Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

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A Life-Long Reader at Last?

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

Maybe it’s because she can read what she wants. Maybe it’s because she can read when she wants. Maybe it’s the Reading Log Workbook, cheering her on to read one million words this school year. Maybe it’s not having to do monthly book reports. Or maybe it’s just because she’s another year older, and has accepted the reading as part of her responsibilities. Whatever it is, I love not having to cajole, beg, plead or stand over her to get her to do her reading anymore.

My 6th grader’s new charter middle school doesn’t have a lot of requirements to go with their 30-minute daily reading assignment. In fact, she doesn’t even have to do it every night; it’s up to her to figure out how to read that amount each week. She’s opted to do it all on Sundays. Part of that is because of our hectic schedule lately, and finding a half-hour a night isn’t feasible many nights. But come Sunday, she reads. It only takes one reminder from me, and she gets out a timer, figures out how long to read before taking a break. She only asks that there be silence while she’s reading, a simple (and frankly, welcome by me) request. My older daughter either goes into her room, or puts on headphones. I get some housework done, and read during my breaks. After each reading session, we use the guide provided in her Reading Log Workbook to figure out how many words she’s read, she writes it down, I sign my initials. She takes her break, and then goes back to reading with no fuss when her break time is over.

This is simply not normal for us. Right or wrong, good or bad, every school year for the last 5 years, I’ve struggled to get her to like reading. It’s been frustrating on varying levels for me. I love to read, and I couldn’t understand why my daughter didn’t. I’ve role modeled a love of books her entire life! I’ve also felt like a failure as a parent because of it. Her summaries were sloppy, not focused on the main points. There were few books she loved. There were months where I helped her finish her monthly book reports far more than I felt comfortable doing, and there were months it didn’t get done. Her grades in that subject struggled, and I struggled with ideas for motivating her.

I think it’s a combination of all of the above, and a few others, that have made this year so different. Her English teacher this year is her favorite, so there’s more intrinsic motivation, and less willingness to tolerate disappointment from this teacher’s eyes. As I write this, she has laughed out loud plenty reading this installment of Harry Potter, one of her greatest current obsessions. This is her last installment of reading for this week, and not once has she checked the timer to see how much time she has left.

However long it took to get here, however many factors play into us being here now, I can only hope that struggles with reading are in the past.

April McCaffery is the single parent to two daughters, in 6th and 9th grade.

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Posted in April McCaffery, Homework, Parent Perspectives | 2 Comments »

A Western Parent on Praise

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

"Tiger Mom" thinks we (the West) use these too often

While I am not a Tigermom by any stretch of the imagination, fellow Parentella contributor Steve Franklin and I are in total agreement when it comes to artificial Western praise. Only my reasons for it are completely different (and Western).

Surely, an epitome of Western parenting has to be How to Talk so Kids Will Listen (& Listen So Kids Will Talk) by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlich. As the title suggests, this book is for parents (like me) that want to effectively communicate with their children, not talk at them. And, interestingly enough, it was this book that made me think about the artificial praise that comes so naturally to parents like me…or so it seems.

I thought I was kind of a mean parent because every piece of artwork my daughter ever did wasn’t something I wanted to treasure. She would show it to me, and while I was saying not so convincingly, “very nice,” I was thinking I have to remember to throw this away when she goes to bed. My daughter loves art and would create a dozen “pieces” a day easy.

How to Talk… approached it differently. They talked about how parents being proud of our children wasn’t really a key motivator, but rather, being concrete and specific about what we liked, and saying, “you must be so proud” would put it back on them to take ownership rather than looking to the parent to validate them. That was an important message to me since my end-goal as a parent is to raise my daughters into productive, independent adults.

I remember witnessing an incident of artificial praise that highlighted immediate downfalls, too.

We were on a plane from Florida to L.A. (i.e., a long flight). The mother in front of us was trying to carry on a conversation with her husband, but her 3-year-old kept interrupting her. The first time her daughter displayed a drawing for her mom, the mom responded in one of those high-pitched “good mommy” voices, “oh, that’s wonderful, honey! That’s so beautiful!”

The daughter kept churning them out, looking again and again for her mother’s input, interrupting the conversation until finally the mom got fed up and the girl ended up crying.

I think the little girl really wanted to know what made that first drawing so wonderful. Her mother hadn’t told her anything specific, but the daughter was sure her mother must’ve liked the first picture best since that elicited the most positive reaction. She tried over and over to re-create that, but each time the mother’s response became more dismissive because she wanted to get back to her conversation. Artificial praise wasn’t helping either of them.

Interestingly enough, the more I got out of the habit, the more my daughter’s drawings improved. When I did really like something, I made a point of telling her what exactly I liked about it.  This fall,  she’ll be attending an arts high school as a Visual Arts major. And we’re both very proud.

April McCaffery is a single mother to two daughters, entering 6th and 9th grade.

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Posted in Adult/Child Communication, April McCaffery, Current News, Parent Perspectives, Steve Franklin, extracurricular activities | 6 Comments »

In Lieu of Homework

Friday, July 1st, 2011

One of the best things about summer, of course, is the absence of homework and monthly book reports. I used to get those “summer slide” workbooks, but by freeing ourselves of all of the recommendations, I’m finding the girls are actually learning this summer. All by themselves.

When my oldest daughter was making pancakes, she had to figure out how to measure cups and teaspoons without having those actual sizes available to her (for example, combining 1/4 and 1/2 cup of flour to get 3/4 cup). She is required to read 3 books over the summer break, but she is responsible for figuring out how much to read each day to accomplish the goal. She is also becoming more interested in current events now that I can watch the news every day because the girls aren’t buried in their homework.

My younger daughter has been reading for pleasure, finishing her Math workbook from 5th grade for her own amusement, and regularly writing in her journal.  She also makes up her own Math games. I implemented a new “earn an allowance” policy, and she figured out how much she could make for the summer if she did the highest amount possible, the minimum amount possible, and an average of the two.

I read recently in the New Yorker one writer’s belief that children’s imagination is to utilize language from which they don’t have personal experience. Summer allows them to create their own experiences when left to their own imagination.

Los Angeles Unified School District recently announced a new homework policy that limits homework effect on final grades to 10%. It recognizes that not all students have a quiet place and time every night to complete their homework. That’s not to say, that a student won’t be affected if they don’t complete their homework, but the policy forces homework to be balanced against other factors that should go in grading; quality of work, class participation, etc.

Homework is one of those areas where I think some teachers/schools rely too heavily on parental involvement. It assumes that someone is available to help from after-school to bedtime. It assumes that we have no other children that might also need our help. It assumes that we understand the assignment given and can offer a teacher’s skill level of assistance. It assumes that we understand the terminology the teacher used, even if the teaching methodologies have changed greatly since we were in school. It even assumes that the type of homework given will actually strengthen the learning process when helping me reduce a recipe might offer a greater comprehension of fractions.

During the summer is when I get to really assess what my children have actually learned. I can see it in the texts they send (I reply with any corrections in spelling), I can hear it in what they say and whether or not their vocabulary is accurate, and I even benefit from it when they help me google directions or other info.

Just like training can’t replace on the job experience, homework can’t replace the act of obtaining knowledge. It can help…but probably by only about 10%.

April McCaffery is the single mother to two daughters, going into 6th & 9th grade.

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Posted in April McCaffery, Education Policy, Education Reform, Homework, Learning Activites, Parent Perspectives | 10 Comments »

To Be And Not To Be

Friday, June 17th, 2011

One of my favorite bloggers, a former high school teacher, recently wrote about how he would tell his students to take their schoolwork seriously “in case you don’t end up on MTV…” That maybe it wasn’t popular to hear, but that he still felt they needed to hear it.

I’m not just a parent of a teenager with artistic aspirations, I was a teenager with artistic aspirations and I never saw school versus artistic success as mutually exclusive.

It certainly helped that I went to a high school for the arts, where our academic teachers used the arts to help pull us in. They showed us how the current events of an artist’s time was reflected in their work.  It works in almost any academic study: Literature, History, Government, even how Math influences our music.

Almost all of us were motivated to go to college.  We never looked at college as a fall-back position, but as the next step to make connections and study to make our dreams come true.

As we’ve reunited on Facebook, very few of us actually make our living in the arts, but we agree that the foundation our high school experience gave us helped us to succeed in whatever we ended up doing: we learned discipline, we created goals for ourselves, and we held ourselves responsible for our own destinies, even when that meant picking ourselves up after a failure (or two).

When my daughter first showed signs of wanting to follow in my artistic footsteps, I’ll be honest: it scared me witless. I know the amount of heartbreak involved, and as a mother, of course I didn’t want to see her go through that rejection. But as I learned to breathe through it, to stop myself from saying things that might be construed as not believing in her, I remembered that there’s a long way to go and that pursuing goals and dreams is certainly better than the alternative.

Sure enough, she has blossomed through striving for these dreams.  She knows she needs to maintain good grades in order to do everything else she wants to do outside of school, and that motivates her to get her homework done (without any hovering from me). She’s had to learn to take direction not just from all her teachers, but all of her choreographers, and all of her art teachers, and many of them tell me how phenomenal she is. And yes, she’s had to learn to accept their criticisms,  and some rejection along the way, too. She’s already stronger than me because those rejections don’t break her at all; rather, she just keeps going and trying harder for next time.

I still don’t know what her future holds. College frightens me, too, because I can’t afford it and I don’t fancy the idea of her having to start life off tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Still, I don’t try to break that dream, either. We’ll just figure that out if/when it’s time.

I just love seeing her grow into this self-confident, smart, happy young lady. And I know I have her dreams to thank for that.

April McCaffery is a single mother to two daughters, finishing 5th and 8th grade.

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Posted in Adult/Child Communication, April McCaffery, Parent Perspectives, extracurricular activities | 1 Comment »

Motivation versus Pushing?

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Motivation for success or pushing?

I think I’m a fairly typical parent. I want my girls to be happy. I want them to do their best. I want them to have the tools they need to succeed in the world. I want for schools and families to work together to create the best possible environments for all of our children to reach their fullest potential.

That’s not asking for much, right?

Of course it is. And as a parent, I just need to relax sometimes.

The month before my oldest daughter’s audition for the arts high school, I was in hyper-drive. I knew this was the right school for her. I just wanted her to have the chance.

I had a great team working with us to help her prepare for the audition/interview process. In my attempts to ensure that she appreciated all that everyone was doing for her, I admittedly put extra pressure on her; I fear she may have felt that she had to succeed for all of us. I would tell her to take responsibility for it, but then I was micromanaging: “Have you finished your portfolio yet?” “When do you plan on finishing?”

At times, I could see it. I would try to reign it in, try to sound positive about the alternatives. And she would nod and smile, well aware of what I was doing, but also aware that I wanted this for her.

I know to some, it might look like I was trying to re-live my youth through her, but that’s not the case. I wanted what I believed was (more…)

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Posted in Adult/Child Communication, April McCaffery, Parent Perspectives | 6 Comments »

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