A Sweet Parenting Buffet

Parenting is our most important job. However, we don’t go to school for it. We saw our parents in action. We get glimpses of other parents. Is trial and error the only way we can learn to be good parents?

I remember my aunt pulling me aside and giving me a little advice. My first reaction was, “Who does she think she is?!” and “I know how to parent my child!” I realized that she had a very good point and was right. I am a better parent for her coaching.

Classroom teachers have a parenting advantage (if they choose to use it). I have encountered parents who should teach courses and write books about the subject. I have met parents who should take those classes. I continue to meet remarkable and expert parents and learn from them.

At a recent Sweet Tomatoes dinner, I saw a display of these many parenting characteristics:

Good parents work hard to foster their children’s independence. Rather than carrying their children’s trays, I saw parents allowing children to take just a little and do it themselves – and being patient enough to let them move slowly and carefully to the table.

I watched a mom talk to her child about not cutting in front of people at the pasta bar. If we want our kids to be powerful, then we must hold our children responsible for their actions and coach them on how to make good decisions.

I saw small children come precariously close to toppling older adults. They ran through the buffet area like a playground. One almost ended up covered with hot soup. Good parents show their children their actions can have positive or negative effects on the people around them.

I bumped into a former student and her family. Good parents actively teach their children how to foster healthy relationships with peers, adults, family, and the larger community.

At a table on the other side of the booth wall, I could hear a parent saying to his child again and again, “You promised. Remember? You promised me!” Good parents hold their children to their commitments and teach them to make good ones.

My family had a conversation about our eating choices. It is critical to teach our children long term thinking. Kids are very much in the here and now. They have trouble envisioning tomorrow, let along next year.

There was one table that looked like the Partridge family. They were all dressed in nearly matching outfits. Our kids are a reflection of us. There is no doubting that parents impress themselves on their children. However, good parents also see their children as unique individuals with their own passions, aptitudes, and characteristics.

Of course there was a disaster table: food was everywhere, coats were on the floor, one parent was on the phone, kids were all over. Good parents are consistent, reliable, and predictable. Their children rarely wonder what their parents will do; they set limits and then hold the whole family to them.

Everywhere I looked, there were clear demonstrations of the joy of genuine affection and caring. Nothing is more important than kids feeling truly loved by their parents.

Of course, this is only a surface exploration of these topics. Please consider this an appetizer. It is my intension to serve up more courses in the weeks and months to come. What characteristics have I left out?

Parenting is too important to fumble through. Our kids are watching our choices and, consciously or not, storing them away. Our words are powerful. Our actions are even more so. I am so grateful to the many fantastic parents who continue to let me feast at the buffet of great parenting.

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein

In Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, all children are above average. Most places are like Keillor’s fictional Minnesota town; parents see their children as special and wonderful and they are right. Every child has gifts.

Yet our educational model does not reflect this. We cling to outdated concepts of tracks and levels and increasingly obsolete labels like honors and gifted. Instead of asking if students are gifted, we should ask how they are gifted. As any parent will tell you, children grow in spurts and fits. Just because my child knows her colors doesn’t mean she can count. A child may be at the top of the class one year and then the others catch up. Kids aren’t programmable. The only constant is growth but it is not consistent, even, or regular.

This constant growth is a challenge. Today, a student struggles with the abstract concept of theme in English class. Yet, as he moves into what developmental psychologist Jean Piaget calls formal thought, he is able to understand and analyze meanings and messages in a piece of literature. Children’s development is often the reason why some are more academically able than others.

If all the kids made these leaps at the same time, education would be much easier. Unfortunately, human beings don’t develop like products on the assembly line. And just because some children achieve a landmark early doesn’t mean that they are smarter or “gifted.” Just because others take longer does not mean they are less able. Something difficult yesterday might be easier today. Something that was no problem yesterday could cause issues today. And this growth is influenced by parents, teachers, peers and environment. Is there a good test to account for all that?

One of my first teaching experiences was working with “academically talented” students in a summer program. As I trained to work with them, I envisioned a bunch of middle school eggheads. When they arrived, I met regular kids who, for a wide variety of reasons, were advanced in specific areas but behaved like any other junior high kids.

Then I became a high school teacher and students would announce that they were in a special gifted program in middle school. I could see that some of them had skills that were more developed than their peers. For many, I could not. Most of the students who came from the middle school gifted or talented programs felt very entitled and displayed an arrogance that made me very uncomfortable –especially since most of the time, I didn’t see much basis for it.

These kids had been exposed to different lessons than their “regular” classmates. That gave them an advantage. Some of them performed better in class. But many “regular” kids could keep up or surpass them. I learned that, when I gave extra attention, “special” lessons, and praise to students – any students, they excelled. I have taught honors classes and classes that mixed students of different “ability” levels. I have worked with “disabled” and “remedial” students. I have news: all kids are gifted; all kids are talented, and all kids do better when they receive extra special attention.

Labeling our children or their classes does everyone a disservice. Children experience huge changes in their cognitive abilities well into their college years. There are a very few profoundly gifted students. I have taught one or two of them, and there is no debating their “gifts”. And let’s be clear: their gifts are at least half curse. Do you want your children to go to college at age thirteen? These are the gifted few.

The rest of our kids are above average.