Yes, Your Child Can Shine Part 2

In our last article, I began outlining the process we use to help struggling children succeed in their learning. We discussed the first step, which involves helping the child figure out the material on his own instead of trying to dictate it to him. We mentioned that so many of these children who aren’t particularly book smart are street savvy, with the ability to figure out on their own what they don’t necessarily grasp when they are taught. By capitalizing on these strengths now, we can help them find success at this stage in their lives, instead of leaving them to suffer through school until they can break out into the big world. 

Often though, when parents and tutors work with the process I am outlining, they come up against a formidable obstacle: The child doesn’t believe in himself enough to invest in his schoolwork. And that’s why the next step is so important and so game changing. 

Because now, once the child has come to a conclusion on his own, we have the opportunity to show him he can do it. We can show him he has experienced success. 

 I’ve discussed this before, but I am bringing it up here again because it is a concept that is so vital and lifesaving; embracing it will give our struggling children the life force they so desperately need to save themselves from the abyss of failure after failure. 

Especially now, as we are going through this process of helping the struggling child succeed by opening his mind and helping him find the strengths within, we may find him resistant because he doesn’t know what it means to be a success.

We have to remember that these children have gone through so many years of school without experiencing success. They may have had some years that were better than others, those years where they had an exceptional rebbi or teacher who clicked with them and spoke their language. But even those years, they didn’t particularly succeed; they just failed less.

And after so much failure, so much dejection and heartache, they begin to give up on themselves. They don’t even believe that they can do it anymore. They watch their peers seemingly breeze through life, taking at face value concepts they struggle to comprehend, and they start shutting down inside. They are afraid to even try because they are already anticipating failure. 

And it doesn’t help to tell them, “You are so smart; you can do this!” We can tell them how smart they are until we are blue in the face, the bottom line is that their life experiences tell them otherwise. No matter how many times you tell them they’re great, they won’t accept it because their brain has shut down. Compliments simply won’t work with these kids. In order to reach them, in order to convince them that they truly can do it, that they have it in themselves to succeed, we need to show, not tell. 

What we do is we help them see their success. We’re making them see it themselves by putting it out in front of them. 

This is how it works practically:

We’ve begun the first step of the process. We’ve laid the groundwork and now our child has asked a question on the pasuk.

Let’s go back to our erstwhile partnership between Chanoch Rosenberg and his tutor, Rabbi Freilich. 

Consider the difference between these two narratives: 

Rabbi Freilich and Chanoch are learning together, and Rabbi Frelich gives Chanoch a scenario to give him some insight into what they are learning. From there, Chanoch asks a question that is actually Rashi’s question.

Rabbi Frelich’s face lights up and he thumps Chanoch on the back.  

“Wow, Chanoch! You are so smart!” 

A spark lights briefly in Chanoch’s eye, but after a second of internal struggle, the spark is quickly extinguished. 

“No, I’m not smart. You know I’m not smart, Everyone knows I’m not smart. Just because I knew one answer, it doesn’t make me smart.”

Chanoch has spent so many years suffering one disappointment after another, immersed in his failure day after day. A compliment that doesn’t ring true to him will be met by a bitterness borne out of years of feeling like a failure. 

Or:

Rabbi Freilich and Chanoch are learning together, and Rabbi Frelich gives Chanoch a scenario to give him some background into what they are learning. From there, Chanoch asks a question that is actually Rashi’s question.

Rabbi Frelich’s face lights up and he thumps Chanoch on the back.  

“What an incredible kashah you just asked! Look here, this is the exact question that Rashi asked. You were mechaven to the heilige Rashi!”

Chanoch is beaming. He is glowing. Who would have thought that he—little Chanoch Rosenberg who sat in the back of the class and spaced out—actually had the same question as Rashi himself! 

He can’t deny it; he can’t say, “No, I didn’t,” in the same way he can say, “No, I’m not smart,” because it’s right there in front of him, black on white. 

It’s not by telling him that he’s great, but by showing him unequivocally that in this moment he scored a success, that Rabbi Freilich gives Chanoch the opportunity to embrace success. 

Still glowing, Chanoch eagerly peeks into the next pasuk, to see if he could perhaps come up with a question just as brilliant as this one. 

When we show our children where they went right, we are creating hope in their world that things could be different. We are perpetuating the first step in a cycle of success, where success breeds more success, breaking the cycle they’ve lived by until now, where failure breeds more failure. 

When Rabbi Freilich walks Chanoch home from the shul where they had been learning, he makes sure to show Rabbi Rosenberg that Chanoch came up with Rashi’s question, and Chanoch once again feels empowered by his father’s delight. 

This is more than just a step in a process, it is the foundation of their emotional well-being. 

Once they feel like they can succeed, a feeling so tragically foreign to them, they will be open to trying again, to finding more success. 

And while I am illustrating it in the context of this academic process, this concept of indirect explanation is one that builds worlds in many other contexts as well. In my own practice, where I work with children with mental health and behavioral struggles, this concept comes up continuously. Especially for children who have faced years of struggles and failures, using this approach of “Indirect Explanation” is extremely potent. If we respond to them with a vague “you’re great,” then we are merely throwing around empty platitudes. If we tell them very explicitly what was “great” about their performance, then we are bridging the gap between the “I can’t” and “I can” in the child’s mind, and ultimately facilitating a new reality. We are building that bridge that will take our child from hopeless to full of hope, through the words that we use to show him his success. 

When we implement it properly and it becomes a part of our vocabulary, it is an absolute game changer, creating a whole new reality for children who have already struggled so much. 

It’s obviously not instant magic and won’t work overnight with a child for whom failure is such an entrenched part of his life, but when we keep at it and find ways to show our children that they are succeeding, then slowly, brilliantly, the magic does indeed happen. 

So far, we have worked with this struggling child to enable him to learn in his own way, using his own strengths to figure out the material on his own. We have then built him up, not by complimenting him, but by explaining what we saw and showing him that he did something great. 

In our next article, we will address the third step of this process. Ca