Beware the parental minefield on results day

This year’s summer bestseller is strangely close to home and also utterly heartbreaking. London Falling, if you’re yet to pick up a copy, is the true story of how Zac Brettler, a Jewish teenager from Lauderdale Road, ended up dead in the River Thames. For those of us in the Jewish community, I think the tragic unravelling of this young man’s life feels particularly poignant. In many ways, Zac’s world was not so different from the one my own kids inhabit (and I’m sure many of yours), but it was his involvement in a very different side of London – a highly sinister and murky one – that ultimately led him to jump off the balcony of a plush apartment block, aged 19. It is shocking to think that there is only one degree of separation between the seemingly cocooned Jewish world and the dark and dangerous one inhabited by London’s most vile underworld characters.

But that wasn’t the only disturbing element of the narrative. The author, Patrick Radden Keefe, is known for his forensic biographical detail, and there is one observation early in the book that he pinpoints as being pivotal to Zac’s lack of self-esteem and perhaps his life trajectory – not getting into the elite private school he felt destined for. In Zac’s case that school was UCS. As the book proceeds to reveal, there were many more complex factors, both psychological and circumstantial, that caused a sociable teen to find his way into a perilous world. But it’s notable that, as an outsider looking in, Radden Keefe has observed something brutal about the private school selection process. In fact, Zac’s mother Rachelle is quoted saying: “I knew there was something so big for that little boy in the rejection.” Perhaps because so many of us go through the 11-plus with our kids – and because there is no choice if you want your children to go to certain schools – we have normalised the experience. But it can indeed brutal. In reality, whether you opt for a private or state school, those harsh results moments for our kids are unavoidable. And this year, that moment is now upon us. I’m in the A-level and GCSE double trouble year, so as you read this I shall be in the throes of it all. As parents, it can be a truly tricky time to navigate.

If we really want our kids to believe it’s the effort not the results that we’re proud of, do we hold off from kvelling and calling the grandparents if the 9s and A-stars start rolling in? Or if they achieve super grades despite having only made mediocre effort, what then? “I was wrong to suggest that you should stop playing Fifa the night before your chemistry exam. Keep up the good Xbox work?” Equally, if the grades they want or expect elude them, do you share their disappointment? If you do, one must be very careful to only share their disappointment – not to reveal any of ones own – a very fine balance. If you take a more positive stance on results that are deemed below expectation, be careful what you insinuate. If you’re not equally disappointed, did they not deserve better grades? On the other hand, “re-mark!” may not always be the best response.

In reality, it’s easy to talk the :”we're proud of you whatever you get” talk – it’s more challenging keeping that messaging consistent in real time when the stakes and the emotions are high. But how we react to these moments as parents is important, because how we teach our kids to deal with success or failure is likely to be as important in the real world as the grades themselves – if not more so. Our kids’ ability to maintain a sense of high self-esteem regardless of what’s going on around them will serve them better in the long run than any 9s or As. Good results may give kids a confidence boost, but self-esteem is a much more elusive and coveted possession. Some self-esteem is God given, but speaking as a mum, not a bonafide expert, I think it’s one we can help build. And how we navigate these results days, particularly if they don’t always go to plan, can be critical in that respect.