How to be a good enough kid – and it doesn’t mean slacking off in school
Author Alice Peel says too many Aussie kids are scared of trying new things in case they fail. The former teacher has a very different perspective for both kids and parents.
The other day, at my son’s primary school cross-country carnival, I watched a group of kids “forget” their runners. I also noticed that kids “forgot” their swimmers for the swimming carnival earlier in the year.
Was this a new epidemic of forgetfulness sweeping through the Australian school system? Or, as I now firmly believe, are kids reluctant to participate for fear of losing or not being the best?
The kids in my classroom and at the carnivals were seeing opportunities for participation as threats.
And who can blame them? What do we reward at schools? Excellence. What questions do we ask our kids at the end of a school day? What did you learn? How are you going with your maths?
What about asking them:
What mistake did you make today? Who did you help? What weird and wacky thing happened?
That is where the idea of my first children’s book, How To Be A Good Enough Kid, came from.
So, what on earth is a good enough kid?
It is a question I have asked over 2000 kids this year while running school incursions about the book. Almost every time, they tell me that a good enough kid is someone kind. BOOM. TICK! Killin’ it, you bunch of totally good enough kids.
But there have been other answers too thrown in the mix.
A parent once said they hated the title because they did not want their son to think trying in a half-baked way would be okay. A student just last week was certain that a good enough kid was someone who put in the minimal amount of effort.
The brilliant news is that both were mistaken. No shame there as mistakes help you learn. And as I consistently write in the book, practice makes progress.
Here is the crux and the spoiler. All kids are good enough. The problem is, they forget this. And this is the epidemic we are facing, not forgetfulness for shoes and swimmers – but forgetting the very fact that we are enough.
Being good enough does not mean giving up on striving. It means striving without breaking. It is about taking risks, trying again, stretching towards growth without the fear that your entire identity hinges on the outcome.
A good enough kid is learning about their character strengths and uses them to help themselves and others. Not to dominate and conquer the world. Instead, to conquer the art of sticking with something (using perseverance) or conquering an awkward conversation by using jokes that build people up rather than tear them down (humour).
They also know, thanks to some of the irreverent chapters in the book, the skills for getting out of a shame hole when they have been unkind or stuffed up. They are learning what it means to be and have a good, reliable friend.
A kid who is good enough knows they are good inside. This means when (not if) they stuff up, when they are unkind or when they come last their self-worth might shake a little, but it does not break. They know how to make amends. They know that giving things a crack is better than sitting on the sidelines offering a half-hearted cheer.
A good enough kid will hopefully also have a good enough parent. One who stuffs up too, who can be unreasonable but knows how to repair a hurt. That same parent might forget Book Week, lose track of when camp is on or forget to remind their kids to save the orang-utans by bringing in a gold coin donation, but they love their kid and say it often.
I talk about the book as a compass for life. When you feel lost or unsure you can skip to the chapter that speaks to you. Struggling with peer pressure? Read how to make up your mind. Fear of failure? Try how to be okay with being average. Or perhaps you are stuck thinking you will only be happy when you achieve certain milestones, head to: how to get out of a trap.
The book itself does not read like a preachy manual. It is cheeky, irreverent and sometimes downright silly. Think octopuses eating their boyfriends, elephants shouting insults to cats, sea snails despairing about their own mortality. All of which hold a secret message about being and feeling enough.
A good enough kid is learning to recognise when they are in a comparison or perfectionistic poop storm and they know how to navigate out of the stinky and sticky nature of it. And essentially, like those 99 per cent of kids tell me, they are kind, even when no one is looking. If that is good enough, then I would argue it is more than enough.
For the record, I love to win. And I love it when my own kids win or the students I get to teach. I have even been known to consider tripping up a rival child who has just been rude in an egg and spoon race. The point is, winning is fun, but not participating because you might not stand on the podium after a nail biting three-legged race is not just disappointing, it’s heartbreaking.
Why? Because the essence of it is this. Your self-worth should not be tied to winning, being the best or succeeding. The reality is, other than the sheer joy of participation which we can all reclaim, there will come a day when you will fail. And if the story in your head is: I am not worthy unless I am winning. You will find yourself in shaky territory.
In classrooms, it can be the same story. I used to be a primary school teacher, and I would watch students become excellent at avoiding things they had decided they were not good at. I saw children who did not want to be seen trying in case they did not absolutely nail it. Yet we are talking about primary school kids. This should be the golden era for giving things a crack, for participation and for curiosity over fear.
Let’s also make it a golden era for fantastic, sensational good enough kids!
Alice Peel is the author if How To Be A Good Enough Kid. She is the co-founder with Kristina Freeman of Grow Your Mind, a wellbeing program that helps children develop resilience, emotional regulation and friendship skills run in over 500 Australian schools.
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