Just Like Pulling Teeth

Anikka had gym day on Tuesday and the gym teacher sent home a note telling parents to make sure the kids have good shoes to run around in. That got me thinking about gym, so I asked Anikka what they do in gym class. She immediately got embarassed and said "well, today I did 27 push-ups." I said "Great! nice to know that you learned how to do a perfect push-up in Karate huh? Did your teacher see how good your push-ups were?" Then she got even more embarassed and said "Yes, She had me go up in front of the whole class to show them how to do a perfect push-up." I told her that was so great and she said "I don't want to talk about it because I don't want to brag." Then the rest of that night and the next day I would ask her questions to try and get more information about it. It turned out she did the most push-ups in the whole class and was singled out for it and she didn't quite like the singling out. Ryan, who is also very shy and humble about his many abilities was so postive with her about not wanting to brag. I felt that she should celebrate her accomplishments and be so happy about doing well that she would skip home to tell about what she accomplished. I didn't realize that I needed to deal with self-esteem issues and the balance of humility and pride at the age of 7.