“We always expect our children to be perfect.” Most parents have thought so.

I was one of them. I expected our son, Joe, would be perfect to sail _______ school. He was always a _______ kid, kind and gentle. But he wasn’t perfect. From the first day Joe started school, he always had difficulty with _______. He passed each grade with great _______, but never at the top of his class.

How I _______ friends who had children with the “maths talent”. I would look at Joe and _______: If he does not get better at maths, how is he ever going to _______ college? I was worried about it all the time.

Joe, _______, had other ideas. During high school, Joe slowly _______ his maths. He got through all the required courses. I felt greatly __________ with his little achievement. Then he announced that he’d take pre-calculus（微积分）in his last year of high school, which __________ me a lot.

“Why?” I questioned.

“Because I need to keep my skills up,” he explained. “I __________ maths, but I need to take it seriously, so I won’t forget how to do it.”

“For college,” he added. “I want to do really well in college, Mom. I know it will be __________, but I think it’s important that I try to do my best.”

My son wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t a maths talent, either. But he knew what was important: he was caring about his __________ while I was worrying over his past. And that, to me, is even better than being __________ .