So, this article on how talking with your kids is one of the most important things you can do to lead them to academic and personal success in life kind of made my day.
Forgive the inflammatory headline. It’s a bit deceiving. If you read it you’ll see it’s not so much about “making kids smarter” per se but about how parents have a lot more influence on their children than we are sometimes led to believe.*
There’s a lot of pressure on parents of a certain privilege with time to ponder every decision they make around their kid about whether they’ve chosen the right school or the right enrichment program or the right whatever to make their kid the smartest/fastest/bestest at everything. If you’re busy just trying to make rent or dealing with addiction or any other number of real life problems then you do not have the time or patience to put up with this post, or probably my blog in general. I do not blame you for moving on. If, however, you fall into the parent of a certain privilege camp with a little extra time on your hands, welcome!
When they’re little, it’s about Montessori vs. Reggio vs. play-based preschool programs and Gymboree vs. Suzuki vs. organized sports, or maybe all of it. Or maybe you’re an opt-out parent who chooses none of it. When they get older you think about homeschool vs. charter school vs. private school vs. designated public school. And once you’ve narrowed that down, you need to consider sex-segregated vs. language-immersion vs. inquiry based vs. traditional learning.
But what fascinates me most is how these discussions can become so inflammatory and defensive, and how we seem to have lost sight of how much influence we still retain.
When my firstborn was a baby the Baby Einstein videos were everywhere. Everyone was buying them for their kids, buying them as baby gifts, insisting that they would make my baby smarter. I resisted drinking the Kool-Aid on this one (but not, alas, on other things that in retrospect were silly). I don’t have a degree in child development, and I’m not opposed to TV in theory or practice (if you’re a regular reader you know how much I love TV!). But I had two issues with this particular program. First, why are you presuming I need to make my already perfect baby better? She’s a baby. Do we really need to improve babies?!
Secondly, how can plopping said baby in front of a TV screen possibly lead to earlier language development? I mean, I totally plopped her on there to make a phone call or cook dinner or just take a break, but with the sole goal of early language development? It just didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t learn second languages by watching clouds roll by and words appear. I learned by engaging with a real human being. Marketing people, I call foul!
Flash forward a few years and this research vindicated me. Oh, and that baby has a pretty decent vocabulary and is fluent in a couple of languages. My laziness, inherent extrovertedness and suspicion of most mass-marketed child-improvement products meant I spent a lot of time just talking to her, which I think most parents get and do without anyone telling them they should. That coupled with what is likely a strong verbal predisposition meant she was ok. All of them seem to be ok where language acquisition is concerned, given how quick they are to argue with me and express their own opinions. It’s really a double-edged sword, isn’t it?
My point isn’t to nah-nah-poo-poo the parents who bought the videos or are into the latest promises of grandeur sold by people who prey on our fears. We’re all afraid. We all know the stakes are high and we want to be the best parents we can be and it’s easy to get exploited. And we all have at least one vulnerability where our kids are concerned. My point is that it’s good sometimes to remind ourselves that there is no guarantee that anyone really knows how to raise kids. It’s all theoretical! Lots of exceptions to any rule anyone imposes. We’re all doing our best here. Look at how great we all turned out despite our parents’ parenting! Most of the kids are going to be all right!
Parenting is hard but sometimes we’re complicit in making it harder than it needs to be. Sometimes the path of least resistance can yield pretty cool results. Talk is cheap, right? It’s cheap! Anyone can do it, in any language they’re comfortable with. But it never ceases to amaze me when talking with other parents how many choose to actively avoid difficult subjects (drugs, sex and rock n’ roll primarily) with their kids, under the guise of “protecting” them. But a lot of the tough stuff is already around them whether we want it to be or not. I’m pretty sure being a kid today is even harder than being the parent of a kid today.
Admittedly, we are a family of emotive gabbers so maybe this comes more easily to us than to more thoughtful, quiet parents and children. In the last while, some of the topics of conversation around here generated by the brood have included:
“If the ancient Greeks believed in 12 gods and they turned out to be myths, how can we be sure our one God is real?” (a valiant attempt by the 9YO to avoid church)
“When you’re friends with boys and talk to them, why do so many other people insist on making it about liking the boy? Why is kindness all of a sudden seen as flirtation?” (from the recent Junior High entrant)
“Why is it wrong for boys to show their penises but not their boobs?” (from the exhibitionist 6YO)
“Justin Bieber does drugs,” stated by the 9YO who heard it on the playground, which led to a discussion around drugs in general, why boys have a hate-on for Bieber, why Beliebers love him, what we expect from our public figures, how growing up on a world-stage can be tough, and what it means to be a role-model in everyday life.
“Why would Miley Cirus twerk and film a naked video of herself?” from the tween which led to a long discussion around pressure on girls, the media, appropriating other cultures, judging other women for their choices, and some of the other themes covered in the Bieber discussion.
“Why do I have to go to school?” from the recent and sometimes chagrined Grade 1 kid, which then led to a discussion around the fact that mom and dad want to retire some day and his going to school is an important part of that plan.
“So, Adam and Eve were European, right?” from the 9YO with regards to a creationist reference in the book we’re reading which led to a discussion about cultural imperialism and religious belief and Darwin.
Like I said, we’re a gabby family. And please, lest you think we live in an ivory tower all the time, let me assure you that there are plenty of squabbles and inane questions and overt challenges to which I happily respond, “Because I said so,” or “Because I’m the boss,” thereby ending any further discussion. I mean even extroverts enjoy some quiet sometimes and though talk is good, too much of a good thing can be too much.
I’ve learned a lot from their telling me stuff too. This week alone, I learned that there are two kinds of zombies, that sock hats are cooler than beanies, that there are several different kinds of apples (I knew that, but played dumb because the 6YO was just so darned excited to demonstrate his recently acquired apple-knowledge), that I’m a mean mama sometimes, but sometimes I’m the best mama in the world, and that despite my not watching any entertainment television shows around them, my kids are well aware of all controversies surrounding former teen idols.
There’s a lot going on inside our kids’ heads and not all of it can be covered at school, no matter how great the school our how involved the teacher. We have more power than the current climate of consumer-based parenting self-help stuff would have us believe. At the end of the day, we need communities not coaches. We need to learn to trust ourselves again. We need to share with one another not shame each other. We need to talk.
*And yes, I’m aware that I based this entire post about doing what comes naturally around an article that tells us what to do. I’ve never denied being complicated or hypocritical. Let’s talk about that another time.
