PRESSURE

I made a couple of interesting observations. When I was teaching piano lessons, sometimes mothers would come to watch. It was fine with me but I noticed the students always played unusually terrible. It always surprised me because each student was used to practicing in front of theier mother every day.
One day in kindergarten a father came to visit our classroom unannounced. Again, it was fine with me but I explained that we were testing and it might not be very interesting. He stayed anyway. During the test he positioned himself directly behind his son. He didn't give him any answers to the questions but he whispered in his ear the whole time, things like, "I know you can do it", in an intense way. This may seem to be very supportive but the son performed badly on the test, much worse than usual.

WHAT I LEARNED: Childen can feel pressure when something matters desperately to us, even if it is not verbalized. We need to offer support and help but there must be quiet and genuine confidence that they will make right choices. I guess that is what faith is.