During the time when my husband and I were raising our three children, parents began hiring private tutors and planning where their children would go to college as early as first grade. The pressured academic atmosphere was quite different from the one I had grown up in. 

I had learned in Christian Science Sunday School that God has a loving purpose for each of us and gives us the ability to accomplish it. My parents expected their children to do well in school but didn’t feel overly concerned about it. I had been a good student and attended a top university without academic assistance. 

However, when I saw our bright son spiral downward into failing grades in middle school, I was so caught up in the competitive academic environment that I stayed up nights writing papers for him. I didn’t realize that I was making the situation worse, until one night a statement from the Christian Science textbook came to mind: “Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 453).