If I had written this last week this would be a different story.. a happy story. A story about how much work H did during the week on her science fair project, how she was self motivated and interested (her library books were not just on her science fair topic but also about learning and remembering). Now I am joining the group of parents who hate science fair.

In the weekend H lost the plot about starting to put an actual pen on the paper. She likes the idea of the finished beautiful project but when it came to drawing it, the idea in her head was too hard to get onto paper. There were tears. She was worried that a messy, not perfect product would reflect badly on her and mean that no one could see her content because they were thinking she was stupid, that it would look like a ”whip up” (my concept) rather than the well considered thing it is.

i did my parent/teacher thing all wrong. I tried to solve her problems, I looked at product. I put on my judgey, adult instructor, knows everything pants… she cried, we both raged..

This book is genius and I should have been the rabbit and just listened. I forgot my role, I forgot that when H cares her Standards are sooo high (all those tears of perfectionism). I forgot that the bit of her project that excited me didn’t excite her. I forgot to let her make mistakes and I forgot to let her fix her own problems. I guess we all have to keep learning the same thing over and over until we know it.

Today she is happily working on her science fair project.