Books
These should be around starting before your child is born. I'm not joking, expectant parents should be reading to their child while it is still in the womb. And when it's a tiny blobby baby seemingly capable of nothing other than eating, pooping and sleeping? Read to it. Every night. All the time. By the time your child is two years old, they should be taking the book from your hands, turning the pages themselves because they've seen it done a million times and know how it works. They should be pretending to read as soon as they can utter sounds; not joking, this is a crucial part of learning to read. In developmental psychology, they talk about this being very important - the act of a child flipping through the pages of a book and retelling what it says based on the pictures and having heard the story several times before; that's why kids like to read the same book again and again. They like to know it so they can "read" it too. Your kid should arrive in kindergarten with the basics for reading ready to go.
And if you hate reading? Pretend you love it. Fake read all the time. You holding a book and reading in front of your child is one of the best things you can do for them.
I had a student who struggled with reading big time. Her parents came in to meet with me to see what I could do to help her; because after all, reading is a school activity so school should be solely responsible for getting a child to read, right? I asked them if they read with her at home - their response? "We hate reading". Congratulations for f***ing up your child and making her life a trillion times harder.
Why? Because - and take this from a teacher's perspective - if your child is a strong reader, they are going to fly through school, and more than likely, life. They will understand things easily, they will write better, they will spell more proficiently and they will have a greater vocabulary. They will excel in every subject area, not only language arts, because reading is involved with EVERYTHING. Try teaching social studies, science and even math without reading - it's super difficult. But I have to find a way to do this and to assess kids without them reading or writing because there are children whose parents didn't see the importance of reading. Life is too busy, we're tired at the end of the day etc etc. Every day should end with a book in your child's hands or in your hands being read to them.
Now even if you do all this, your child may not be the strongest reader; but at least you gave them the chance to be. And they're a lot better off than the kids whose parents didn't give them that opportunity. Even more important than giving them the opportunity to get better at reading, you're giving them the chance to love reading. And if a child loves reading, they will read more just for fun, getting better and learning outside of school, on their own.
Books. Not iPads or other screens only; sure they can help a child practice reading. But get them familiar with the feeling of a book, the smell of a book, the excitement a book can bring. Fiction, non-fiction, comic books - any kind, make them available and make your child's life and easier, more successful one.
Say No
Your child will not hate you. In fact, they will respect you and the fact you give them structure. This simple tip will help you create a better human being than the alternative would allow for.
Example: a teacher at the school was dreading a parent teacher interview because they had to tell the parents of a student that this student had been stealing things. Like, items that belonged to the teacher that she wanted, she took them and put them in her backpack. When the time came, the teacher let the parents know this had been happening. And a light bulb went off in the mom's mind: "I have never said no to her. I have never taken her to the mall and said no. Ever"
Kids will push you. There is no truer saying than "give someone an inch and they'll take a mile" than when it comes to kids. They are always testing boundaries and wanting more; they're human after all. The only way they will learn that they can't always get what they want, a crucial lesson in life if you want them to get along with other human beings and interact in a socially appropriate manner, is if you show them they can't always get what they want.
Don't bribe, or negotiate - just say no. I also suggest you have a reason for saying no as opposed to "because I said so" because if they know the reason they are less likely to fight you on it. "Can I have a chocolate bar?" "No because it's almost supper time and you will ruin your appetite" or "They're not great for you, you can have a healthy snack".
I'm not saying always say no; just when it makes sense. But don't feel guilty for saying no - every time you should say no and you say yes, please close your eyes and imagine your kid pushing another kid off the swing at recess because they want a turn. Picture your kid not doing their schoolwork because they don't want to. Picture your teenager telling you to f*** off (which will probably happen at some point either way) because you're finally trying to say no when it comes to them going to a party at a sketchy house, but you never said no to anything before so good luck with this one.
Every Story is Important
This is something I chant in my head daily. When I'm hearing countless stories of grandma's house, dog antics, Lego and Minecraft achievements and secret handshakes made up at recess, I chant "every story is important". It's barely audible in my head over the "HOLY CRAP I DON'T CARE" that wants to reside there, but I remind myself to chant this. Everything your child shares with you is important. Their story of how some juice spilled on the ground at lunch or how well they did during arts and crafts is the equivalent of you talking to your spouse about an exciting promotion at work or a frustrating interaction with a co-worker. It is just as important and significant to them; to ignore them or to tell them to be quiet shows them that what they have to say isn't valued and basically that's telling them what happens in their life isn't of importance to you. If you ignore the seemingly inane stories about who played with who at recess, don't be surprised when your child doesn't share anything with you as they get older, especially during the volatile teenage years. Just because their lives become more interesting and complex as they get older, doesn't mean that's the only time it's important to listen to them. Their lives have always been interesting and complex to them, the whole way through.
It also shows the kids you care, and kids can tell when an adult cares about them within two seconds of meeting them. In fact, the more you show them you care by listening to what they have to say, the more stories you're going to get.
Every story is important.
Stay Active
I'm starting to get very pessimistic about the direction we are going as people when it comes to being active in the world around us and interacting with each other. Something that amplifies this for me occurs every week in my classroom.
Every Monday morning, as a part of our routine, my class gathers in the reading corner to talk about what we did on our weekends. This is a really important part of creating a caring classroom environment (see point above) and if we somehow miss it, the kids are very upset.
In years past, kids would speak of going swimming with their family, doing various outdoor activities, crafts they'd made, sleepovers with friends, time spent with grandparents, books they'd read, games they'd made up, movies they went to, zoo visits and things of that nature, as well as an assortment of other positive busy weekend activities. There would be the odd student who spoke only of video games or said they did nothing, and inevitably those would also be the kids who were somewhat struggling in school. But now, what's become more and more common, specifically in the last two years, when I ask the kids what they did on their weekends, they speak solely of video game achievement. In fact, it usually takes me a second to realize they're not talking about real life because they talk about it in first person; "I built a new wall and I found a pickaxe" (talking about Minecraft). It's actually gotten to the point where I've told the kids they need to talk about things they've actually done in real life. Unfortunately they then talk about video games they've bought or played over the weekend, or what they did on the iPad. It's super depressing.
My plea to you parents out there is to please make sure you do at least one active thing with your kids on the weekends; it doesn't need to cost money. Build a snow fort, go sledding, make a fort in your living room. Take them swimming or skating; do something that will create lasting childhood memories as opposed to a fake world projected through a screen.
Kids need to be physically active. They are little balls of energy that are constantly moving. Don't believe me? Go to a school assembly and watch the sitting crowd literally waving, swaying and fidgeting back and forth. As everyone knows, we are experiencing a higher rate of childhood obesity in this generation due to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle thanks to technology and busy, generally both working, parents. In fact, shown in a very sad study, this will be the first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than the one that came before it. Throughout time people have had longer and longer life expectancy thanks to advances in medicine and better living conditions. However, now we have higher rates of type 2 diabetes in kids and an increase in heart disease that is causing the life expectancy to shorten. This is terrible.
We now have mandatory DPA, daily physical activity, as a part of our curriculum in school. This means that if the children don't get gym that day, we have to do thirty minutes of physical activity with them outside of recess. On top of just a few other minor things we need to do with them throughout the day, like teach. This is because kids are not getting enough activity at home (this is generalizing and based on province and country-wide studies). Gone are the days kids would head out the door and hop on their bikes or take a sled to a nearby hill; no, now the "bad guys" will get them. And how much easier is it to have your kid sit on the couch on an iPad than to take them to the swimming pool? Ya I may be being a bit of a jerk about this, but I have seen what's happening and it is depressing. Keep your kids active and be actively involved with them yourselves! Better health, better spirit, better childhood.
High Expectations
Place high expectations on your child. They will achieve what you expect them to, and if they're unable, they will at least strive for it. Too many times I've heard parents and teachers say "that's too hard for him" or "she's too young to do that" and most of the time, it's in front of the child being talked about. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy; now the child will definitely not achieve what is being talked about because they've been told they can't before they even try. Kids can do a lot. In fact, if you show them you trust them and respect them enough to ask something big of them, they come through every time. They like to be given the opportunity to prove themselves, especially if you make it clear you expect the best from them. Simple phrases like "you can do that no problem" or "this will probably be easy for you" make a task go from impossible to completed well.
I remember when I taught swimming lessons, the hardest thing for the kids to get was the proper whip-kick (the kick for breaststroke). They would never get their knees together or flex their feet properly. I decided to try something one time, after teaching it several different ways again and again. I started telling the kids they were totally getting it and they could only get better from there on. I told them they were getting their knees together correctly and flexing their feet in just the right way; I also stopped telling them it was the hardest thing they'd learn in swimming strokes. What happened? Every kid could all of a sudden do whip-kick.
This won't happen every time I'm sure. But expect big things and let the kids know you have high expectations of them. Make them nervous to disappoint you rather than satisfied with mediocre because they know that's all you ask of them anyways.
And for goodness sake, don't sit in a parent-teacher interview and say to me, in front of your child, "he's never been good at math, just like me. I hate math too" for you have just solidified your child not trying his best in math and helped him justify why he struggles; after all, you hate math too. And he knows you expect him to perform poorly, so he will. This has happened more often than you'd think, with varying subject areas.
Set high expectations.
Let Your Kids Do Things For Themselves
I can not stress this enough. When I get a student who has a parent (usually mom, sorry ladies) who does everything for them, it completely manifests itself in the form of the child having no work ethic or organizational skills. If you are walking your child to the door of his classroom, unpacking his backpack for him, tying his shoes and hanging up his coat, and you're the only parent doing that while twenty other grade twos do all of those things for themselves, you are creating a lazy human being. True fact. When it comes time for you to leave - which is usually after a weird amount of hovering in these particular parents' case - your child is then literally floundering for the rest of the day at school. What do you mean I have to write my own story? Do my own math? Get ready for recess myself? Find my own agenda or put my pencils and markers away nicely? Doesn't someone usually do this for me? Sorry buddy, but at school we actually feel you are a competent human - or at least we're trying to make you into one.
Because these kids are just that - competent. They are able to unpack their own backpack and even get their own shoes on believe it or not; and if for some reason they're not, you know how they learn? By doing it. When you take away the opportunity for them to learn how to do something for themselves, you are becoming a detriment to their development. But what if they do it wrong? Good. Then they learn even faster when they trip on their shoelace that was poorly tied or their backpack gets thrown in the lost and found because it was lying in the hallway.
Of course I'm not only talking about school; that's just where I see it obviously. These same parents probably do the same for their kids at home too. These kids will then grow into adolescents who don't help out around the house and have no desire to get a job. They will then be people who, if they manage to get a job, take no initiative or show no work ethic, instead just waiting for things to be done for them.
Kids want to do things for themselves. They want to help out, the younger the more they want to do. Let them. Let them try. Let them fail. Because if you let them fail, they will find a way to succeed. If you're not allowing them to fail, you are not allowing them to succeed either.
^^No^^
Be Involved
This seems a bit hypocritical coming right after the previous point, but I don't mean "be involved" to a helicopter parent kind of level. I mean know your child's friends' names, their favourite subject in school, who they have a crush on, know when their field trips are, go to parent-teacher interviews, meet their friends' parents etc. Basically this kind of goes with the "every story is important" plus effort when it comes to your child's school or extracurricular activities. An involved parent is an informed parent; you will know more about your child's life, which will be increasingly important as your child gets older.
Healthy Lunches
This goes with the point about being active in terms of the horrific rate of obesity in children, but I'm going to talk more about how it affects your kid mentally. I have seen, time and again, the difference in kids who have big, nutritious lunches versus kids who have unhealthy lunches. I tell my students they can't have any unhealthy snacks before recess time (11am). I had a little boy come up to me and say "which snack can I have?" as he held up his lunch - which consisted of a Reese chocolate bar, bag of chips, pop and a Lunchable. Ummm assuming we're to save the Lunchable for actual lunch time, what option is there for the hungry kid? Chips at 10am I guess. And this student is then a completely unfocused mess all afternoon; you would be too if that was what your lunch consisted of! What you eat definitely has bearing on your productivity and mindset - especially if you're a seven year old! Lunch full of junk food = junky afternoon getting nothing done but being told to focus and work.
I had another student whose mom would bring her McDonalds three times a week. McDonalds. THREE TIMES A WEEK. You all know what you feel like after eating McDonalds; and it's not energetic, focused and ready to get sh** done. This student would have her head on her desk falling asleep all afternoon.
What should be in your child's lunch? The same as every other meal: every food group represented. Canada's Food Guide is free and available on the internet for anyone who looks for it. "My kid won't eat vegetables!" They will if they're hungry enough. You don't give them chocolate bars instead.
Gender Schmender
If your little boy likes playing with dolls, it doesn't mean they will grow up to like kissing other men. Shocking thought, I know. I'm not at all saying that's a bad thing, I'm just pointing out that playing with dolls doesn't determine one's sexual orientation. More likely he'll grow up to be a kind and nurturing father. But people seem to think boys should play with "boy" things and girls should play with "girl" things. Girls play house, dolls, dress-up or in their fake kitchens (how sexist is that sidenote) while boys build with blocks, toy cars, use toy "work shops" or play sports.
Kids playing is an important part of developmental psychology; the roles they play are actual helping to develop them socially. So if you pigeon hole your kids into only acting out traditional stereotypical gender roles, you're putting them at a disadvantage.
Also, this is not only when it comes to toys kids play with. There's also the case of kids' clothing too:
At this year's Teacher's Convention, I went to a session called Girls Gone Wild?: Raunch Culture which was essentially a look at how sexualized everything has become for young girls. This whole idea of them being there for male pleasure, exemplified by every major female star posing semi-nude somewhere. Even the female sports stars. You're great at skiing? Whatever, take your shirt off and pose on the front of this magazine so men won't feel threatened by you as an athlete. Remind them you have boobs.
The presenter had a lot to say on the matter, and I'm not doing it justice here at all. She also talked about how boys are effected by this too; they're now told, from a young age, that they're a "lady killer" and that if they don't want to have sex they're gay or a wuss. Monogamy is for suckers. (**See pictures above** Also, I didn't want to search this on my computer for images, but the presenter also showed us pictures of a lingerie line launched in France for girls 4-6. Yep. And Victoria's Secret has a line of panties made for little girls that include a padded bra. This is not made up.)
It doesn't help that kids these days are exposed to a lot more than we were via technology. You may have filters on your internet, but it's scary how easily kids can access inappropriate material if they're not under supervision. I've talked about this before, how young boys who watch -ahem- "movies" on the internet are getting a totally warped view of how sex works. Basically teaching them that girls are insatiable and ready to go at any time, there only to perform acts pleasurable for the man.
In fact, the presenter talked about how young kids are now when they perform their first sexual act, and it is overwhelmingly the female doing something for the male. Even sicker? Studies show that teens who lose their virginity between twelve and eighteen leave the girl confused horrified because the boy "finished" in a less, um, traditional way/place. Because that's what he's seen in the "movies".
I'm sorry if this information is shocking/depressing, but it's what was told to us at this session, among other things. And I know I'm going off topic here; what I guess I'm saying is please make sure you are raising strong, independent girls who know that intelligence is more important than looks and they deserve to be treated well by boys. And please raise your boys to be kind and caring and respect women as equals. Also, of course, supervise your kids as they use technology! That's probably a whole separate point.
Cherish Them
This is the most important of all. Without directly quoting Cat's in the Cradle (the song), it's important for you to remember how quickly time flies. Especially when it comes to how fast kids grow up.
The other day, I was getting my class ready for dismissal when I looked up and there were three teenage boys standing at my classroom door, all of them taller than me. I was a bit taken aback and asked, "Can I help you?" to which they replied - in incredibly deep voices I might add - "It's us Miss W!" It was three boys I taught my first year of teaching. They are currently in grade nine, and although once I looked again I completely recognized them, they look like actual grown-ups. I remember them running around my class like it was yesterday; I recalled one of them sitting on my lap and crying because he'd had a nightmare the night before. Now he is taller than me and talking like a man. It's just wild to think of all the growing up that can happen for kids in a seemingly short amount of time. Remember this when you're stressing about a phase your child is going through, counting down the moments until they stop throwing tantrums in public places, telling you pointless stories for hours on end, or not leaving you alone. One day they'll have no problem leaving you alone; they'll have their own life. Just don't wish for them to grow-up faster. Take every moment in; because growing up is the best thing that can happen - you don't even want to think of the alternative to growing up. Either way, cherish them.
Kids Tell Their Teacher Everything
This is a cautionary tip for parents. The following are actual things I've been told by kids over the years, none of these are made up:
"My dad loves rum! He drinks it all the time!" - yelled excitedly during our unit on pirates.
"I couldn't sleep because my mom and dad yelled at each other all night" - shared during our discussion about our weekends
"My mom says I can't go on the field trip because we're poor and can't pay for it" - said in front of everyone with a smile on their face
"My mom has fungus on her feet. She says she can't get rid of it. I'm really worried about it" - told to me because a boy was reading a book all about mushrooms
"My dad has a pet snake. I've never seen it but it's name is Trouser." - told to a kindergarten teacher by one of her students
"My dad does nothing. He just lies on the couch all day. He likes beer though" - told to me during a discussion about things our dads like to do when making a card for Father's Day
"My mom is on her phone all the time. She's like, addicted to it and pretty much ignores us" - when I asked who put technology away for Family Day one year
I can't actually think of any more off the top of my head right now; but there have been countless times where a child has said something and I've cringed inwardly thinking "there's no way their parents would be happy to hear that our whole class got to know that".
Basically, your kids have no filter. They will share whatever in front of whoever. Just remember this - and I know it goes both ways! I'm aware that what happens at school goes home too. I've been told how often kids tell their parents "Miss W says . . ." so I'm always aware of what I'm saying. "Miss W was wearing flip flops and it's November!" Well . . . I'm usually aware of what I'm doing.
I found this; it's perfect:
Anyways people, these are just some things I'd suggest if you want to be a positive part of creating the future of our race; if you want your child to be a happy, contributing member of society.
You are in charge of shaping a human. The way they think, the way they interact with others and the opportunities that will be available in their future. And this human will go out into the world armed only with what you've given them - and I'm not talking possessions here - and through interacting with other humans armed with what their parents gave them, they make up the future of our race and planet. This is on you.
No big deal.
