled environment. She will be confronted with things in life that will make this experience seem insignificant and I may not be there to help her. She needs to develop the strategies and fortitude to carry on. Tomorrow she's going to ask her teacher for some review materials, stay after for extra help, and find out what's on the next test so she can study differently.

So we will take each day and each grade as they come. I am sure that we will have more crying and frustration but ultimately (I hope) she will be a better person from this experience.