When she realised her risk-averse parenting was holding back her childrens progress,Jessica Lahey took a step back and gave her boys the freedom to obtain their own mistakesI became a parent and a secondary school teacher in the same year. During my first decade raising two boys and teaching hundreds of children, I began to feel a creeping sense of unease, or a suspicion that something was rotten. But it was only when my elder child started secondary school that my worlds collided and the source of the problem became clear to me: nowadays’s overprotective,failure-avoiding parenting has undermined the competence, independence and academic potential of an entire generation.
Over a decade of teaching, or I’d seen my students descend in to a constant state of fear and trepidation,a state that spells catastrophe for learning. When students are too afraid to steal mental risks, too hesitant to raise their hand and steal a chance on an idea that could change the course of class discussion, or teachers can’t teach. It’s that simple.
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Source: theguardian.com