Friends,
I started my workday with a 7:55 technology team meeting and am in the midst of a five-block Friday with NO planning period. Teachers, you understand how exhausting and non-stop that type of day is. Oh, and I go back to college, again, tomorrow, for semester two of my M. Ed. program. Thus, I made an executive Crippled Beagle Publishing decision (I am the one and only executive, after all), to post a chapter from my small book, Parents, Stop and Think. It's perfect for this time of year! I hope you enjoy it. Happy back to school and happy Friday everyone.
Love,
Bug
Excerpt from Parents, Stop and Think
I. Offering Freedom
As a
teacher and writer, I study my crafts. As
a mother, I strive to raise my boys, Houston (12) and Scotty (4), to become
compassionate, confident, and self-sufficient.
Research, training, and trial and error help, but teaching, writing, and
parenting are art forms. To be successful,
I must reflect and adjust. I must
stop and think.
Alone at a
retail store in the August of Houston’s last year of elementary education, I
passed a display of local school supply lists.
I scanned halfway through the bulleted sheet of 5th grade
requirements and stopped. I thought. Houston
Parents in
a stressful rush, on a budget, and looking at the world through adult goggles
often miss things—things minor to us and major to our children. My father’s mother, “Wimmie,” a widow and
hospital pastry cook, squirreled away money for years to buy my father, Scott,
a “sporty” car for his sixteenth birthday.
My mother later asked her, “Why’d you make that sacrifice when you were
struggling? Scott understood you
couldn’t afford a car.”
Wimmie explained, “I knew that was
the only age Scott would actually care about a fancy car. It was important to him then.”
My
colleague Sherri’s son, Joey, broke his glasses the day before middle school
started. Joey, who is normally easy-going,
became distraught. Sherri understood. They skipped school and went straight to the
optometrist, who rushed the order and treated Joey’s “huge” problem and genuine
anxiety with respect.
~ ~ ~
I teach
high school freshmen and am routinely intrigued by their reasoning. They crave autonomy (thus the obsession with
learner’s permits). They love choices. They embrace self-paced lessons that may be
challenging but lack a teacher’s constant directives. Though the fourteen and fifteen-year-olds
vary by academic ability, physical and emotional maturity, backgrounds,
resources, and personality traits, they share certain age-old truths and human
characteristics. Teenagers don’t
function well when they are hungry, tired, poorly dressed, lacking supplies, or,
honestly, worried about their hair. Their
problems are big—in their eyes, and should be treated as “big” by adults. If your son asks for a certain type of
deodorant, and you can afford it, buy it.
If your daughter braids, cries, and re-braids her hair, be patient. Compliment her. If your son asks to be dropped off to walk
the last block to school with his buddies, indulge him. Teenagers want to be taken seriously and
treated with respect—by peers and
adults.
Parents,
sacrifice to give your children what they need.
Give them safe autonomy and confidence through independence. What decisions can your children make now?
What do they need to feel enthusiastic to greet the world
each day? Privacy? A new lunchbox? The opportunity to select and organize their
own school supplies? Extra time for hair
and make-up? Prayer? Time with friends? Your attention? At some point this year, your children will
likely beg, “But I really need to buy/to see/to do this!” Don’t dismiss
their pleas as materialistic or small-minded.
Remember back to your childhood days.
Reflect on concerns that were “major” to you. Stop and think.
