A science project is real blood, sweat and tears

Last year Sidney's science project got selected to go to the science fair. She was satisfied with a "Good" ribbon. It was her first project and one that she could learn from.

This year, she wanted to put more effort into it. She decided to incorporate the garden since it was at her disposal. She chose to test fertilizers on tomato plants over the course of 4 weeks. She took all the measurements herself. She kept track of how often they were fertilized. She did the research on fertilizers and tomato plants. She wrote out her own results, procedure, materials, etc, all that stuff. She documented the growth with pictures. And she put her project together.

When she came home from school and told us she had been selected from her class to go to the science fair, we were all stoked. Her teacher had lots of compliments for how much devotion she had put into her project. Then a whole week passed with building anticipation. She woke up in the morning with some nausea and upset stomach, but after speaking with her teacher we sent her to school because her project would not be considered if she couldn't give her oral report to the judges. She felt fine, and was able to answer all the questions the judges had to ask. She was very excited that she could do really well.

We picked her up early from practice to go to the science fair. We arrived and went straight to her display. She received another "Good" ribbon.



We start to wander and look at other displays and see that some of the other "Good" ribbon receivers didn't look as good as Sidney's (yes, I know that my perception was biased). After a short while, she got extremely upset, hysterical even. She just had her heart broken.

Let me give you just a little background on Sidney. She loves science. She loves reading and history. She was so excited the day she found out she could get a PhD without being a doctor. She takes her homework and learning very seriously. She corrects our grammar at home all the time. She is extremely smart.

So, back to the science fair. She didn't expect to get a "Superior" ribbon and get a trophy, but she felt like she had been lumped together with others who hadn't put as much time and effort into their project as she did. John had to take her aside and try to console her because she was just so upset.

It just hurt my heart to see her so sad. At the same time I do want my kids to feel some sort of disappointment at some point so they can learn from it and be motivated by it, but it still hurts to see them go through that pain. I know how hard she worked and the satisfaction she had when she realized she got chosen to go to the science fair. We were just sad to see her disappointed with the "Good" ribbon as opposed to the "Excellent" or "Superior".

It's a hard knock life.