When my teachers announced a group project, I used to worry about who my group members would be. What if they didn’t do their part? What if they were bad students who didn’t care and brought down the group grade?
When my kids were in school, I found myself reliving the same dilemma: I’d listen to one kid complain about other students’ lack of helpful input or worry about how my academically challenged kid would affect the group’s morale or grade. If I am honest, I wouldn’t have wanted him assigned to my group!
As a therapist, I have had many sessions with kids, teens, and adults who have suffered great anxiety and interpersonal distress because someone else in a group was not able to function effectively, whether it was for school, sports, work, or an organization. I have also seen how easy it is for parents to respond to this dilemma by asking that their child be assigned to a more favorable group, especially if they are on the receiving end of their child’s anxiety and anger when a group project is compromised by a troublesome peer. This seems like a great thing to do, right? Unfortunately, this is a misguided way to help your kid, even if it is well-intentioned. Let me explain.
Think about how often you have to work in groups or deal with groups in your work and private life. Even if you deliberately avoid joining boards or leadership groups, you likely participate in other groups, with neighbors, parent organizations, volunteers, your family, friends, or work colleagues. They almost always include some effective group members and those who are less effective or even detrimental. As someone with a long history of leading and belonging to many groups, I cannot think of a single situation where everyone consistently did what served the group or its purpose, including me! This means that the problem your child faces is not finding the perfect group, which is humanly impossible, but figuring out how to function well in any group.
What if you framed each school group project as part of the long-term learning process of being a group member and/or a group leader with imperfect peers? Instead of trying to isolate your child from the learning process for the sake of grades, what if you embraced the struggle to learn how to manage expectations for oneself and others, to figure out how to compensate for those who are not as skilled, willing, or engaged, and to learn how to sacrifice for the greater good of the group? Aren’t these abilities you wish for your child? When you send the message that it is unacceptable to work with those who don’t share your skills or values, you risk making it harder for your child to become an adult who can live in harmony with those who are different. You risk contributing to cancel culture.
If you take this long-term view of group projects, then it means you should try to do the following:
- First, agree with your child’s distress when they complain: “Yes, it stinks when someone did not do their part in the group presentation. That is really unfair and annoying.” This validates their experience.
- Normalize their experience by pointing out past circumstances of typical group dysfunction and eventual recovery. Share your own similar group experiences and explain how your life continued, whether or not the group was successful.
- Remind them of the bigger goal: to learn how to identify what each group member is capable of and then to redesign the tasks around realistic expectations. For example: “If that kid won’t do any research, then why not have everyone else do the research?”
- Ask them to give compassion to the students who are not able to participate to their satisfaction: “If they never do their homework, then why would you expect them to do group work? They have not yet learned how to do school.” This means you should never vilify the kids who cannot fulfill the group mission, just like you would never vilify the benchwarmers in kids’ sports.
- Remind your kid there is no perfect group, just some kids who figure out faster how much can be accomplished when they learn how to work well in a group. Your kid needs to learn that group effort is priceless for society to function well, even when some members can’t be effective in groups.
