UnchartedParent.com

The first day of school—are we there yet?

This is going to be a very, very short post.  Why?  Because my son has been home with me for almost an entire month, and my daughter also has no daycare this week.  Just today I’ve juggled 873 requests, 345 negative evaluations and 1,398 instances of whining.  (And that doesn’t count the direct ramifications of my son’s latest hobby: backseat driving.  “Mommy, put your signal on!”)

There’s no time to blog, no time to write.  Any time I can get away from the kids’ demands is occupied with assembling the bags full of items I’m required to send to school with them next week.  I want to make sure I don’t miss a darn thing.

So, happy Labor Day, enjoy the barbeques, and I’ll be back WHEN SCHOOL IS IN SESSION!

Yes, Virginia, it really is a dilemma: how do you educate the very bright child?

Until now, I’ve balked at blogging about this issue, because it seems on the surface like bragging and whining at the same time: my kid is very smart, and his education is presenting us with some real problems.  But I’ve finally decided to talk about this, because the truth is that there are problems that need to be addressed here, and my husband and I are not the only parents who find ourselves in need of good solutions.

Five-and-a-half year old “Jack” is bright—unusually so.  He’s not Einstein or Mozart or Doogie Howser; if he were, we’d just ship him off to college now and be done with it.  But his reading skills are at least a year ahead of where they ought to be, his math skills are further along than that, and his intellectual, even academic curiosity is piercing and sometimes probes further than where my own three academic degrees have ever permitted me to go.  This is the child who, at the age of four, engaged both me and his father in persistent efforts to define the concept of infinity, exploring ways around our definitions when they left him unsatisfied: “Okay then, what’s the number right before infinity?”  In another example from three weeks ago, after reciting to him on command every type of engineer I could think of—this from someone who quit science education after the tenth grade—Jack forced me to enter into an exploration of elements and chemicals.  Eventually, he demanded, “What’s a chemical?”  I naturally responded, “I’m going to get your father up here; he’ll tell you.”

So what’s our problem?  As in many states, our home state’s educational cutoff date is October 1.  Jack’s birthday is well after that, so Jack begins kindergarten next week.  Kindergarten, where they begin the day with the days-of-the-week song and learn the sounds that different letters make.

Through a complicated and unusual set of circumstances, Jack has already done a year of kindergarten.  Last year, he was three months younger than the next youngest child in his class of eight children.  He was also near or at the top of his class academically.

If he did so well, one might ask, why not simply put him in first grade with his academic peers this year?  Because, as we all understand, school is not simply about academics.  Jack may be academically gifted—his former teacher’s word, not mine—but socially and emotionally, he is definitely a kindergartner.  He did well last year in part because his class was so small, his teacher was so skilled and he himself matured tremendously over the year.  But we hope after this year to send Jack to public school, where classes are larger and more reflective of the world in which we live.  (Kindergarten in our town is approximately two-and-a-half hours long, which is, to my mind, of limited utility to the kids and of even less use to my hopes of ever getting any work of my own done.)  In public school in the twenty-first century, letting kids advance a year beyond their age level simply isn’t done.  Ever.  (Plenty of private schools refuse to advance gifted children as well.)  If we let Jack forge ahead, he’d be the only one.  And even if he could handle it now, his father and I have mused endlessly, what would happen when the dreaded middle-school years arrived and hormones began to blossom?  What good is an appropriately challenging academic education if a child is miserable, confused and perpetually out-of-place socially?

So, after multiple conversations with teachers and administrators at Jack’s school, we’ve decided on another year of kindergarten for Jack.  His new teacher has assured us that she can provide him with sufficient challenge, and we’re blessed to be at a school that is willing to work with us on an individual basis—I realize that many people are not so fortunate.  But I still worry about Jack’s education now and in the future, and I am concerned for all very bright children.  Here are some of the reasons:

• Bright kids who love school and learning ought to be specially nurtured and encouraged with appropriate enrichment and activities.  It’s so hard to spark that thirst in so many kids; letting it flicker out where it exists naturally is both a shame and a waste.
• In my opinion, many bright kids who are not challenged are going to find other outlets for their intellect.  Plenty of these kids will be just fine, of course, but others will find non-productive ways to use their brains.  In short, they’ll be geniuses at getting in trouble.  Again, some of these kids would probably find themselves on that path anyway, but I am willing to bet that some of them just need better direction and stimulation that is equal to their capabilities.
• I say the following after stipulating clear as day that I am a major proponent of public schools in our country: in the twenty-first century, public education—and some private institutions as well—focuses on achieving “adequacy;” it is even written into U.S. federal law.  (I speak here of the No Child Left Behind Act’s measure of “Adequate Yearly Progress,” for example.)  Much of the drive is devoted to lifting up students who need extra help, and this is appropriate and necessary.  However, I believe it is also essential that the potential for excellence not be forgotten in the process of achieving adequacy.  We mustn’t be satisfied with every kid doing “okay;” we also need to demand that some of our kids excel, and the only way that can happen is to make resources available to ensure that kids who want and need this extra push, this additional enrichment, can have access to it, regardless of what grade or school they are in.  Yes, the resources are limited, but we are doing a disservice to our kids and, ultimately, to our country if we simply say that good enough is always good enough.

Well, this is just one opinion on a blog post, and in it I’ve traveled from my family dilemma to national politics and priorities.  Clearly there is a lot of ground to be covered here.  I’ll stop now (and cheers to you if you are still reading), but I have merely introduced this topic.  If anyone has thoughts on the education of bright and/or gifted children–and I know you’re out there–I’d love to hear them.

In the meantime, I’ll go see if Jack wants to read some Shakespeare to me at bedtime.  (Okay, so now I’m exaggerating!)

The weather has turned colder, I’ve made that first visit to the local apple orchard and my son’s new lunchbox is purchased and waiting patiently for the first day of school.  I’ve blocked out a day next week to load kids’ videos into the DVD player while I force my protesting children to try on stacks of clothing to see what no longer fits and must be replaced.  I’ve even worn fleece this week.

Where the heck did the summer go?

Even though it’s been a crazy couple of months of keeping the kids busy, juggling day camps, daycare and weekend trips, scheduling the continual parade of contractors through our money-pit house, finding time to visit pools and mini-golf courses, I’ll still miss the careless aspect of the season.  Letting the kids stay up late, feeding them ice cream at any hour of the day—these are little luxuries that need to be reined in for the more structured school year.

On the other hand: “Jack” will be going to school four-and-a-half full days per week this year.  You’d think I’d be misty-eyed, but the truth is, that’s more time for me!  Right now, I’m squeezing my writing time into ten-minute patches between entertaining two bored young children, beating down the laundry stack and feeding and disciplining the kids.  To say that my productivity and focus have suffered is to make a vast understatement.  It will be nice to have some time to work again.

But as I pull the rest of the fleece and the lined jeans from the closet, as I bite into those amazingly crisp apples I’ll pull right off the trees, I’ll miss the warmth of summer, just a little.

Oh, who am I kidding?  As they used to sing in one of my all-time favorite commercials for Staples, back-to-school is “the most wonderful time of the year.”

As I mentioned in my last post, “Jack” and I just returned from a road trip.  We went to see friends who live about three hours away.  On Saturday, the drive back from our friends’ home took more than six hours.  Yes, we had planned a brief stop to visit the Dr. Seuss Memorial Sculpture Garden along the way, but that’s a fifteen-minute detour.  So what happened?

Here’s what I wrote to my friend in an e-mail when she asked that question:

We had no car trouble yesterday, just parenting trouble!  First, it turns out that the Sculpture Garden is attached to a science museum.  We were looking at an informational placard and Jack spotted the word “dinosaur.”  That was it; we had to go in.  We were there until 5:00.  I bought him a new book of mazes (another obsession lately) in the gift shop, and he was studying it in the back seat while we were driving.  About ten minutes out of town, he said, “I don’t feel good.”  Well, it was then that I realized that he had not had any water to drink all day (and he usually drinks a lot), he hadn’t eaten since the spaghetti at lunchtime, and he was reading in the back of the car.  What a combination.  So I pulled off at the first promising exit and ended up in a gas station/convenience store parking lot, feeding him applesauce out of my cooler bag.  He finally felt a little better and said he wanted dinner, so we got back on the road and then pulled off in Northampton.  Great little college town, no problem getting dinner, right?  Well, Jack eats one thing in a restaurant: pasta.  I finally found a place that would work–after walking around forever–and he said, “but I had pasta for lunch.  I don’t want it for dinner!”  We proceeded to have a lovely argument right there on the sidewalk about how if he wants to be able to eat in restaurants more, he’s going to have to learn to eat more kinds of food.  So then he told me he’d rather have the old peanut butter sandwich several blocks back in the car than eat at a restaurant, but at this point, we’d been walking around for at least half-an-hour, and I was hungry.  So I told him that we were going into a restaurant and he could watch me eat if that’s what he wanted, and then eat his sandwich in the car.  So I ordered him milk, and he drank that and shared my french fries.  We both forgot about the sandwich until we got home after 9pm. 

What more can I say?  We were both tired, hungry and cranky.

One more lesson learned on a road trip.

Uncharted Parent is on a road trip with “Jack.”  (Have portable DVD player, will travel.)  Check back on August 21 for my next post.

I’ve written here before about quotes springing from my children’s mouths that delight, that frustrate, that pique my curiosity.  Some of these are deliberate, some turn out to be inadvertent utterances that are the result of immature brains trying on for size words they’ve heard but don’t yet understand.

Yesterday, five-and-a-half year old “Jack” came out with a question that made me burst out laughing.  Jack asked me, in the presence of another adult, if we could take a long family car trip to Washington, D.C. in the near future. 

“You know we can’t take long car trips, honey,” I replied.  “’Emmie’” doesn’t do well in the car.”  I explained to the other adult that as a rule, we are unable to take long car trips due to the fact that two-year-old Emmie’s tolerance for car rides is only 45 minutes.  A DVD will buy us an additional 15-20 minutes; no more.  After the clock runs out, sustained, high-pitched, high-volume screaming threatens to make all of us burst into tears.

In the midst of my explanation about our car restrictions and how they limit our ability to travel, Jack interrupted with a question: “Are you bitter?”

Bitter?  Where did Jack learn to put words to an emotion like “bitter”?  Is this the same young child who has to be coaxed, prodded and tricked even into expressing feelings like “sad,” “mad” and “happy”?

After I and the other adult recovered from our laughing fit, I asked Jack, “Jack, where did you learn to ask a question like that?”

Jack was in giggles from the reaction his question had elicited.  “I don’t know,” he replied with a huge grin.  Then came the rest of the honesty: “I don’t know what ‘bitter’ means!”

I tried to reiterate my oft-repeated lesson about refraining from using words in conversation without knowing what they mean.  But I’m pretty sure the moral of this story was lost on Jack, given that he used the word so well and couldn’t have cracked me up more if he tried.

Am I bitter?  The next thing you know, he’ll be asking me if I’m having a mid-life crisis!

I don’t know how, but someone reached into my five-and-a-half year old son’s mind, pulled out his idea of the perfect fantasy, and plopped it down just outside of Mystic, Connecticut.

This weekend, we traveled for the first time to Dinosaur Crossing in Oakdale.  Dinosaur Crossing, and its adjoining Nature’s Place, provided an experience for “Jack” that he never dreamed possible.  Even young children who are not budding paleontologist-hikers like Jack, I suspect, would have a fantastic time here.

The Dinosaur Crossing experience began with a mile-and-a-half of nature trails studded with life-sized models of dinosaurs and a volcano that periodically erupts steam and water (well, the liability would be pretty high for actual lava, wouldn’t it?).  Now, Jack knows more about dinosaurs than any child I have ever met—don’t even think of discussing the topic with him if you don’t know an archaeopteryx from a hypsilophodon—but he and I were both impressed with the number of new-to-us dinosaurs we encountered on the trails.

Our trek on the trails came to an end at the feet of an enormous Brachiosaurus—I snapped a shot of Jack, his head reaching only part of the way up the huge beast’s leg.  We forced Jack to break for lunch, but as soon as he could, he changed into his bathing suit and cavorted around the Splashpad, where he got soaking wet and was able to shoot water out of dinosaurs’ mouths at other kids.  From there, he traveled to the nearby playground replete with climbing structures to challenge the most agile children.  Then it was off to the indoor building that serves as the Nature’s Place part of the compound, where (for an admittedly hefty fee), he mined for “crystals” and “gold” (actually various minerals and pyrite, respectively), and he got to keep his haul.  Then it was off to a final stop at the well-stocked gift shop for a treat—as if he needed more—and then we were finally able to drag an exhausted yet ecstatic little boy back to our hotel room.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the park’s downsides: it was definitely not geared to toddlers; two-and-a-half year old “Emmie” was bored on the trails, scared of the volcano and too small to ascend the climbing structures on the playground.  You also can’t really get out cheap: admission is pricey, which I didn’t mind, but it’s impossible to steer past the gift shops and those are filled with toys designed to part you from your money if only to stop the certain pleading from your children.  But hey, they had an ice cream shop for the grownups—that was enough to make my day.

The final drawback for us about Dinosaur Crossing is that I’m a bit apprehensive about our next family outing.  From Jack’s perspective, once you’ve achieved perfection, how could anything else possibly measure up?

“Mommy pack Emmie bathing soups?”  Two-year-old “Emmie” wanted to know exactly what I was doing, as always.  “Yes, sweetie, I’m packing your bathing soups.”

My daughter and I were not, as one might suspect, discussing some intriguing new variety of Campbell’s liquid nourishment.  Though others might be mystified by our conversation, we both knew that we were discussing Emmie’s bathing suits, which I was in the process of placing in our suitcase for our upcoming trip.

Anyone who has spent any time around very young children knows that parents and their toddlers develop their own language.  Moms and dads can understand what to any other adult is pure gibberish emanating from their children’s mouths.

What may be less well known to non-parents, however, is the sheer delight that adults can absorb from listening to their children’s earnest attempts to make sense of adult language and manipulate it for their own purposes.  Emmie wanted to ask me about bathing suits; she could, I suspect, hear the words “bathing suits” in her head, but her immature mouth couldn’t quite manage that ‘t’ sound at the end of the word.  So Emmie talks to us instead about “bathing soups.”  My husband and I find this so adorable that we often mirror her language back to her instead of correcting her.  Occasionally, my husband and I will find ourselves talking about “bathing soups” even when there are no kids in the room at all.

Parenting is rife with these little, golden nuggets of speech development.  According to Emmie, I use “floff” on my teeth before I brush them.  (“Floff,” by the way, has been pronounced “disgusting,” although I don’t really know why.)  When five-and-a-half year old “Jack” was Emmie’s age, he didn’t eat bananas, he ate “binas.”  And when he learned to count (which I am fairly certain he could do in his head before he could speak), he began his numbers with a confident, “na, too, tee.” 

Now, part of me knows that I ought to correct—kindly, of course—these mispronunciations when I hear them.  But I think back to a disagreement I witnessed several years ago between a friend and her husband about whether to correct their four-year-old daughter’s mispronunciation of “air conditioning.”  (I’m afraid the limited letters of our alphabet will not permit me to transliterate the child’s made-up word here.)  Her husband felt it was their duty to teach their daughter correct speech, but my friend argued, “she’ll learn it the right way eventually.  It’s so cute; just leave it alone.”  At the time, I thought my friend’s husband was right.

But now I know how precious these gems really are.  They can bring a smile to my face even if I am angry or downcast, and for that, they are not to be discounted.  And my friend was right: they will correct themselves eventually.  (Now that Jack is older, I have begun to correct his speech errors more than I used to.)  For now, I think, I will just enjoy them while I can.

So go ahead, put on your bathing suit.  In our house, only bathing soups will do.

My sister uttered these words to me not long ago as we were trying to assuage our mutual guilt about not spending as much time as we thought we should playing games with our children.

For a lot of prospective parents, I think, one of the many attractions about the concept of having kids is the chance to revisit the amusements and the discoveries of youth.  But this time, we imagine, we will get to see them with the wisdom and appreciation that comes from adult experience.  Candyland will be fun, bubbles will be wondrous, testing our powers of observation via games of “I Spy” will be amusing.  Having kids will give us the excuse to be kids ourselves again.

Except three games in a row of distracted yet competitive Candyland isn’t fun, it’s maddening.  Bubbles are cool for five minutes, but then they’re all the same after that.  And a game or two of “I Spy” in the car can indeed be amusing, but the 874^th time you say “I spy a tree,” you might begin to think that listening to the same Raffi CD over and over and over again might actually be a preferable way to travel.

Modern, conventional parenting wisdom tells us that good moms relish every minute they have to get down on their knees and play with their kids.  (Not to feed stereotypes, but dads, for some reason, don’t seem to have the same reservations about constant play with the kids the way many moms do.  Do men have an easier time accessing their “inner children” than moms do?  Maybe that’s another topic for another time.)  But adults don’t play “dinosaurs attack” on their own time because, well, we’re adults.  We’ve got responsibilities like working, paying bills, cleaning the house, running endless errands, etc.  We know now that if we don’t do this stuff, no one will.  And although we of course love much of the time we spend with our kids, our personal, preferred amusements in our spare time tend to differ from what our kids like to do with their time. 

I think that’s okay.

I do spend time playing with my kids.  It’s a great way to learn about them, to teach them about various concepts in ways that are fun, to guide them in learning how to, for example, be competitive but still lose graciously.  Playing with my kids can also, of course, be a blast sometimes; dancing like crazy people to tunes blasting out of the iPod with two hysterically laughing children is as amusing for me as it is for them.  And of course there are times when I play with my kids for no other reason beyond the fact that they want me to; after all, fulfilling their needs is what parenting is all about.

But sometimes when my kids want me to play, I say no.  Sometimes I’d rather read a book (although constant interruptions rarely permit that activity while the kids are awake anyway).  Sometimes I’d rather knock some items off of my to-do list.  Sometimes I’d rather have an adult conversation with my husband. 

And you know what happens?  Sometimes the kids figure out how to amuse themselves.  It can be a win-win situation for everyone.