Save perfection for grown-ups

There are times when a parent's help does a kid more harm than it does good

By Moryt Milo

My son's Boy Scout troop has an annual event called the pinewood derby races. It's a very big deal. Each Scout builds his own pinewood derby race car from a kit. They get the basic wooden body, wheels and nails, along with some simple rules and instructions. Then they have a month to build their cars. In case you're wondering, these are miniature model race cars.

My son worked very hard on his design. He laid it out on paper, sketching several drawings until he was satisfied with his concept. He cut the wood (with dad helping for safety), painted it and picked out his racing numbers. My husband did very little. When it was all finished my 8-year-old had a car to be proud of.

There was great excitement as they left for the races. My son could hardly wait to test his "new wheels" against the other racers. After the event, my husband called to say they were on their way home. I knew from his voice that things had gone awry; but until he and my crying son entered the kitchen I didn't know how badly. "What happened?" I asked.

"Remember the missions at school?" my husband said.

That's all he had to say, and I instantly knew what he was talking about.

My husband and I seem to have a very old-fashioned parenting philosophy. Simply put, it is, "If you don't let your child do it themselves, how will they learn?" And if, in their trying, the finished product looks lopsided, or heaven forbid, less then perfect, well that's still okay. Why? Because it's the process of doing and learning that counts; the ability to experience and know you have done your best. For my kids, that can apply to anything from making a bed that's not tucked in perfectly, to helping set the table with the silverware in the wrong places. The point is, your children are learning life skills. Eventually if they keep at it the results will be there and along with them will be a sense of pride and accomplishment.

However, it seems that many parents today are either too busy to take the time to let their children learn the basics, or are too concerned with the end result not being perfect. So they take over. And this is where it gets tricky.

You see, at the pinewood derby races, as with the missions in my daughter's class, some parents "helped" so much that the child's involvement in their own project was next to zero. The result was that some of the derby cars could have been displayed at a Ferrari dealership and many of the California missions could have made the cover of Architectural Digest.

This to me is not helping. It is, as my friend, an elementary school teacher says, "A situation where the children are being de-skilled." In other words, the child has learned nothing except that if they can't cut it, mom, dad or someone else will finish the job. Which begs the bigger question: how will these children succeed as adults?

Look around and you see more and more parents caught up in an atmosphere of extreme competitiveness and one-upmanship; a pressure-cooker mentality that is filtering down to their children, creating a disservice to their own child's future.

No child should ever feel that her best efforts weren't good enough because she didn't meet up to adult standards. And no child should ever feel that an event meant to be a fun learning experience is tantamount to defeat if he doesn't come home a winner. My son had done a terrific job and we made sure through his tears that he knew it. We also explained that it's tough for a kid to compete against a car built by a grown-up.

Once my son calmed down and had a chance to think it over, he started planning what he would do next year to make sure his car was better and faster, which is exactly the lesson I hoped he would learn. I just wish more parents would slow down, take a deep breath, and give their kids a chance.

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