The teenage me in her

When I was a teenager, I had low self-esteem - primarily because I did badly in my studies especially from Sec 2 onwards. It was so bad that I thought I would end up in Normal Stream. I can't recall how I did eventually but I managed to remain in the Express Stream. My self-esteem continued to be low throughout my formal education journey, all the way till I went for training at NIE.

As a result of my low self-esteem, I had a deep need to belong. That was when City Harvest Church came into my life, but that was another story. Like what Coco is going through right now, I felt that no one understood me, and friends were better than family. I am not sure if other teenagers went through the same phase, but I certainly felt that the feelings were unique to me.

Today, I see the same happening to Coco.

She doesn't want to confide in me. Instead, she wants to look for the school counsellor. What I said in concern, she took it that I wanted to cover her 'inadequacies' up. I said that there could be stigma in getting counselling as usually the problematic kids are the ones who go for counselling. She read it as: You are not allowed to go for counselling as it brings shame on me.

What I said to point out her tardiness in picking up after herself, tidying up her room and revising her work, she took it as 'discouragement and demotivation'.

What I said in jest, that I could be her counsellor, she took it as a serious message that I really thought I was equipped to be one.

She is at an ultra-sensitive age - the age that I was.

What she doesn't know is: her mother went through the same phase as she did, and didn't have the luxury of a room to cry in private like she does.

She says that she wants to work hard but we are constantly demotivating her. I am not sure how we can better do this. I recall what my mother would say to me:

"You can't study one lah. Cannot means cannot."
"Stupid is stupid. No amount of studying would help."
"You cannot make it one."
"If you have it, you have it. If you don't, study how much also no use."

That sounds like true-blue demotivators to me, although I now know that was said with the intention to spur me into studying hard.

We said nothing like that to Coco. In fact, we told her that we believe in her, and that we know that she has the ability to do well. It is her laziness that is stopping her from achieving more. We are no experts in child psychology. Perhaps our tone doesn't sound convincing that we do believe in her since most of the time, we speak in exasperation since her laziness really gets on our nerves, but if we didn't believe that she could thrive in the school or the system, we wouldn't have allowed her to choose this school.

I don't know why different words can have the same result. How can "You are stupid!" and "You are not stupid!" have the same effect of demotivating a person?

I told myself I would never belittle my own child, which was why I stopped all the attempts made by my mother and sisters to call Coco 'stupid' when she was young. I was prepared to quarrel with them if the word came out of their mouth.

Today, Coco is saying that we are belittling her when what we are trying to do is to point out the clear-cut path she must take ie. diligence and being focused, and the consequences that she would face if she doesn't.

Generation gap, is this what it is?