Who Is It For?

Last week a heard a couple of conversations between parents and teachers which truly had me shaking my head. One involved parents who were concerned that their child was only achieving A's and B+'s on their report card and they wanted to know how they could help her improve. The second equally puzzling piece of parenting was the mother who announced that their child spent 2 to 3 hours practicing the piano everyday, on top of several other classes each week which filled in her spare time. Like with the sports parent who lives their life through the success of their child on the field or at the rink, you have to ask the question, "Who is it for?" If the child were given the choice would they decide to spend each waking hour pursuing so called excellence? There is nothing wrong with children striving to do well in school. Following a geniune interest in sports or arts can be rewarding. But filling a child's head with the notion that their worth comes from high marks or trophies is to negate everything that is wonderful in the ordinary life of being a child. Be careful what you expect from your children or students. Ask yourself what the motivation behind it all is. If you cannot honestly say it is for the child themself, then you are fooling yourself and your child.

Shed The Should

One of the words which needs to be trashed or at least put on the back burner when talking about students is the word "should". You hear it all the time when teachers talk about students who don't quite measure up. Jimmy should be reading at such and such a level. Susie should know better than to do that. The list is infinite. We are constantly measuring our kids with some imaginary meter stick. Whenever they fail to meet our expectations we bring out the "S" word. While there are times for concern if a child is showing significant delays, in most cases the expectations and levels we arrive at for our students are completely arbitrary. But many of us are beside ourselves because our kids are not where they should be. The media is one of the worst perpetrators of this myth by constantly implying that kids don't measure up. To what? We move along at our pace and we try to help our kids keep up, but when they are unable or even unwilling, lamenting where we imagine they should be is an exercise in futility. They are where they are. If that is a problem, and let's look deep and see who indeed has the problem, then instead of moaning about it let's see where we can motivate, encourage and nurture their interest and excitement about learning and maybe life.

I repeat, if there are obviously serious issues then we as proffessionals know where to go with that. In most cases though, it is our own egos that make us manic about where our kids should be.

And when you talk to kids, try to get rid of that word. No one wants to here that they should be more like so and so, or they should be acting a certain way. Guide them, re-direct them where needed, but don't make them think they should be anyone else than themselves, because that is exactly who they are and that is totally okay.