LET THE KIDS DO THEIR OWN THING!!

For the past two months, our 10-year old daughter has been agonizing over her MAJOR
4th grade project which entailed picking a specific deceased character from American history who, she thinks, made an impact historically and spiritually. Her selection was Helen Keller. Of course, we were impressed with the choice. She went on to do some web research, watched a version of The Miracle Worker, read a book about Helen Keller and did some library research, also. The project was to be in a presentation form as if the character were a wax figure at a museum and when someone would walk up the display, the character would come alive with a simple press of a button and deliver a one-minute soliloquy on his/her place in history. Parents and students alike were invited to this presentation. For our little one, our involvement in the project comprised of reading over her various "papers" associated with the project and purchasing a Helen Keller costume and Braille book as props. The rest we left up to her.
As my wife and I walked into the presentation, we were met with an unbelievable amount of "props" from each student. One actually had 10-foot paper mache nose to depict Mt. Rushmore. Another had a $2000 flat screen TV to show videos of the character. There were lots more. One of the teachers, jokingly, remarked to me that there should be two grades for this project - one for the students and one for the PARENTS. as I viewed each presentation, I found myself feeling bad for our little one because we didn't do enough for her. I began to wonder if we should have had a display or something else to help her but then I realized that this was HER project and HER grade and she was happy with what she presented. It conjured up memories of my days as a Little League baseball coach and how "involved" parents would get. I walked away feeling a lot better about our little one because I knew that was her work and no one else has any hand in it.
My point is that, if you are a parent, PLEASE guide your children but don't do the work for them. Give them a chance to experience failure so they can learn from it and experience their own success. It doesn't get any better than seeing the elation from a child who has failed and, then, succeeded. Maybe we'll all be better for it.