How to Be Honest With Your Kid About Their Abilities (Or Lack Thereof)

Dear Kid Whisperer,

My eleven-year-old son has been doing Judo for the last four months. I have been telling him how great he is after every practice.  I don’t know much, but I doubted that he was better than average. He fought three kids from other dojos in his first tournament and lost convincingly each time. He was angry and full of excuses. He is now much less enthusiastic about Judo and sort of sulked through his last practice. I know that telling him that he is not actually good at Judo is not the answer, so what do I do? -Neal, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Neal,

Telling your kid that he is not good at Judo is exactly what you should do.

Why?

Well, here’s the short answer: He is not good at Judo.

Yep, the truth will hurt, as it often does. You protecting your kid from this fact has done him absolutely no good. The world has shown him the truth (that he isn’t any good at Judo) but he is in denial of this truth since you have told that him that he is great at something that he is actually average or even bad at. He’s using unhelpful strategies (sulking and making excuses) so he can deal with the disappointment and stay in a delusional state.

You did this because you have bought into our culture’s belief in praising ability. Praising in this situation is lying. Don’t lie. How in the world could your kid be good at Judo in four months? Furthermore, what good does lying in this way do? Are you trying to protect his feelings by lying? Yeesh. That’s a bad idea. He can handle the truth, and if he can’t, this is his opportunity to develop some resilience.

Instead, you should notice effort: “I noticed that you really worked hard at Judo today.”

Your kid may have very little control over his skill level, especially his skill level at any given moment, but he has total control over his effort. If you encourage his effort, he can increase his skill level in a way he can control (trying hard), which can give real confidence over real skill that can be demonstrated in the real world, instead of building a delusional world for your child in which he thinks he’s a Judo champion despite the fact that he isn’t.

Here’s how I would deal with your kid the moment he came up to me with excuses about the Judo loss he just suffered:

Kid: That kid was way bigger than me and I saw him buying steroids in the hallway and I slipped and the world is against me!

Kid Whisperer: Nope. You lost because you are not good enough at Judo to beat that kid. He’s way better than you at Judo. You were not strong enough and you are not yet skilled enough. If you fought that kid 100 times, you’d probably lose 100 times.

Kid: How dare you. I am a Judo champion! You said I was great at Judo!

Kid Whisperer: Yeah. About that. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I was trying to make you feel better by telling you that you are better than you are. That’s on me. I mean, four months ago, I did not even know what Judo was, so what do I know?

Kid: Well, I would have preferred that you mentioned this yesterday. This is disappointing.

Kid Whisperer: Yes, it very much is. I know now that you can handle it. I think that if you choose to put in the hard work, you can become great at this!

This kind of faith in Kid’s potential to improve with effort reinforces hard work. Praising effortless ability makes kids feel that they are entitled to greatness regardless of effort.