When Your Child Says 'Everyone Else Gets Better Marks'

It happened on a Wednesday, in the car, on the way home from school. My daughter — P4, the one who usually seems fine — stared out the window and said, very quietly: "Mummy, everyone else gets better marks than me."

I nearly rear-ended the taxi in front. Not because the statement was dramatic — it wasn't. It was the flatness of her voice. She wasn't crying. She wasn't angry. She was just stating what she believed to be a fact. At nine years old, she had already concluded that she was at the bottom.

She isn't. She's solidly middle of the class. But in her world, "middle" is "worst," because the only marks she hears about are the high ones.

Where this belief comes from

Let me be honest about something: I'm part of the problem. Every HK parent is. We created the comparison culture, and our children are marinating in it.

It comes from the WhatsApp groups where parents share test results (always the good ones). It comes from the aunties at dim sum who ask "how many marks?" before they ask "how are you?" It comes from the wall of merit in the school lobby. And yes, it comes from us — the comments we make at home, even the ones we think they can't hear.

A 2024 survey by the Chinese University of Hong Kong found that 73% of primary school students in Hong Kong reported feeling "academic pressure from comparison with peers" — the highest rate among the fifteen education systems surveyed. Our children aren't imagining the pressure. They're absorbing it from every direction.

What NOT to say

When your child says "everyone gets better marks," your instinct will be to fix it. Resist. Here are the three responses that make things worse.

"That's not true!" This dismisses their feelings. From their perspective, it IS true. Denying their reality makes them feel unheard and teaches them not to share next time.

"Well, did you study hard enough?" This implies the problem is effort, which means the hurt they feel is their own fault. Even if more study would help, this is not the moment to say it. They came to you with a wound — don't hand them a mirror and say "you did this to yourself."

"Marks aren't everything." You know what? This one is true. But from a nine-year-old who just got her test back in a classroom of thirty children, it sounds like an empty platitude from someone who doesn't understand. Because in her world right now, marks feel like everything.

What to say instead

I didn't get this right in the car that Wednesday. I panicked and said something useless. But since then, with the help of Miss Fu (our child psychologist friend), I've developed three scripts that actually work. I've tested them. Multiple times. On both kids.

Script 1: The Acknowledgement. "That sounds really hard. It must feel awful to think everyone is doing better." Full stop. Nothing else. Let the silence sit. Your child needs to feel heard before they can hear anything you say. This single sentence does more work than any advice you could offer.

Script 2: The Curiosity Question. After they've been acknowledged (not in the same breath — wait at least thirty seconds), ask: "When you say everyone, who are you thinking of?" This gently challenges the absolutism without dismissing the feeling. Almost every time, "everyone" turns out to be two or three specific children. The problem shrinks from catastrophic to specific. From "I'm the worst" to "Emily and Jason got higher than me on this test."

Script 3: The Reframe. Once the problem is specific, you can offer perspective — but only through their own data, not yours. "You got 78 this time and 72 last time. That's six more marks. Who are you compared to there?" Comparing them to their own past is the only comparison that's safe. It teaches them that progress is personal, not positional.

The "Marks Jar" technique

Here's something I invented out of desperation, and it actually works. I call it the Marks Jar.

Get a clear jar and a bag of marbles. Every time your child improves on something — not gets the best mark, but improves from their own previous result — they put a marble in the jar. A test score that went up by 3 marks: marble. A spelling test where they got one more right than last time: marble. A homework that came back with fewer corrections: marble.

The jar fills up. Visually, tangibly. And the child learns to look at the jar instead of the merit wall. The jar measures growth. The merit wall measures rank. These are completely different things, and children are capable of understanding the distinction — they just need a physical object to anchor it.

My daughter's jar is about a third full now. Last week she said, without prompting: "I don't think I'm the worst anymore. I think I'm getting better." She's still mid-class on paper. But her internal story has changed.

The conversation you need to have with yourself

Here's the part that nobody writes about. When your child says "everyone gets better marks," there's a voice inside you — a small, shameful voice — that agrees with them. That worries they're right. That wonders if you should be doing more: more tutoring, more 操卷, more pressure.

I know because I have that voice. Every HK parent does.

You have to let that voice speak, acknowledge it, and then tell it to sit down. Your child's worth is not their ranking. You know this. But knowing it and feeling it are different things, and the gap between them is where comparison culture lives.

Close the gap. For your kid. And honestly? For yourself.