“Train a child in the way he should
go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” –Proverbs 22:6
(NIV)
If
you’re a parent with school age children, you can totally relate to what I’m
about to share. One of my greatest
challenges once the school year comes around is meeting my boys’ needs when it
comes to homework. It’s a fantastic
opportunity to be humbled by what you think you know but don’t , when your
child brings home a math problem that you thought you must have seen a thousand
times, but then realize that times have changed when you hear what the
expectation or method is from your child, on how they want it done. Yes, some things have changed, but often
times, many things have not.
Our
children are often wired, in some ways, just like us; when they don’t ‘get it’,
it may be that they just need another way of looking at it that speaks to their
style of learning. I remember how to do
certain basic problems from my school days and there are some oldie-but-goodie
tricks and short cuts that still work.
Sometimes in today’s advanced and progressive methods, the kids are
frustrated. When we old schoolers look
at it, we feel even worse because we don’t get the ‘modern math’. I can’t tell you how many of the pain staking,
late nights I spent, grabbing the baton from my wife to make sure homework gets
done. Sometimes I’ve battled with
insecurity, feeling of failure because I’m not privy enough to all the modern
teaching methods. My 10 year old son had
one of those moments and it would serve to de-motivate him through most of his
school work. But the problem was not
with the math, but with the method of understanding it.
My
family is quite gifted in the Arts so it is no surprise that my sons share
these gifts. My 10-yr old is an
instinctive artist and performer; his attention to detail and complex artistic
concepts somehow are very natural, where others might struggle. Teachers don’t see everything so that is why
partnership with the parents is so crucial – to add that ‘element’ that only a
parent would know. We figured out he had
very little patience for verbal illustrations, but if you depict it in a story
or graphic presentation, he is lightning fast in grasping complex
concepts. So after we figured that out,
when he brought that home the next time, we weren’t as drained and up- til 11
trying to get it done before school the next day. When he got stuck, I started using pictures
and stories – instead of just the instructions given on paper. But as the parent, it’s still my job to
translate so that he ends up back on the same page with the teacher. Since that time, when we conveyed this in
parent teacher meeting, the teacher took it to heart and began to implement
some of our advice to compensate for how his artistic gifts work.
What
my son learned is perseverance by first looking within to solve problems. We were created with many things built in to
help us in times of struggle. If he was
too reliant on the teacher or the paper to get through homework, he’d fail
because neither one is going to finish his homework for him. It was encouraging for him to know that he
had something, a gift, which helped him feel not lost in the sauce. Thus, he was more motivated to figure it out;
life didn’t have to be lived ‘inside the box’.
His creativity helped save his grades and further educated his teacher
on meeting diverse needs in the classroom. But even more importantly…I was
THERE. The only way I was able to help my son was to KNOW my son.
And
more and more, when I get bombarded with the ‘whys’ indigenous to childhood, I
can to my best to answer from my own childhood experience and to the
fascination of my children, they realize that in many ways, they’re just like
me. Who better for them to identify with
than a larger version of themselves? It
gives vision, it gives hope, it gives context, and it gives PURPOSE - to
everything they go through in childhood.
If
I didn’t have a front row seat, my story would read much differently. Knowing I was there… I know they're gonna be
alright.
