It's one of those unfortunate parts of parenting that we look back with regret at things that we did wrong with our kids. We focus on the mistakes and envision hours of analysis that will happen later to undo those mistakes. I'll forever beat myself up for not putting Ian in a private pre-school program that would have provided him with better therapy ealier on. But today, I'm going to focus on the positive.
A short brag. Jonah is coming home with a folder full of perfect scores on his tests. He's plowing through book after book, which thump off his top bunk when he finally falls asleep at night. He's participating in the computer programming club and the school newspaper. He was one point away from getting a perfect score on his state math test. He tells me with shock that he's the teacher's pet in English.
Jonah has never been the teacher's pet before. We knew that he was very smart, but the school administered IQ tests didn't show it (at first). Those IQ tests were unreliable; there was a 20 point gap between years. Still, the teachers used them to size up the kids and to determine placement in the G&T program. He daydreamed in class. He was fidgety. His handwriting was sloppy. He was over looked.
Both Steve and I were also daydreaming, fidgety kids, so we empathized. We downplayed the B+'s and decided that the most important skill that Jonah needed was to develop a love of reading. We took the kids regularly to Barnes and Noble and bought them one book each. We read every night to Jonah until he turned 11. Now, I'll read books along with him, and we'll discuss them. (This is actually really fun. There are some great YA books out there.) We had mandatory reading time every night before bed. We have a bookcase of kids' books in their playroom.
Question of the Day: OK, parent brag time! What are you doing right?
Apt. 11d 
Yay for J! It’s great to hear that he’s flowering.
I have a hard time bragging on this, because I really do believe most of what my children are is them, and not me. I’m proud that my daughter is comfortable with being different. She is different, in how she looks and acts and our family is different. So I’m glad that she’s never wanted, for example, to have long blonde hair (on the radio this morning, because of a new Sesame Street song), or a Dorothy Hamill haircut. I’m glad that she’s never felt a need to campaign to celebrate Christmas in our house in order to feel that she belongs. I’m glad that she seems to be willing to leave the crowd and pursue her own path (most recently when she left a gaggle of girls to sit under the trees to write her own haikus). I think we’ve helped her to be this person, though I think the nucleus was there already. Without our reinforcement she still wouldn’t have fit in, but might have felt more angst about it.
Oh, and I don’t know that I can brag on myself for my son, who is the most persistent and flexible child imaginable, who finds the world completely and utterly filled with awesomeness and fascination. But, we at least didn’t mess something up there.
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How about an exchange about those great YA books and conversations? What new books are kids reading these days? What old books are worth finding in the library? What are parents reading to their kids? What should we be reading to our kids?
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Constantly stressing the use of proper grammar seems to be paying off.
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Gave them lots of adult friends so they had lots of different models for being an adult.
Taught them that friendship and love don’t include poor treatment–nobody gets through the door (of my house, of my heart) who doesn’t treat me well.
Read, sang, and danced with them–still do, even though they’re 20 and 24 (the older one has kids of his own, too).
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Weirdly–teaching my kids manners seems to be mostly paying off nicely. I’m also proud of their eating and exercise habits. And they’re just nice people. We’ve emphasized being nice to people even when it’s hard to be.
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Forced them to take piano lessons, and kept after them to practice. It opened their minds (well, the oldest two so far, anyway) to the possibilities of applied discipline, to a sense of accomplishment upon completing goals, and to an appreciation of music and art. I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t for Melissa, so really she gets all the credit there.
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Our daughter doesn’t really put up with people putting her down. She is very much herself, which is, to me, unbelievable considering she’s 11.
My son likes to add a little something to his homework to make it interesting. Sometimes a drawing, sometimes a smart (or smart-aleck) comment. Today he labelled the margins of a worksheet “Space, “More space” and “Even more space.” I have to say, I really love the way my kids challenge authority, even the authority of the school worksheet. 🙂
I second the call for a discussion of YA lit. I’m thinking maybe I should donate some books to the 7th grade class we’re working with for community service. I know lots of good books for girls, having a 6th grader myself, but what books would be good for 7th grade boys? All I can think of are fantasy/scifi books.
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J. (age 5) loves oatmeal, which I consider a major success since high cholesterol runs in her paternal line. 🙂
Emphasizing and teaching niceness as a value and trait is paying off too — it never occurred to me to consciously talk about it, but we do and it works well. Having a one-year-old J say indignantly “I’m nice!” when asked if she ever bites anyone was both amusing and reassuring.
And I 3rd the YA literature thread — my daughter is too young, but I’ve been delving into the SF/Fantasy YA novels all year. Perfect escape literature.
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This is more a brag about me than the kids.
I picked the absolute best neighborhood possible to raise my kids in. And I don’t mean the safest or the nicest– I mean I picked a house in a neighborhood where my kids now have multiple mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. I picked a neighborhood where they move freely in and out of other people’s houses, ride their bikes in the street, frequently eat dinner with friends, and walk to school with kids they’ll know their whole lives. I picked a neighborhood full of immigrants from all over the world with different cultures and traditions and religions — but where the kids don’t care about the differences.
I gave my kids the most amazing community to grow up in that I could only dream of for myself. Even if I screw up everything else– I know I get an A++ in geography!
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I love my friend Anjali’s answer! (& feel glad about the possibility of living only more or less 20 miles from her — too bad it’s not going to be in the same neighborhood).
As for me, my brag is very similar to yours: I’m proud of what good readers my sons are turning out to be. I also surrounded them with books, but I never pushed it. This Spring, when I was finishing our year of “cyber-schooling,” I gave Kelvin (8) some books to read and he literally devoured them (I think the first was Matilda, which he read in one afternoon and one morning). He has since read the whole Chronicles of Narnia (I read along and we discussed the books — it’s lots of fun to do that, I agree!) and is reading lots of other things.
Linton has loved books from babyhood — he’s always spent lots and lots of time (hours, I think I could say) looking through our vast collection of picture books. He is only 6 and I think he’s pretty much on target with his reading. After lots of success with early reading (decoding most words by himself) he spent the summer refusing to read to me — he only wanted to be read to. But a month into this school year he began to read by himself again and now nobody can stop him. I’m so thrilled!!
Similarly to Russel Arben Fox, the boys are also studying piano. Kelvin started last year and has been doing really well. Linton just started and it looked like it would be harder for him, but tonight something just “clicked” and he’s enjoying it immensely. I guess my 17 years of going to piano lessons were not that traumatizing in the end and I’m willing to be the “mean mama” who will force her sons to study piano for many years until they can play a bit (like me) or quite well if they have some talent. I hope it pays off and in a few years I can look back and see that it was worth it.
Thanks for the chance to think about these issues!
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After a certain period of ankle-deep LEGOs, my kids finally learned to keep their rooms clean. They do a really good job keeping the floors clear, although I periodically need to help them cull their toy and treasure collections. My oldest usually cleans up the living room, which I appreciate after long years of spending my evenings picking up toys. The kids do get paid for their efforts, but the love of order is so ingrained in my oldest that she will do her room even when she knows that she’s not going to be compensated. She just doesn’t want to go to bed in a messy room.
The kids are both generally in bed by 9 PM on school nights.
Just after my daughter turned one, I agreed to babysit a slightly younger girl, providing my daughter with a long-lasting friendship.
I’ve made a point of getting my oldest back to the DC area so she can see the sights of her earliest childhood. I’ve made a point of making big trips so that she can see old friends.
My husband and I started a monthly board game club at school.
I got the kids to contribute to charity almost daily and to put away 20% of their earnings for trip spending. I got the kids to pay for most of their discretionary spending (toys, art supplies, amusement park rides, etc.).
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re: YA books. Sure, I would love to do a post on YA books, but I rely heavily on suggestions from my SIL, who is a middle school English teacher, and my mother in law, the former high school librarian. Maybe I’ll get Tammy the SIL to write a guest post on the topic.
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Laura, how about getting Jonah to do a post recommending books?
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Reading to each of the Raggirls every night before bed. There are three of them, so this can take almost an hour, depending on chapter lengths. I never restrict what they read, but have limits on what I will read to them. (“If you want to read about ‘Toby the Tuesday Fairy’, you can do that on your own damn time. I’m reading you something with a plot.”)
Eldest Raggirl made it into the G&T program this year — which doesn’t sound majorly impressive until I point out that the cut-off is testing at the 98% level for two grades above your Fall Placement. (They, ideally, would not have a G&T Program). So, because of the impossibly high standards, she was the only kid in the entire SCHOOL in the G&T Program this year. That’s one out of 400 kids.
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made it into the G&T program this year
I was in a G&T program, but I failed lime wedges.
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My kids love vegetables. I’m taking some credit for that.
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My kids love Chinese, Thai, and Indian food.
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We’re doing “The Boy in The Girls Bathroom”, “The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler”, and “Running out of Time” for 4th grade book club. My daughter is a voracious reader, so she’s read all these books already, but I will have her read them again for book club.
This is a school sponsored book club, not a home grown version. I’ve heard of several people who have had success with book clubs with their kids (including some with boys — that seems to work better when it’s boys only.
The other two books my daughter has just finished reading is the latest Rick Riordan book “Heroes” (or something like that). She’s also reading a book called “Chains” (about an African-American during the revolution).
My son (1st grade) is reading the Diary of a Wimpy kid books and another book about “Pablo Picasso Diego Rivera”, a miniature twin who lives in his brothers ear (yes, very strange sounding), and a Bobbsey Twins book. He often seems to read multiple books at the same time, and after having dealt with these kinds of issues with my daughter, I’ve decided not to interfere (either with re-reading or partial starts of books).
I haven’t read any of those books (except the ones in the book club, which I’ve read).
My kids are big readers, but this is not something we tried to bring about, except by being readers ourselves.
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And, Ragtime, Tara is the Tuesday Fairy. I can’t believe that you got that wrong.
The daughter who is reading Chains: “Set in New York City at the beginning of the American Revolution, Chains addresses the price of freedom both for nations and individuals. Isabel tells the story of her life as a Slave. . . .” has a complete collection of the Fairy books (really complete, since her dad gets the books for her when they are released from the Book Depository in the UK).
I hate the Fairy books (I tried to read one once). But, they seem to serve their role for her. She now uses them as a mind-filler if she’s read something too scary or heavy. She also uses them as a social tool to interact with girls who are reading those books.
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PS: Parents are being trained to lead the book discussion groups with our 4th graders. It’s been an interesting discussion — we’re being told how to develop good questions. Next week, we’re going to learn some classroom management (how to get the kids to talk, or stop talking). I’m really looking forward to it.
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Last Friday, when our oldest daughter–the teen-ager, the excited and brand new high-schooler–had an inservice day off from school, the one thing she wanted more than anything else was to be dropped off at Borders for the day to sit in a couch and read Rick Riordan’s latest. She couldn’t wait for it to be available at the local library; the wait-list is too long. So I suppose we can be proud of the fact that our daughters are readers, particularly of a kind of geeky sort…but again, like BJ, this wasn’t something we consciously did; it was more a result of them being raised by readers, and by people who talked about books all the time.
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Parents are being trained to lead the book discussion groups with our 4th graders.
BJ, we have the exact same program at our local elementary school. Melissa has come to dominate it, because whenever they sit down to discuss what will be the books scheduled for upcoming months, she and our 5th grader, Caitlyn, have pretty reliably already read it, and have opinions about it
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” the one thing she wanted more than anything else was to be dropped off at Borders for the day to sit in a couch and read Rick Riordan’s latest. She couldn’t wait for it to be available at the local library; the wait-list is too long.”
So, did she get to spend her afternoon that way? Our daughter got the book pre-ordered (her dad does that). But then, the book arrived while he was out of town, and she’s not allowed to open his boxes when he’s not here. So, she had to wait until the weekend to read the book. Her younger brother complained on Saturday because she was unwilling to play with him until she’d finished the book (which she did on Sunday morning, and was then able to join the family for son’s hockey practice).
Yes, our book club is a variant of the “Great books” program, though we don’t buy the specific curriculum from the folks. I like that it’s a book club in which we are going to discuss the books (rather than our lives). I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.
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Yep; I was driving into work that day, as my bike needed to be fixed, so I dropped her off when Borders opened. She said she had it finished by about 4pm (seven hours for a 500-page book–not bad!), then went and bought herself some ice cream. And now, of course, she wants us to buy it (which we probably will, eventually).
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Book clubs? Parents getting trained to lead discussion? Wow. Nothing like this in our school. Maybe I have to get the ball moving.
Yes, we’re big fans of Riordan. Jonah read the new book and the final Percy Jackson book last month. (Thanks to Aunt Tammy for great birthday presents.)
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My current favorite book to recommend is “Adam Canfield of the Slash.” Jonah, especially, if he’s on the school newspaper, and is in middle school, might enjoy it (if you haven’t stumbled on it already). It’s probably my favorite of the YA books I’ve read in the last year (and there are 2 sequels).
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http://www.greatbooks.org/ is the program ours is based on. Our librarian has simplified it for our particular student population.
You could go school based — but if you can manage it, a boys-only discussion group (+ moms?) might work well. I have one friend who’s done this with her 2nd grader, and she said it worked quite well (they discussed one of the Riordan books). An important trick is to make sure not to make the demands too high. Even in our school based program, we’re only doing 3 books for the whole year.
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I was in a G&T program, but I failed lime wedges.
Lucky you! I failed gin (permanently) after a short but difficult period in a Long Island iced tea immersion program.
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I knew a guy who had to take remedial ice. He wasn’t even British or anything. Just couldn’t remember recipes.
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Good thing he got through Texas A&M before they lost the recipe.
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I’m reading The Lost Hero now. 🙂 It is so good to be back with these characters. I didn’t enjoy Red Pyramid all that much.
Re reading: My daughter had a thing where she would read all of the Massachusetts Book Award books. I don’t know if she’ll do it this year since she’s no longer in the elementary school where they were encouraging it with incentives. Lately she reads her Doctor Who Villains book. (She loves Doctor Who.)
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Good thing he got through Texas A&M before they lost the recipe.
Did you go to regular Texas? If so, I’m not talking to you over the Big 12 Championship.
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Grew up around LSU, but a lifetime of exposure to Aggie jokes was not enough to deter my sister from attending A&M. For my part, I went to a school whose greatest gridiron feat will never be equaled.
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Well, that’s fine then. I have a cousin who went to A&M also.
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