The Urge to Push
August 20th, 2003
Aodán to shine!I
child simulator, where I could input all of the parenting decisions I was going
to make to test the results and optimize the final product. It didn’t take long
to realize we were going to make lots of mistakes but that parenting was less
about correct decisions than about the weight of being present, listening with
full attention when you can, finding little ways to communicate your love and
your limits to the child. But the decision making thing got a little more
intense again with a challenging year of preschool and then a kindergarten class
where we were asked to decide whether Aodán, as one of the oldest kids in
his class, already able to read, should be placed ahead into first
grade.
This decision brought out some
of the differences in Raven’s and my philosophies of education and life and
everything else. Raven’s all for getting Aodán done with the ridiculous
exercise that public schooling can be as quickly as possible. I remember some
unhappy sixteen year old freshmen in college and remain less convinced. I
wasn’t sure that socially Aodán wouldn’t do better as the oldest child in
his class. There was an odd sort of compromise, putting Aodán in a first
grade class for reading in the morning and back in his kindergarten class in the
afternoon — which didn’t leave it entirely clear what would happen this year.
I tend to wait until there’s a problem and try and solve it — if Aodán
is bored and starts setting fires in waste baskets, we’ll certainly try and find
ways to challenge him. But I trust him as an autodidact — he’s going to learn
because he’s curious and interested and creative, and as long as school isn’t
crushing his spirit, it’s a good exercise in socialization, learning to do
things as part of a group and respect some authority.
Still when you have a child who
absorbs information quickly, uses big words that he’s heard only a couple of
times, delights you with his new ideas, it’s really easy to let that massage
your ego and think that you’re somehow responsible for that. And when his
achievements feel good it’s easy to push him for more, to bask in the reflected
glory, try to get more recognition for him… I have to stop often and think
about what I want for him, and mostly that’s his spiritual well-being. I want
him to be a good person and happy. It’s not always clear how you get there, and
I know we’re going to be wrestling a lot of big decisions for and with him in
the next twelve years. I mark a level of self-control in him that he didn’t
have a year ago, an ability to articulate feelings and argue for justice, he
recounted yesterday advocating for a friend when another friend tried to exclude
him and that is as exciting as if he’d just figured out the quadratic formula
for himself. He has a lot of time to learn all of the things he’ll want to
know, and I cherish his mind and abilities, but they’re not the essential thing,
somehow.
