Partners in Parenting

Unexpected Brilliance

It happens to parents all the time. You work and work and work with your child, encouraging, stimulating, teaching. You look forward to each new step - and then they spring something on you out of left field, something you had NO IDEA they were working on.

Take my eldest. When she was 17 months old, I was helping her with her burgeoning vocabulary. I was delighting in her efforts to jump. (Getting off the ground with two feet at the same time is no easy task!) She could identify 'red' and 'yellow', and we were working on 'blue'. She was learning all sorts of things, and I was with her, every step of the way.

I hadn't yet learned that I didn't control everything she learned. I would have agreed with that idea, had you said it to me at the time, but I didn't really understand the concept. I hadn't experienced it.

I hadn't experienced it, that is, until one quiet Sunday summer afternoon. Naptime. She was snoozing on a mat on her bedroom floor, the door closed. Mommy and daddy were in their room. Our door was closed, too. We were secure - a triple layer of safety: the nap, and two shut doors. Because our baby?  She couldn't open doorknobs.

We were busily ... napping... when...

SMACK!  A small hand landed with a decisive thwak on her father's shoulder, and a reproving voice cut the air.

"BAD daddy! OFF Mommy!!"

Guess what she learned, when I wasn't looking??

It's All About Balance

Prepare to be astounded:

Now, if you've had much to do with 4-year-olds, you know that most of them find it sufficiently challenging to clap at the right time in "If You're Happy and You Know It". This child is a genius. I mean that quite literally. I am not exaggerating in any way. If he becomes anything other than a musician when he grows up, I'll be astonished.

Why is he so talented? Well, it's his dad playing the bass in the background, so he comes from a musical family. It's probably in his genes. And yet, there's that full drum kit with sound-absorbing wall in behind it. Someone is sure giving him the opportunity to develop his talent.

With stuff like this - extraordinary talent, evidence of genius - we don't have too much trouble attributing it to genes. Without the support he's getting, he might never have discovered his talent, but the support doesn't create the talent. That's innate. Not many people would argue that.

But what of other traits? What of kindliness, sociability, ambition, patience, thoughfulness, extroversion, love of books, love of sports, stick-to-it-tiveness, and on and on and on? Very often as parents we attribute the development (or lack thereof) of any of these or a gazillion other traits entirely onto things we have or have not done. Is this fair? Is this reasonable?

There is a balance between innate and environment, but I feel strongly that in our culture, we place the balancing point at the wrong spot.  I believe that as parents, we burden ourselves tremendously with exaggerated notions of our own potency in our childrens' lives.

Please understand:  We are important. We are, for the first years of our childrens'  lives, supremely important. We have the power to foster, to guide, to nurture, or to squelch, demean and discourage. What we don't have is the power to make our child other than what he/she is. Some of what our child is, is simply innate. It is who s/he is. How much is innate is up for discussion; knowing that some is innate neither gets us off the hook, parentally, nor makes our contribution worthless. But parenting is a contribution to who your child will become. It is not the beginning, middle, and end, the be-all and end-all.

Without the drum kit, this child may never have discovered his talent - but he'd still have it. Without the talent, all the drum kits, lessons, and practice in the world wouldn't turn him into this kind of a drummer. In this area of his life, his parents have helped him discover who he is; they didn't make him who he is.

I think this is true of all areas of our childrens' lives. And that, fellow parents, is a good thing.

Back to School Home?

It's been a big week here at the MaryP home. I don't talk much about my home life, nor my family much, so a bit of background is probably in order. I have three children: Haley is soon to turn 21, and will receive her BA next May; Adam, 17, is in his final year of high school; and Emma is 13 and in grade 8. Until each of them was 10ish, they were homeschooled. (My reasons were pedagogical and social/developmental.) The older two had a virtually wrinkle-free transition to school.

But Emma, poor Emma, my most social child, who was chomping at the bit to get out there and follow her siblings into the wider world... Whereas Haley and Adam got wonderful teachers for their first year of institutional school, Emma got a raving maniac whose tumultuous, and reputedly very nasty divorce proceedings, had her having tantrums in the class on a near-daily basis. The teacher gradually calmed down over the school year, and by the end of the year, Emma was willing to try another year. Phew. The next three grades passed uneventfully, though unlike my older two children, Emma still occasionally considered returning to homeschooling. These periods didn't generally last long, and she seemed to be enjoying her school experience overall.

This year, though, Emma has had enough. She doesn't want to go to school. We have had several long conversations since the beginning of September, which have become increasingly focussed. Homeschooling through high school intimidates me somewhat, but not enough to rule out the possibility, and it's always been my principle that the children have the right to choose the venue for their education.

She has a bunch of issues:

Restrictions of time and place:  "Sometimes when I'm trying to work something out in my head, I like to be able to move around. Even if the teacher lets you, and mostly they don't, the other kids would so mock you."

Social restrictions:  not the ones placed on the kids by the teachers, but the ones the kids place on each other. "They try to tell you who you can and can't be friends with. There are so many stupid rules to follow if you want to be cool and popular, and when you're popular, you're almost always mean to other kids who aren't cool."

Sartorial restrictions: "I really get tired of having to defend what I want to wear! Whose business is it but mine?" (Again, it's generally her peers that she's resisting, not the school authorities'. Though she does enjoy mocking the school's dress policy. "SPAGHETTI STRAPS!?!?! You total slut!!!")

Sexual issues:  "You can only talk to a boy or hang out with him if you're going out with him. How do I know if I want to get romantic with a boy if I never have boys who are just friends? "

Attitudes to education: "If you let anyone know you really like what you're learning, you're a geek. I have to pretend I'm not really interested, even when I am." How sad is that?

Attitudes to family: She likes spending time at home, she likes being with family. "You can't admit that you like your mother. That's totally dorky."

And hers is a nice school, in a nice neighbourhood, with (apart from the 4th-grade lunatic) nice teachers. Having been home-schooled, she knows she has alternatives.

Meantime, and entirely coincidentally, mother has been reading Reviving Ophelia, by Mary Pipher. According to Ms. Pipher, Emma is doing remarkably well at her age, but that the storms are only going to get worse for the next few years. Preadolescent girls are generally strong, confident, interested, full of the zest of life. Early adolescence changes these girls.

"Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle, so do the selves of girls go down in droves...In early adolescence, studies show that girls' IQ scores drop and their math and science scores plummet. They lose their resiliency and optimism and become less curious and inclined to take risks. They lose their assertive, energetic and 'tomboyish' personalities and become more deferential, self-critical, and depressed. They report great unhappiness with their own bodies."

Why does this happen? In essence, it happens because of all the pressures which Emma finds so chafing, pressures which, because adolescence comes earlier these days than ever before, hits these girls when they are too young, too unformed to handle it. Pressures to look and act a certain way, to conform to a certain body and behaviour pattern, to be pretty, to appease, to be malleable and non-demanding in relationships and in life.  Some girls - and I suspect Emma will be one of them - withstand the pressure and emerge strong and whole at the end of this. Many others don't, and we have grown women who lose themselves in relationships that are damaging them, women who obssess about their appearance, who are never satisfied with their physical body, women who hesitate to be assertive lest they be labelled 'bitch', women whose sexual identity rests solely on the approval of a lover.

I am impressed that Emma is able to articulate her dissatisfactions so clearly. I am impressed that her dissatisfactions go beyond "school is boring and I'm sick of teachers telling me what to do all day". I am impressed that what is really bothering Emma is her understanding (which she only partially comprehends) that school requires her to sacrifice valuable portions of her true self. Since she is justifiably reluctant to do that, school has become a continual struggle, a constant abrasion, a non-stop defence of who and what she is against forces that would turn her into something she is not.

We still haven't made a decision, but I am so proud of her.

Helping Our Children Achieve Academic Success

There was an article in this morning's Los Angeles Times about the rising demand for private tutoring for children as young as 3 years-old.  These days, parents aren't just concerned about whether or not little Susie's going to get into Harvard.  Now, they're worried about whether not she'll get accepted to the "right" kindergarten. 

To ensure acceptance to the "right" elementary school, preschoolers are being sent to learning centers where they sit at desks and complete worksheets.  They're taught to count dots on a page, name body parts and animals, and write their name, skills usually expected of a first-grader.  Thanks to acts like No Child Left Behind, academic standards have "elevated" to the point where, kindergarten, at least according to this article, is now "the new first grade." 

Personally, it makes me sad and angry that children so young are trading in time at the park for sitting behind a desk.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm all for academic achievement.  I'd be thrilled if my kids went to Harvard because they'd have more opportunities.  But is private tutoring really the way to help them achieve the academic success necessary to gain more career opportunities?  I don't think so.

As parents, we're proud when our little ones can count and recite their ABC's.  We beam with pride when they suddenly speak new words and correctly name objects.  But sometimes I think it's good to remember that monkeys can be taught these things as well.  Just because a child can recite her ABC's, count to 30, and identify a baboon doesn't mean she's smart.  It doesn't mean she'll develop critical thinking skills.  And it certainly doesn't mean she'll make good life choices. 

This is why we really need to think consciously about what we want for our children.  What does "success" mean?

To me, success is being emotionally, not just academically, intelligent.  I've known people who have the best education money can buy, yet they're estranged from their children, they've had several horrible marriages, their employees despise them because they're mercurial and incapable of controlling their emotional outbursts, and if you ask them if they're happy, they're not.  Yet, if you were to meet them at a cocktail party, you'd judge them as being successful because they're a lawyer with a good trial record at a well-renowned law firm, making a ton of money, and they own a large house on the expensive side of town.  Frankly, I want more for my kids than cocktail party success. 

Having a high EQ (as opposed to IQ) provides a good foundation for academic and overall life success.  It involves, according to Daniel Goleman, "self-control, zeal and persistence, and the ability to motivate oneself," requirements for high academic achievement.  Self-control, as I understand it, is not just about impulse-control, it's about being able to recognize our own emotions and manage them effectively.  Knowing how to manage our emotions and use them wisely in our rational decision-making process leads to better choices in life, and, as I've said before, better problem-solving skills. 

How do we help our children achieve higher EQ's?  We spend time with them, offer them empathy, and coach them through their frustration, anger, sadness, fear, and even excitement (see Gottman's book on our recommended reading list).  Not only does this teach self-control, it also promotes zeal and persistence.   They may feel excited about doing something, but the frustration of successfully completing the task may be too overwhelming if we don't emotionally coach them through it.  And, their eventual success with that and other tasks promotes further internal motivation to try and accomplish new things. 

How else can we help prepare our children for academic success?

The LA Times article suggests playing with our children.  As I've mentioned before, when we play with our children, their level of play becomes more complex.  Plus, play is an opportunity to do emotion coaching as described above.  But there are other things we can do, and may even already be doing, in our everyday interactions with them.

One of my favorite longitudinal studies was conducted by a Standford linguistic anthropologist, Shirley Brice Heath (1982).  She examined the use of bedtime stories and interactions between children and parents in three different communities: "Maintown," a mixed middle class town, "Roadville" a primarily white working class town, and "Trackton," an African American rural community.  Maintown and Roadville children were at an advantage academically because these communities had more literary traditions than Trackton, which engaged in a more oral tradition.  (Keep in mind one tradition is not better than another, they're just different.  The differences, however, do contribute to one's ability to sit in a classroom, which is a very particular type of environment.  For the purposes of this post, I will not be discussing Trackton because my point only involves comparing the two communities with more literary traditions.) 

However, Heath also found that the Maintown kids were at an even bigger advantage because of how their parents spoke with them.  Maintown parents asked their kids a lot "rehearsal questions," questions where the mother knew the answer.  They asked questions that were genuine requests for new information (where the mother didn't know the answer).  And they asked a lot of open-ended questions, where the child was allowed to relate experiences.  Additionally, Maintown parents verbalized connections between what the child saw in the real world with what they read about in their bedtime stories.  They also allowed their children to read the book as he or she wished.  If the child wanted to skip pages, move ahead, or read from back to front, the parents acquiesced.  Finally, when Heath looked at the reading materials of the Maintown parents, she found they had far more critical and educational sources than Roadville parents.  In other words, Maintown parents were more interested in gaining new perspectives through reading and didn't only read books reinforcing their already held beliefs.

The Roadville parents, on the other hand, insisted the children read books from beginning to end, with no skipping ahead.  Rather than rehearsal questions, the number one communication parents had "with" their children was "running commentary" involving "rhetorical questions."  Parents would comment on their own behavior or tasks and would ask questions like, "where are my keys?" without expecting any kind of answer from their kids.  Essentially, their main communication wasn't really an interaction.  Parents did ask rehearsal questions but far fewer than Maintown parents.  The third most common communication was a "question directive," where the parent gave an order in the form of a question.  The least type of question Roadville parents asked was that which involved requests for new information.  Finally, Roadville parents rarely made connections between what the child saw or experienced in real life and what was read at story-time.

Are you seeing a pattern here? 

In a nutshell, Maintown parents promoted critical thinking in their children.  True, they gave them rehearsal questions to practice learning new facts or new words, but they also wanted to know what their children thought beyond the "right" answer.  They got their kids in the habit of thinking about connections between different things, which promotes thinking beyond the information given and developing more sophisticated inferences.  Teaching critical thinking at home, I think, is what prepares our children for academic achievement, not sitting behind a desk doing worksheets.  Remember, they're not little adults.  They're very young kids.

If you really want your child to achieve academically, don't spend a couple hundred dollars a month on some learning center.  Put that money towards maybe working an hour or two less a week and spending some interactive time with your kids.

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Heath, Shirley Brice (1982).  What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and school.  Language and Society, 11, 49-76