How I Convinced My 7-Year-Old Daughter That School Is Awesome

The following was syndicated from Quora for The Fatherly Forum, a community of parents and influencers with insights about work, family, and life.

My 8-year-old son is asking me why do we have to go to school and score good marks? What would be a good answer?

My daughter asked me the same question last year for the first time. She was 7 years old and I didn’t have a handy, disarming answer to give her. So we sat down together and had a nice chat.

The first thing I asked her was to describe a usual day in school as well as the things she likes and dislikes. After talking about it for a few minutes she concluded that at school:

1. She has made a lot of good friends she enjoys playing with.
2. She has learned new things she really likes.
3. Sometimes she gets bored and would rather be someplace else.

RELATED: I Parented Like A French Dad and My Kids Started Listening to Me

Then we talked about them. Starting from number one we agreed that if she left school she’d miss playing with her friends and especially her best friend. Of course she would have a chance to meet her on the weekends, but my daughter said that this wouldn’t be enough. She likes seeing her every day, and also talking and hanging around with her during school time.

Regarding number 2, she, with my help, listed all the new stuff she’s learned at school during the past couple of years e.g. reading, writing, counting, and other stuff about the environment, human life etc. I asked her if she felt more independent than her little sister (e.g. she can read the stories she likes regardless of her mom and dad’s free time) and if she enjoys being able to understand more about the way the world around her “works.” She admitted that the knowledge she now possesses makes her feel better both outside the class, as she can talk about subjects she couldn’t when younger or she can read books to younger children and inside the class, especially when she answers a question correctly and gets praised by her teacher.

MORE: Wonder If You’re a Good Father? Take the Test

Then, after telling me that she already knows how to read and write and there’s nothing more to learn, I made clear that there is a whole lot more knowledge out there waiting to be understood. Please, don’t underestimate this sentence, because it seems that children feel confident that they know almost everything. This might be because repetition is dominant in the educational process and learning new, interesting things is not an everyday fact. So, falsely, children feel that they repeat because there is not much new stuff out there to learn.

At this point, I seized the opportunity to talk a bit more about knowledge and why it is important for humans. Of course, we used examples of her own life and skills and not vague and abstract notions. For example, we talked about her desire to become a teacher when she grows up and how she must gain certain knowledge and skills to achieve it as well as how she will pass it to her students when she becomes a teacher.

ALSO: Dad Discipline and Mom Discipline Are Different

Number 3 was obviously a difficult thing to talk about. However, I tried to make her realize that we don’t always enjoy the whole process of doing something and that we have to focus on the reasons we’re doing it. I used as an example her ballet lessons which sometimes feel hard and boring, but are necessary to make the progress she finally feels proud of. I also made clear that this happens to her mom and me sometimes.

It seems that children feel confident that they know almost everything.

I wouldn’t like to go on and write the whole conversation in detail, because I believe I’ve given the gist of it.

At the end, I asked her how she felt about the subject she raised. She concluded that she wouldn’t want to stop going to school, because she’d miss her friends and the knowledge required to become a teacher. Although we talked about many more things, these 2 were most important to her.

The thing I enjoyed most was that I managed to keep myself from preaching. We talked about the problem she faced which means that I had her full attention and we managed to come to rational conclusions together. It wasn’t just me talking and deciding and her listening and doing.

Of course, our discussion was rather simplistic. All of you can find flaws and gaps in the reasoning I wrote above. However, in such important matters, I never talk to my kids having in mind what to say to end the discussion right there. I rather try to lay the foundation for more elaborate discussions in the future.

Indeed, about a month ago, after summer vacations and before schools started she brought up the same subject again. This gave me the perfect chance to take her on a walk and talk about it a bit more. I also managed to sneak into our conversation subjects associated with knowledge (acquisition and passing on to the next generations) and the role of the state in it (education, laws etc). Our walk gave me a ton of examples to use in my arguments (cities, roads, clean water, electricity, buildings, police etc) and also inspired my daughter to ask a million more questions. Which means another chance to spend some quality time together

George Spiliotopoulos is a writer. Read more from Quora below:

• What’s the hardest part about being a parent?

• Has your 2 year old ever made you cry?

• What are the most creative and unexpected answers that kids give when asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up”?