What do we expect from each other?

I am a teacher. I have amazing wonderful students, each is talented and each is trying to do something good. Something good is not always obvious to others. When you know the motivation behind some misbehavior you can give some good constructive advice for the parents to try. Unfortunately, teacher’s advice is not always taken in a positive way. I remember the first time I was sitting and talking to a parent of one of my first students. The girl was very nice and shy. She was afraid to make mistakes so instead of trying to solve math problems she used to say “I am stupid, I can’t do that”. She didn’t do complex multiple-step problems because of that attitude, but I saw that she could solve simple one-step problems just fine. I told the mother all of that. I suspected that the idea that the girl could not solve those problems was planted into her sub-consciousness at earlier age, maybe in an elementary school. I told the mother that she had to start telling her daughter how smart and creative she was to encourage and support her in her growth. This woman got scared. She didn’t get used to talk to a teacher about her daughter. All she expected from me was that the girl was good or bad. Either of those comments she could take. She was not ready to hear an advice on how to help her daughter. Can we change our expectations?