Writing Praise

Mya was complaining that Lucas knows how to read and write while she doesn't. I assured here that she could begin working on her letters each time Lucas did his homework.

Lucas got set up with his /e/ sound homework - net, pet, get etc (not the last one,that's just for effect, but it does have the /e/ sound). I prepared a worksheet for Mya so she could begin by tracing some letters. I dotted and dashed out the letters M, A, S and N. These were all decided upon by her.

She traced them carefully and lightly. Then, once she was done that, I asked her to try writing a letter beside the traced ones. She was a bit nervous but she tackled a lower case 'n'. It was very, very good.

"That's great! That looks just like an 'n'," I praised.

"No it doesn't!!!!" she scowled back.

She was pretty furious that it wasn't good enough. Oh, oh.

"It looks 'n-ish'," I tried, hoping a reference to the book Ish might help me out.

"I don't want 'ish'!!" she yelled.

She fiercely applied eraser to paper and got rid of all evidence of her attempt.

Oh, oh. I've always known that Mya holds some fierce beliefs, but believing that her work isn't good enough alarms me. It was truly very good and there was no way she was going to believe that.

Obviously, I'm going to have to figure out how best to approach this as her schooling starts. Obviously, I do not want her assessment of "not good enough" to transfer from her paper to her soul. I want her to embrace her incredible gifts and accomplishments.

What concerns me about this incident is just how great her 'n' was. It wasn't like I was giving her false praise to encourage her - it was genuinely a recognizable and readable 'n'.

Shortly, this anger passed and she went off to do her thing for a bit and then soon she sweetly requested that I draw her a sun so she could colour it. She did a beautiful job. This time she accepted my praise.