Is my child behind?
Ahead; behind; just right? How you react to status markers of pace and progress for your child often feels like life or death decisions for your parenting success.
Regardless of your parenting approach – most parents have a threshold where they feel the need to intervene, support, or redirect the path of their child as evaluations of pace and progress are given or received.
This internal battle and pressure come with several misleading assumptions, and false conclusions:
Misleading Assumption 1: Pace in this context matters.
Misleading Assumption 2: Evaluation is accurate and valid.
Misleading Assumption 3: Expectations and goals are aligned.
As a parent, you want to make the best decisions you can in supporting your children. An ongoing fear for many parents is they will not be able to answer the question "is my child behind?" and "what should I do about it?"
False Conclusion 1: The benchmark is clear and relevant.
False Conclusion 2: Future progress is limited by past performance
False Conclusion 3: Intervention is needed.
In the evaluation of being ahead or behind, first understand the comparison group: same age, same educational environment, etc. Context is critical and often it is overlooked when accepting sweeping status assessments of children. Many of these contextual groupings are presented as important but likely do not influence the current pacing concern.
For many of us, there are legitimate moments where understanding the common milestones and achievements of your child are important inputs for decision-making. But more often than not the benchmark you are comparing to and the data points you have on your child, either do not match or are not anchored to the right question to help you in the decision you are facing with your child.
So what to do in moments of parental progress panic?
Questions to ponder in moments of progress panic:
(when determined to be ahead or behind)
Compared to what? What is the context?
Why do I care? Is there a risk of lost opportunity if this persists?
Am I focused on process, output, or outcome?
Is the evaluation accurate? Valid? Limiting or growth-oriented?
What should I do about it? Is there more growth with intervention or no intervention? What are the natural consequences implied?
Asking more questions of yourself, the situation, and your child creates the opportunity for a shared and aligned path of support moving forward, regardless of past: progress, pace, expectations, intentions, or goals.
Related Reading:
Measuring student learning (Cornell Article: 660 words)
Changing How the World Evaluates Students (Mastery Transcript Consortium Video: 60 mins, Article: 250 words)
Jobs To Be Done (Christensen Institute Article: 300 words)
Academic Motivation – After COVID-19 (NCBI Research Paper: 6000 words)
Written by Justin Moss
