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Hope
for Round Pegs in Square Holes
If you have more than one child, you have probably noticed that every
child is different. Even though I have ten children, I am still amazed at how
different each child really is. It’s not that I wonder how they could have the
same parents. It’s obvious and humbling to notice a different mix of my good,
bad, and ugly characteristics distributed in all my children. There can be no
doubt I’m polluting the gene pool.
I just had a conversation recently with a mother whose three oldest
children are now beyond high school. One is in college and excels academically.
One is entering his mid-twenties and is changing his major - again. His mother
said half in jest that he will never graduate. Another child graduated from high
school last year and is going to community college part time. It seems that for
him also, school is a burden. What can
a parent do
when her
child doesn’t
like school?
A parent should react differently depending on the reason. There are an
infinite number of reasons a child might not like school, but I think just about
all of them would fall into three categories: The child has limited academic
ability, he doesn’t like the school environment, or he has a discipline
problem.
What should be done with the child of limited academic ability? It seems
to me that God made everyone for a specific purpose and that children with
limited academic ability were not designed to be scholars. When we try to force
our children to be scholars, we may be trying to force them to be something God
didn’t create them to be. Our whole public school system is designed to
mass-produce educated children. The problem with this approach is that God made
every child different – each special in his own way and each with distinct
interests, abilities, and callings.
For the child of limited academic ability, then, patience and
understanding are crucial when educating the child. His spirit shouldn’t be
broken because his young life is filled with discouragement over academics. Home
schooling for these children is often a release of their burden of spending most
of their days competing in an area God didn’t design them to excel. They still
may need a basic education, but parents of these kinds of kids need to find
their special talents and abilities and prepare them to honor God in a calling
that takes advantage of the gifts God has given them. We seem to believe that a
person who doesn’t have much academic ability is somehow inferior to the
scholar, but that just isn’t the case. Perhaps the child is good with tools,
or likes to sell things, or has great physical ability. He might build
buildings, repair cars, sell real estate, play football, or have a successful
military career. He may own his own business, raise a godly family, and impact
the lives of hundreds of people for the Gospel. We should find out what our
child is good at, encourage him to develop his talent, and teach him to use it
for the glory of God. We shouldn’t be beating ourselves and our children
trying to force them to be what they are not.
One
bit of caution regarding children of limited academic ability, however. Some
kids are thought to have limited ability when they are only late bloomers,
disinterested, or rebellious. We may think our child has limited academic
ability and find out later we were wrong.
Another reason our child may not do well in school is his lack of
interest in school. This could be due to the learning environment or a God-given
lack of interest in academic things. It is possible that over time a child who
has academic ability, but little academic interest, might change. My father
failed a semester in 6th grade, said he had never read an entire book
through high school, and received a doctoral degree at age 54. It is also
possible that a difficult or distracting academic environment, or low quality
teaching could also cause a child to become disinterested in academics. In this
case, the school, teacher, or teaching method may have to be changed. When I was
a boy, I disliked school. Sometimes my grades were good and sometimes they were
bad. My last two years of high school I never got higher than a 2.8 grade point
average. Yet, I found time to read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy,
Capitalism and Freedom by Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, and The
Wealth of Nations (published in 1776) by Adam Smith. After I dropped out of
college I read novels by Charles Dickens and Fedor Dostoevsky. I had academic
interest and some ability, but I hated the learning environment. If home
schooling were available to me, I may have thrived. On
the other hand, a child with academic ability and no interest in school may,
like the child with little academic ability, have been created for a calling
that requires action more than academic skills. Basketball coach Bobby Knight
said, “Everyone learns to write in the second grade; most move on to bigger
things.” While he certainly isn’t a godly example, there’s a good chance
he was created more for action than for thinking and writing. Somehow, many of
us have come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with our child if
he doesn’t like school. While it may be necessary to compel this child to
study (after all, it is required by law and he has the ability), we should be
looking for activities that interest him and complement his abilities. Again, we
should be sensitive to the way God wired our child and help him develop the
abilities and interests God gave him – and we certainly shouldn’t be ashamed
if God gave us a child who doesn’t fit into the academic mold. Of
course, there are children who have academic abilities and interests, but who
don’t do well because they are undisciplined and rebellious. This requires a
very different approach. The examples we previously cited require patience and
understanding. The rebellious child requires discipline. The rebellious nature
must be attacked so the child understands that being rebellious is more trouble
and pain than it is worth. Solomon says, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a
child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” (Proverbs 22:15) Parents,
then, need wisdom to discern why the child does poorly in school. He may not
have the ability to do well, he may need a change in educational tactics or
environment, God may not have made him to like academic things, or he may simply
be developing a little more slowly than his peers. These all require patient
understanding. But a child who doesn’t do well because he is lazy or insubordinate
needs to experience the pain of his parents’ discipline until his folly is
driven out. If you have a child who seems to be a square peg in a round hole
when it comes to academics, don’t be discouraged. Maybe God has something
special planned for him. If you help him develop a strong Christian character,
help him develop his non-academic interests and abilities, and help him find a
calling in life that fits him, you will relieve yourself and your child from a
lot of stress. |
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