The thing your child can teach you

The activity

Ask your child to teach you something they can do and you can’t. They run the lesson, you get it wrong in front of them, and at the end you tell them what you learned.

What it is for. Much of a child’s day is spent being taught and corrected. Teaching you something turns that round: they’re the one who knows, you’re the one getting it wrong, and they see you take them seriously. For a child who finds school hard, it’s a chance to be good at something in front of someone whose opinion matters to them.

• The first step. Notice something your child can do that you can’t, and ask for a lesson: “Will you teach me how you do that? I’ve no idea where to start.” It can be anything they care about, from a game to a dance to a way of drawing eyes.

When to get help. If your child often says they’re useless or no good at anything, compares themselves harshly with other children, or is pulling away from friends and things they used to enjoy, and it has lasted several weeks or is getting worse, talk to their school and your GP. The school may be able to link them with a mentor, or help them take on a new responsibility. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, that they are hurting themselves, or that they do not want to be alive, stay calm, thank them for telling you, do not promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page.

The other five steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

The sheet that goes with it comes with a subscription: Getting it wrong.

It goes with

• Perfectionism. For parents whose child can’t bear to get anything wrong.
• Neurodiversity, and the Conversation with the School. For parents whose child has been working harder and longer than other children to do things that come more easily to them.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Self-esteem. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Perfectionism. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.