Potts: ‘Unexceptional’ kid? That’s OK
Do you live in one of those suburbs where every child is exceptional?
Or at least, if you listened in on the average conversation between parents, that’s what you’d think. Your community is not alone.
From Winnetka to Lincoln Park, from Oak Park to Beverly, from Naperville to Flossmoor — and many towns and neighborhoods in between — you’ll find families full of exceptional children.
Whether they are athletes or actors, scholars or philosophers, dancers or divas, or all of the above, these kids are excelling at anything they try. And as parents we are justifiably proud.
In fact, as soon as we’re able to “keep score,” we’re exulting the accomplishments of our exceptional offspring to anyone who will listen, and perhaps a few who don’t want to hear.
We live in a society that tries to measure anything and everything that can be measured — who’s the smartest, most athletic or most popular. We even try to measure things that really can’t be measured, like who’s the best singer, artist or musician.
It seems like we have competitions and assign scores to our kids’ performances just so we have a way to measure their success.
To be honest, a lot of our kids really are high achievers and they deserve credit for what they accomplish. They also have many advantages that allow them to be successful. When you consider the opportunities provided to our children, it’s no wonder a lot of kids are “measuring up” in pretty exceptional ways.
But not all of our kids are exceptional — at least not in the ways we measure success. For every exceptional child we hear about, there are probably six or seven who are just getting by.
These unexceptional kids are the siblings of the star performers, and they represent the vast majority of children.
We don’t talk about these unexceptional kids all that much. They are the average students, or the ones barely passing. They sit on the bench, or maybe don’t even go out for a team. They’re in the chorus line, not the musical lead. They go to junior college, not an Ivy League or Big Ten school.
Their names don’t make it in the paper. And they don’t give parents grade points, points scored or awards won to brag about. They are just normal, run-of-the-mill kids. And because of that, they tend to slip by pretty much unnoticed by most of us.
We are a culture that likes to measure things, rank things, decide who won, who lost, who is best. We grant a good deal of status to people who achieve in areas we can measure. Unfortunately, when it comes to things that aren’t easily measured, we tend to get a bit lost.
We’re not sure how to value them or whether they have any value at all. The kids who have the expertly cataloged baseball card collections, pick away at the guitar, easily empathize with others’ feelings, help grandma, show up promptly at the burger joint and do a good job or a whole host of things that don’t earn points or garner accolades often slip by unnoticed in this world of exceptional children.
That’s sad, especially since such kids are most kids. And it means that most kids may not be appreciated for who they are or what they do.
As parents, I hope we can see how destructive this can be for our children.