UnchartedParent.com

The blogosphere has been buzzing with this one, so put on your hip boots and let’s wade right in.

Here’s the conversation: On September 14, the N.Y. Times Health section ran a column written by Alfie Kohn, author of numerous books on human behavior and education. Kohn posited that popular, modern discipline techniques such as time outs and praise amount to parents conditioning their love for their children on the children’s behavior. Kohn stated that these techniques teach kids their parents only love them when they do as they are told, and that the result of using these “conditional parenting” techniques is children who act in response to “strong internal pressure” rather than “a real sense of choice.” These children, he wrote, grow up to be insecure, anxious adults who dislike their parents. Instead of using time outs and positive reinforcement, Kohn stated that parents ought to unconditionally accept their children by utilizing “autonomy support”; for example, “explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view.”

Oh yeah. There was a response to this.

Not surprisingly, lots of people wrote to the N.Y. Times. (Heck, I even found Kohn’s piece in my email inbox more than once.) So many people had something to say about it that Lisa Belkin ran a post on her Motherlode blog (on the N.Y. Times website) that included a response from Kohn to all of the objections to his initial column. Foremost among these objections seemed to be the criticism that while Kohn’s advice sounded lovely if we all lived in a parenting utopia where we never had to be anywhere on time and all errands and appointments could be indefinitely postponed in favor of reasoned discussions with our reasonable children, this is not the world in which we parent. Many responders stated their beliefs that Kohn was naïve and that the proof of his naiveté was that he failed to outline any actual, workable techniques parents could use in the real world as a substitute for the techniques he condemned. (As of this writing, there were 146 comments appended to Belkin’s blog post. I will confess that I did not read them all.)

Whew.

There’s a lot of ground to cover here, and it’s hard to know where to begin.

I like to start with the positive when I can, so I will commence by saying, yes, I think Kohn is correct that parental conditional love can irreparably harm a child. A child needs to know that his parents love him no matter what, and this message needs to be communicated clearly and often in both word and deed. I’ll even go beyond that and stipulate that to feel the respect every child—and every person—deserves, a child needs to know that his parents like him. While there are undoubtedly a few exceptions out there, I’m willing to bet that an adult who is so inclined can find one or more aspects of just about any child’s persona worth appreciating. As a child gets older, parents need to think harder about the line between unacceptable behavior and autonomous personality traits and behaviors that rightfully fall into the child’s, and eventually the adult child’s, domain.

But what if your child behaves in an unlikeable manner?

Here is where I part company with Kohn. I think that there is a line between behavior and personhood, and there is a second line between behaviors that are downright unacceptable and behaviors that are merely not in accord with my personal preference. For example, four-year-old “Emmie” is a talker. She can and often does talk for hours and hours and hours at a time. I’m a quieter person and usually by hour three, I feel like my head is going to spin right off. Whose problem is this? Mine. Sure, sometimes I wish Emmie would talk less, but just because she and I are different in this respect doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate having tons of insight into what she’s thinking and how she views the world. Even as the chatter frustrates me I can recognize the good ideas and precocious comments that reveal who she is. Emmie is a warm, empathetic, intelligent little girl, and though I may want to don noise-blocking earphones sometimes, I’m glad I get to hear all of those traits gushing from her brain. Even if sometimes it drives me crazy.

But Emmie also has a contrarian side that often bursts forth in screaming, kicking temper-tantrums and refusals to do what she has been asked or told to do just for the sake of defiance. Sometimes when she—or seven-year-old “Jack”—objects to a command or recommendation, we do talk it through and I offer my reasons so that the kids will understand why we don’t buy a useless, expensive toy or why we can’t spend the entire summer at a water park. But other times, Emmie needs to hear that it’s just unacceptable and disrespectful to scream insults or hateful words at people, and if a time out is necessary to drive that point home, so be it. There isn’t always time for an exchange of ideas if the school bus is coming or we’ve got a doctor’s appointment in fifteen minutes. We’re the parents for a reason, and it’s not always possible or even desirable to give kids a choice:

“Yes, kids, I know you don’t like needles. I don’t either, but you are getting that vaccination.” No choice.

“You can do your homework before soccer or after soccer, but you are going to do it.” Choice of when, but not if.

“You can wear one of these outfits to religious services, but not the torn jeans and T-shirt.” Limited choice.

“You may not hit your brother and you know that.” No choice at all.

Our job as parents is to protect and to teach, to raise children who will grow into adults capable of making good decisions. We hope that they will like us, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, we know that there will be points along the way where they don’t. And if we want them to like us when they are adults, we will remember to respect and treat them as independent beings responsible for their own decisions then. But until they are adults, we need to make some decisions for them and teach them that there are consequences for their actions in age-appropriate ways that account for their cognitive and emotional capabilities. Sometimes it’s just not possible to reason with a two-year-old or a four-year-old. Sometimes even though the seven-year-old or the ten-year-old or twelve-year-old is capable of understanding why something she did is wrong, they still need to be shown that there are consequences, and I see nothing wrong with saying, “I’m very disappointed in you because of what you did. I love you and I know you, and I know you can treat people better/behave more responsibly/etc. than this.” Life imposes consequences for our actions on all adults, and it’s our job as parents to make sure that this fact doesn’t shock the hell out of our kids when they leave our protection and enter the real world.

Rather than address Kohn’s recommendations point-by-point (as this is already one of the longest posts I’ve ever written), I’ll recommend that you follow the links above and read what he’s got to say on your own if you are interested in learning more. You can also read the rather interesting discussion in the comments to the response and throughout the blogosphere. To me, Kohn’s attempt to offer alternative solutions to what he terms “conditional love” presents aspirations that can, at best, work only some of the time.

Teaching our kids that there are consequences to their actions—both negative and positive—is not conditional love. It’s parenting. It can and should be done in a manner that gradually offers children more responsibility for their choices as they grow up and shows them that they are valuable human beings worthy of love and respect. And if we don’t accomplish this, then we are not doing our jobs as parents.

As Uncharted Parent is in the throes of a head-cold induced migraine today, please forgive me if I ramble.

(On that point: people who don’t live in northern New England think that the reds and golds of the local flora are how we mark the commencement of autumn. Not true. We appreciate the beauty, but we don’t live our lives by the leaves; that’s for tourists. In fact, there are two other events that confirm the end of summer even more reliably than the planting of ninety-eight percent of the male population in front of the television to cheer on/yell obscenities at the Patriots.

First, those who manage road construction—and someone is managing these things, right?—order a rapid increase in the pace so that suddenly, a five-minute trip from home takes an hour once you’ve navigated the multiple detours through backyards and cornfields. Then, as if ordered by divine intervention, all of the construction ceases completely, leaving gaping holes and uneven highway pavement in states of mid-repair to be finished the following spring.

Second, it suddenly becomes the rule rather than the exception to greet adults and children alike in between sniffles, coughs and the occasional trip to the bathroom to throw up. When summer is over, we get sick. Someone is always sick, so even when you’ve cast off whatever you’ve got, it’s impossible to make it through the day without running into someone else’s germs, which then cause you to begin a brand new incubation period for yourself and your family. The prominent warnings this year about staying home whenever you’re ill so as not to spread germs make me laugh; if we followed that advice up here, we would all have to shut ourselves in our houses like bears in their dens and not emerge until May. Besides, no self-respecting New Englander is going to stay home because of a cold, and that goes for the kids, too. You’ve got the sniffles? If I can climb up onto the damn roof with a 102-degree fever to shovel the snow, you can stuff a pack of tissues in your backpack and go to school. Now quit whining and get on that bus.

Wow, that was a huge digression. Like I said, blame the head cold.)

Here’s the real point of my post for today:

Last night, four-year-old “Emmie” and I enjoyed the rare treat of dining alone. Emmie was delighted to have mommy all to herself at the dinner table, and she took the opportunity to inquire politely about my day, ask how the aforementioned cold was progressing (seriously, she sounded like she was thirty years old) and ponder aloud her own future. Now, I pride myself on being open-minded. I live a fairly traditional lifestyle myself, but I fervently believe that my way is not the only way and I have many friends who do not fit my particular mold. Still, I found myself unprepared to respond to one of Emmie’s ambitions.

“When I grow up, I want to be a mommy and a teacher,” Emmie stated.

“Yes, I know, you’ve said that,” I replied. “I think that sounds great.”

“Annnnnnnd, I think my family will have a mommy and a baby in it.”

“Hmm. That sounds good. What about a daddy?”

Emmie cocked her head to one side and thought. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t want a daddy in my family. I just want a mommy and a baby.”

“Oh.” Wow. Slapped in the face by my own beliefs. How was I to respond to this? I have no problem with single parenthood. I actually admire the heck out of single parents because I swear I don’t know what I would do some days if I couldn’t say to my husband, “Honey, I’m so glad you’re home. Please deal with your children. If I have to referee one more dispute about who’s butt strayed to the other’s side of the big chair first during the Sesame Street episode that neither of them even wanted to watch until I told them it was time to clean up the playroom, I will leave this house and never come back.”

But single parenthood as a childhood ambition? Do I commend this childish expression of a dream? Do I back up what I believe when my child confronts me with it? Or do I try to explain to my four-year-old that parenting is hard, harder than you can imagine (although you’d think she’d have a clue given the screaming temper-tantrum she threw earlier in the afternoon that led to a time-out on a sidewalk), and if you find yourself a single parent one day in the far, far future, fine, I’ll support you, but really, you should try and find someone to fulfill this ambition with you?

In the end, I did what any parent might have done: I punted. I excused myself from the table and ran to my desk to jot down this conversation before I forgot it so that I could write about it today. When I returned to the dinner table, I introduced an entirely new topic. Being four, Emmie happily moved on with me.

Whew. Dodged that one. I’d better start planning now for the inevitable day my kids raise the topic of drinking in college. (I’m thinking of going with, “Um, go talk to your father.”)

If you’re the adoptive parent of a young child, have I got a tip for you.

There’s a new show in town: Dinosaur Train. I somehow missed all of the buzz over the summer for this new PBS, animated series by the Jim Henson Company, so it took me completely by surprise when I discovered it two weeks ago. In my house, anything with the word “dinosaur” in it is by default a hit until proved otherwise, so we immediately set the DVR to record every episode.

Both of my children now race to view new episodes every day. Seven-year-old “Jack” loves the subject matter even though he recognizes the silliness of talking dinosaurs who ride time-travel trains through various geologic periods. (Personally, I find this show less vapid than the The Land Before Time series of television shows and movies, another favorite of Jack’s. At least these dinosaurs employ more or less proper grammar when they speak.) Four-year-old “Emmie” watches it primarily because Jack does, and because it’s one of the few TV shows that don’t frighten her.

What did surprise me, however, was the fact that one of the main characters in the show is adopted. “Buddy” is a baby tyrannosaurus rex whose egg somehow landed in the same nest with a clutch of pterandon eggs. They all hatched together, and mama pterandon is raising Buddy along with her biological children.

(Now if the fact that an actual pterandon would never have raised a T-rex is going to bother you, stop reading right here. This show is not for you. But as Jack the Dinosaur Expert said as he rolled his eyes in response to my questioning the veracity of train-riding, chit-chatting dinosaurs, “Mommy, it’s pretend.” If you can suspend your disbelief long enough to enjoy a preschool-level attempt to get kids interested in science—complete with a live paleontologist who offers actual dinosaur facts at the conclusion of each episode—then please read on.)

What’s particularly notable about the show is that it faces adoption issues head-on and without preaching or focusing too much on Buddy’s status in the family. Adoption is part of what makes up this dino-family, but they have got much more going on than that—just like real adoptive families. Mama pterandon answers questions from all of her kids about the fact that Buddy looks different from his siblings and she doesn’t balk when Buddy wants to search for his birth-species. At the same time, when another young T-rex asks Buddy if he wouldn’t rather live with his own species, Buddy informs the T-rex that his adoptive family loves him and states, “I can’t wait to get home because that’s where my family lives.” Then the family moves on to something else.

So if you’ve got a young child, check out Dinosaur Train. It’s fun, it offers positive adoption messages, and hey, it’s about dinosaurs. What reason could you have not to get on board? (Just leave the scientific perfectionist in you behind. If you can accept that dinosaurs can talk, you’ll be fine.)

Uncharted Parent had a birthday this week. As you well know, these events are a lot less exciting now than they were when we were younger. I mean, sure, on the whole it’s much better to pass these milestones than not, but “getting older” means something entirely different now than it did when we were kids.

Take, for example, my age. For some reason, my new age presented itself to me in a way I hadn’t ever experienced before. All day, a voice in my head kept shouting, “only seven years away from fifty!”

Now that’s strange, because when I look in the mirror, I don’t see a woman who is only seven years away from turning fifty. Fifteen years away, maybe. (Stop. Laughing. Now.) But not seven. Seven seems so close, like an address in the next town over instead of a destination hidden from sight down a long, distant road. I can think ahead seven years and actually see what I might want my life to be then. My oldest child is seven, and he really wasn’t born all that long ago, was he?

This is what I did to myself all day.

My children, however, provided a few unexpected salves for my self-inflicted torment. They are getting older, too, and they decided on their own that my birthday presented them with an ideal opportunity to display their maturity.

Seven-year-old “Jack” stepped out of whine-and-complain mode for an entire day. He even pitched in to help with a few chores without any prompting from me: he picked up a large cooler sitting in the kitchen and brought it into the garage, then loaded it into the car; he trudged across an apple orchard to throw our trash away and he emptied his school backpack and distributed all of its contents to their proper locations. When I did ask him to complete a few additional tasks, he complied without complaint.

If there’s any better present for a mom than getting her first glimpse at a son turning into a considerate, thoughtful and helpful young man, I don’t know what it is.

Four-year-old “Emmie” contributed, too. She announced the night before that she would behave for the duration of my birthday.

“That would be lovely,” I replied. Then I went into the next room and laughed.

But Emmie, too, abandoned the usual complaints, manipulations and attempts at control that characterize much of her days, at least when she was with me. (She did lapse briefly after I woke her from her nap, but returned to her temporarily cooperative self when I reminded her that my birthday had not yet ended. Yeah, I know: I used it. Can you really blame me?) She even went along with my decision regarding which toppings to put on the pizza.

So all in all, it was a good day, in spite of the nagging little voice in my head that insisted on playing tricks with my age. Yes, it seems I am now measuring my years by their distance from the big 5-0, but at least I can look at my kids and hold a reasonable expectation that I’ll have something pretty great when I get there.

We celebrate three New Years in our house. There’s the New Year everyone knows, which begins on January 1. There’s the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which begins this coming Friday night. And we observe Sol-nal, the Lunar New Year celebrated in the Korean culture, which will next fall on February 14, 2010.

But there’s a fourth, informal new year that we observe, and you probably observe it, too. It begins in early September—or sometimes late August—with the arrival of the academic year. We’re trained to mark our lives by this commencement. Even once we’ve left school to enter the working world, the feeling that something new begins in September sticks with us, and then we find ourselves defining our lives by that calendar once again when we become parents.

There’s an added dimension to this new year when you have kids.

For example, for four-year-old “Emmie,” the academic new year marks the opening of new worlds she was never quite ready to enter before. Last year, Emmie had asked to take ballet and gymnastics lessons. Though I’d believed three years old was too young for these pursuits to be worthwhile, I decided that since she had come to me with the request—over and over again—I would let her try. So I bought her leotards, tights and ballet slippers, paid for lessons and . . . she refused to enter the studio or the gym. No amount of reasoning or persuading would convince her to do what she had sworn she wanted to do. I got some of my money back. Experiment aborted. (Does anyone out there want a pair of very small, never-really-used ballet slippers?)

But this year, it was a different story.

Emmie began repeating her requests for dance and gymnastics lessons in the spring, and we spent months discussing the need for her to actually participate if I signed her up for lessons. She swore repeatedly that she would, and I watched as her excitement built up as the first lessons approached. Again I bought ballet slippers, paid for lessons and warily drove her to the studio and the gym.

Emmie bounced into both dance studio and gym without even looking back at me. Normally shy in new situations, she spoke her name loudly and clearly to teachers, asked questions and responded whenever a question was asked of her. I watched her face screw up with concentration as she tried to replicate a “princess walk” in ballet and observed her trying repeatedly to master a handstand in gymnastics, even when the teacher was working with someone else.

A year ago, Emmie had desires but not the maturity to follow through. But this year, she proudly donned her leotards, baby belly scarcely protruding anymore as it did last year, and she meets the challenges she’s set for herself with excitement. I look at Emmie and I no longer see a baby face; I see a little girl on her way to owning her world.

And it’s not just Emmie. As I took stock of the little kids mingling with parents and students filing into our synagogue sanctuary for the annual opening day assembly this past Sunday, I realized with some astonishment that my son and his peers could no longer be counted among them. Seven-year-old “Jack” and his classmates all look like older children now, more like the teenagers they’ll be before we know it than the preschoolers they were just a few short years ago. They behave differently, too: they paid attention to the rabbi and the religious school principle without prompting by parents, and some even greeted me and other adults with the eye contact and other signs of courtesy we’ve always hoped our kids would learn. These kids, who all have grown impossibly tall, read books, ask thoughtful questions about the world around them and now leave their parents’ sides for wide ranges of activities without a second thought.

When did all of this happen?

Lest you think I’m wallowing in sentimentality, let me put your mind at ease: I’m not. I’m now the mother of a second-grader and a preschooler, and I’m counting the days until I’ve got two kids in school every day, all day. But I’d be lying if I said that I’m not consciously trying to grab every moment with my son (when he’s not whining) that I can, because he still wants to be with me, and I know that other, more desirable companions will soon take my place. I don’t know if ballet and gymnastics will be passing interests or passions for Emmie, but her striking change in attitude reminds me that I can’t even imagine what she’ll be capable of next year, or the year after that. (I have to confess, however, that watching Emmie’s tantrums grow in correlation with her age turns my heart cold when I think of adding teenage hormones to the equation.)

It’s a new year for all of us, but that’s why we got into this parenting thing in the first place, isn’t it? The uncharted territory we face is exhilarating, scary, wistful, fun and, of course, exhausting. But no matter what it is, pay attention to it, because the only thing we know for sure as parents is that a year from now, lots of things will look different all over again.

This is the last time I’m going to talk about this, I swear. But I just had to share my son’s reaction to the The Speech.

Seven-year-old “Jack” watched President Obama’s much anticipated, much maligned-in-advance speech at school on Friday. (Administrators recorded it, screened it and decided the kids could watch it after all, though parents could opt their kids out if they so chose.) As we drove through town later that afternoon, Jack volunteered the information that he had seen the President’s speech. (You will recall that Jack rarely tells me anything about school—or much else in his life, so his initiation of this conversation was an event in itself. I was impressed already.)

“What did you think of the speech?” I asked, casting a surprised glance into the rearview mirror.

“Good.”

I figured that as Jack had been the one to start the conversation, he wanted to discuss the topic. I just needed to ask better questions.

“What did the President tell you? What did he talk about?”

“He told us that we should work hard to achieve our goals and that we should pay attention and stay in school.”

Nothing controversial there. “Well, that sounds like good advice. Did you talk about it after the speech or did you just watch the speech and then go back to doing what you usually do in school?” (Not, of course, that I know what Jack usually does in school. I’ll need a meeting with his teacher to uncover that information.)

“We talked about it. We talked about setting goals for the year. I decided that my goals this year are to explore more science because I want to be a paleontologist and an inventor when I grow up, so I need to learn a lot about science.”

Holy cow. I didn’t even realize my son knew what goals were once he walked off the soccer field. Moreover, he never talks about what he wants to be when he grows up, even when asked. And he shared all of this with me in a conversation he himself launched. The President’s speech not only penetrated his brain, but it sparked further conversation, independent thinking about the future and goal-setting.

President Obama, you can talk to my kids about school anytime you want.

I now return this blog to its regularly scheduled topics.

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, please stop for a moment and remember what happened in our country eight years ago today.

I know it’s tempting simply to proceed with our daily lives. We have not been attacked at home since September 11, 2001, and we are all so busy. And unless you make a point to tune into one of the televised memorial services today, you might make it through the entire day without even realizing that anything is amiss.

But family members and friends of the fallen do not have such luxury. Most of them will go through today feeling in some measure like the claw that ripped at their hearts eight years ago is visiting them anew. Take a moment to stand in solidarity with them, to remember the lives that were lost and the ongoing struggle of the loved ones they left behind.

We parents have an extra responsibility. I expect that by the end of the day, I will again confront questions from my seven-year-old son—and this year, maybe even from my rather perceptive four-year-old daughter—about the flag pin I wear today. I will struggle to answer them, as I do every year, as I imagined I would in the days after the attack whenever I placed my hand on my pregnant stomach and wondered if we would ever feel safe again in our then-home just outside of Washington, D.C.

My heart today lies especially with those who gather at the Pentagon Memorial , so close to where I lived in September of 2001. I was present with them a year ago at the Memorial’s dedication and I have come to know some of the people who comprise this community. I wish there was some way to alter their pain today, but I know there is not. Thus I can only offer condolences and a wish that the day pass for them in a way that acknowledges the depth of their loss and promises the hope that some of them have found and others still seek.

As a country, we face many challenges. We must remain vigilant about both our security and our civil liberties, a daunting task but one which we can achieve. As parents, we must educate our children even as we protect them from the most horrible images and truths. And as individuals, we must, above all, do one thing today: remember.

Here’s a post I wasn’t expecting to write.

When we discover a children’s book we love, I share that title with my readers. The book I’m blogging about today was not one I planned to write about. When four-year-old “Emmie” first asked me to read it to her, I thought it was a pleasant enough story but it didn’t make a huge first impression on me. I learned yesterday, however, that it made a significant impression on Emmie.

I was driving home with the kids yesterday afternoon and we were listening to NPR on the way. The reporter was interviewing older kids and adults about the reaction to President Obama’s noon speech on education. (What else would they have been talking about?) I wondered briefly if the story was making any impact on seven-year-old “Jack,” when Emmie suddenly interrupted my thoughts with this gem: “When I grow up, I want to have a good life, so I have to work very, very hard.”

Whoa.

No way, I thought. No way Emmie has been absorbing this story and translating the President’s message to her own life. She’s a smart cookie, but she’s only four. And she’s not one to spout principled values unless she’s trying to contradict them. I couldn’t imagine how in the world she had figured this out.

“That’s right!” I exclaimed. “That’s exactly right. Good job. And where did you learn this?”

She smiled her good-puppy-dog smile as she always does when praised. “It’s in the book where the guy with the spoon doesn’t want to work but he does work and then he gets a good life. When you work hard, you get a good life and I want a good life when I’m a grown-up.”

Wow. I had no idea Emmie had actually picked up on the message in this story and thought about it. I am impressed. I am also a fan of any book that can spark this level of thought in my child, so now I will share it with you.

Shlemazel and the Remarkable Spoon of Pohost, by Ann Redisch Stampler, tells the story of a young man in an Old Country, Polish shtetl who complains of having no luck. (Shlemazel is the Yiddish term for an unlucky person; a shtetl is a village.) A fellow villager tricks Shlemazel into working hard day after day and Shlemazel becomes prosperous and fulfilled. Though the title character never fully understands the lesson that success comes from hard work instead of idly waiting for luck to find you, the reader perceives the lesson without any trouble at all—even if that reader is only four years old.

Here’s the Amazon link for the book:

Jewish or not, you can’t argue with a book that so successfully communicates the value of hard work to a four-year-old.

(By the way, I received this book through the PJ Library, a program founded and funded by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation that sends books free of charge to subscriber households in order to support Jewish families’ in their Jewish journeys. Books are distributed through local Jewish organizations, and if you go to the PJ Library, you can find out if a program is available in your area.)

As a follow-up to my last post, here’s the link for the text of President Obama’s speech to school kids about education scheduled for noon tomorrow.

Or, watch and listen to it live. Assuming I’ve got this right in terms of technology (and that is a big assumption), you can watch the speech as it happens right here:

(If this doesn’t work, it’s a safe bet that it’s my fault, not the White House’s. In that case you can just go to www.whitehouse.gov and find the feed there.)

Take a look at it, and decide what you think.

Is this for real?

The President of the United States plans to give a speech to schoolchildren telling them to work hard and stay in school. And some people—mostly people who oppose the President politically—are horrified by this. For example, a state senator in Oklahoma stated, “This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” And a woman named Karen Thoman of Nashua, N.H. offered these words to my very own local newspaper: “Is he going to be saying to these little kids, ‘You have the duty to go out into the public and work as hard as you can and help other people out?’ . . . I think it’s all part of a bigger agenda: the servitude of our children.”

Are you kidding me?

People wonder why we can’t manage a considered, substantive debate on health care and other critical issues weighing on our country right now. When I read quotes like this, I think I know the answer.

Now before you start shouting at me, “But you’re an avid Obama supporter; that’s why YOU’RE in favor of this,” let’s slow down and think about this for a moment. (Yup, that’s right: think.)

What we’re talking about here is a speech being made by the President of the United States. It doesn’t matter what your politics are or if you like him; he is the President. You don’t have to agree with him, but he deserves the respect owed to every occupant of that office. (And by the way, George H. W. Bush did something similar when he was president, and look: the country is still in one piece.)

I vehemently disagreed with most of what our last president did and said during his eight years in office. I also disagreed, however, with people who said things like, “He’s not my president.” I’m an American, so George W. Bush was my president. It was a fact whether I liked it or not. Fortunately, we live in a country where we enjoy the freedom to criticize our leaders.

Children need to be given the chance to develop their own opinions about the world and what they see in it. And showing the President’s speech in school presents a perfect opportunity for parents to discuss with their children what they’ve seen and heard. Parents who disagree with the President’s position can ask their children for their thoughts and then follow up with, “Well, think about this . . .” or “Here’s another way to look at it . . .”

That’s called education. Put another way, the President’s speech provides us parents with a teachable moment. Decide what lessons you would like your child to take away from it (personally, I’d advise something more thoughtful than, “President Obama is icky”), and have a conversation with your kid. Hard work and helping others are points on which we can all agree. (Oh, sorry Ms. Thoman.) If you are not a fan of President Obama, you could even use this moment to impart the lesson that it’s important to respect the President—and others—even when you disagree with them. You have a lot of choices here.

My own son is only now getting old enough to understand the most basic political concepts. Several years ago, however, I remember a friends’ eight-year-old son suddenly expressing his approval for the war in Iraq, a war I strongly opposed (and still do).

“Why do you support the war?” I asked him.

“Because the President is leading this war and I think people should support the President.”

“That sounds like a valid opinion to me,” I replied.

I disagreed with his position—and probably would have discussed that if I had been talking to my own child—but I also completely supported his right to his opinion and I greatly respected the fact that, at the age of eight, he had thought enough about the issue to form any reason-based opinion on the matter at all. He is lucky to have parents who support their children’s right to learn and form their own opinions.

So let’s all take a deep breath and stop freaking out over the President’s speech to kids. What’s the worst thing that can happen? You and your kids might have a substantive discussion about government and/or politics, and your kids might actually think.

Then we can move on to a debate worth having.