Why Being Normal Is The New Advanced Skill For Kids (Parenting And Teacher Tips)
Last week, 15 minutes into after-school parent-teacher conferences, my coffee was cold, my feet ached, and Mia’s mom slid into the plastic chair across my desk, notebook open to a page of bullet points. Mia, my quiet 8-year-old third grader, hovered by the door, twisting the end of her sparkly unicorn hoodie drawstring. Her mom leaned forward and said what I’ve heard at least a dozen times this semester: “She’s just… normal. I don’t want to hold her back, but she never wants to do the extra stuff. She turned down a spot in the advanced reading group. Is that bad?”
I glanced down at Mia’s folder, where she’d taped a crumpled drawing of a tabby cat to the front. She’d colored the paws pink, just because she felt like it. I’d seen Mia help the new kid tie his sneakers every morning for three weeks straight, even after he figured it out. I’d watched her sit under the slide during test prep week trading stickers with the nonverbal kid no one else plays with, while half the kids in the advanced groups screamed at each other over practice test scores on the blacktop.
I get the worry. I have a 10-year-old son of my own. I’ve stayed up late scrolling parent groups after he fell asleep, seeing posts about 9-year-olds acing high school algebra and finishing chapter books meant for teens, and felt that little twist of panic in my gut—am I doing this wrong? Why is my kid still building Lego castles and re-watching the same season of Avatar over and over? For a decade now, we’ve been sold this idea that advanced is the only acceptable place to be. If your kid isn’t reading two grades above level by first grade, if they don’t want to join three extracurriculars that look good on high school applications, they’re falling behind.
But what I’ve seen in eight years of teaching third grade is the opposite. Being unapologetically, comfortably normal right now? That’s the new advanced.
Last month, the dad of one of my students who’s in every advanced program pulled me aside after a fall concert. His son gets straight A’s, placed first in the district spelling bee, and has a spot in the gifted program starting next semester. He told me his son has been waking up with stomach aches every Sunday night. He cries if he gets anything lower than an A on a quiz. Last week, he refused to go to a friend’s birthday party because it was the same day as an optional advanced coding workshop, and he was scared he’d miss out. “I never pushed him to be this way,” his dad said. “We just kept signing him up for all the advanced stuff, and now he thinks he can’t stop. What do I do?”
That’s the thing. We chase advanced labels because we think it sets our kids up for success later, but what it often does is steal the skills they actually need to not burn out before high school. A kid who’s always pegged as advanced never gets practice being just okay at something. They never learn that it’s fine to not be the best. They never get hours of unstructured time where they don’t have to perform, achieve, or prove anything to anyone. That’s the skill that’s actually hard to come by these days, and it’s the one that will keep them going when the work gets hard and the pressure gets bigger.
It’s not that advanced programs are bad, or that kids who love extra challenge are doing something wrong. It’s that we’ve made “normal” feel like a failure, when it’s actually a gift.
I’ve started making small changes in my classroom to reflect that. I stopped calling our extra challenge work “advanced work” and just call it “extra stuff if you want it.” No one gets a special label for doing it. Every Friday, we have 20 minutes of unstructured “no goal time” where kids don’t have to learn anything, accomplish anything, or be anything. They can draw, talk, play with blocks, or just sit and stare. I don’t grade anything during that time, and I don’t praise anyone specifically for doing something “impressive.”
For parents, the changes are even smaller and easier to try. Instead of asking your kid “what did you learn today” or “what grade did you get on your test” when they get in the car, ask them “who did you sit with at lunch” or “what’s the silliest thing that happened today.” That shifts the focus from achievement to connection, which is way more important long term. If your kid says they don’t want to do the advanced after-school club you signed them up for, don’t argue about how good it will look on applications. Just say “okay, what do you want to do with that time instead?” Even if it’s just playing with neighborhood kids or drawing or scrolling silly videos, that time is more valuable than any extra advanced worksheet. When you talk about your kid to other parents, lead with a small, normal thing instead of their latest achievement—instead of “my kid’s in the advanced math group,” try “my kid spent an hour digging up worms for our garden yesterday.” It takes the pressure off everyone.
After Mia’s conference, her mom left saying she’d stop pushing Mia to do the extra reading work. Last Monday, Mia brought me that pink-pawed cat drawing I mentioned earlier, and told me she’d skipped the extra credit book report last weekend to go to the park with her neighbor. Her mom let her. It’s taped to the edge of my desk now, right next to my lesson plan book.
I still have parents come in every week worried their kid is too normal. I don’t have a crystal ball to tell them how it will all turn out. No one does. But I point to the drawing, and I tell them what I see: the kids who can be content with where they are, who don’t need to be advanced at everything to be okay, those are the kids who are going to be fine. Right now, that’s the most advanced thing any kid can be.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why Being Normal Is The New Advanced Skill For Kids (Parenting And Teacher Tips)