If You Don't Know...Ask

Whenever we as parents talk to our children about peer pressure, we talk about things like drugs, sex and crime, but perhaps the worst peer pressure comes in school with the fear of being labeled “stupid” or a dummy for asking a question in class. When the teacher is going over a lesson in class, more often than not, children will have questions, and quite often, several children will have the same question, but these children will elect not to ask their question because they do not want the other kids to make fun of them for not being smart enough to understand the lesson.

One of the things that I have told my children is that through the course of their education, they have to be the person who makes sure that they finish school with whatever education they need in order to benefit the rest of their lives. I tell them that the only way that this is going to happen is if they take ownership of their education, and do whatever it takes to make sure that they learn everything that they can, and generally, this means asking questions when they don’t understand something. I tell them that the other kids probably have the same questions, but they are just as afraid to ask them because they do not want to get teased either.

I understand that being teased in school is harsh, but I try to get my children to understand the endgame of school, which is success in life. Education is the key to being able to do whatever they want to in life, and to making whatever money they want to make. I tell them that the only way that this can happen is if they look beyond some name calling and look towards their future, when they will appreciate the knowledge that they would have gained through school, in particular, the extra that would have come from asking the question that the other children were afraid to ask.