Parenting
101
I’ve pushed three pink squirming babies
into the world. It hurt like hell. I thought nothing could be worse. I was
wrong.
Parenting is the most painful experience in
the world and one that we are woefully under-prepared for. There’s a reason why
psychologists all over the world have couches filled with people blaming their
mothers for all their problems. That’s because we are to blame.
Parenting is like putting on a blindfold,
been spun around hundred times and then made to (still blindfolded) walk across
a tightrope below which yaws an endless abyss. If you pass that, you then have
to traverse a million miles of eggshells without crushing a single one in
4-inch stilettos.
If you manage that, you still have to get across a minefield,
kill some dragons without singeing your hair or chipping a nail, make lunch,
read a bedtime story, do long bloody division and find out what x equals and
why.
Forget Navy Seals training. You want
hard-core? Try being a mother.
The South African education system is a
write-off. You can send your child to a government school and sentence him or
her to a lifetime of semi-illiteracy, and a career path that peaks somewhere
around nail technician, or you can send them to a private school in the hope
that one day they will make enough money as the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company to
put you up in a nice old-aged home.
We’d like to laud the success stories of
the new South Africa, but when it some to education there aren’t any. Education
is for the elite. It’s not racist anymore. It’s just about money. Either you
have it or you don’t, and if you don’t you may as well bugger off. The private
schools may be non-profit, but they are still businesses and the bottom line is
that if your child is not making the grade, they have 70 others waiting for his
place.
Alright, they didn’t say it quite like
that, but it’s the overall feeling I got. My son is not making the grade.
Yesterday we went in for a group session.
My head was pounding, my palms were sweaty and I wanted to be ill. Actually,
the first thing I did when it was over was give thanks to my doctor and down
half a Xanax. Teachers scare the living daylights out of me. They have ever
since my Grade 2 teacher said she could turn into dragon and burn me to a
cinder.
Small boy aged 7 lacks the foundation
skills necessary for Grade 2. It sounds simple, but it isn’t, because they use buzzwords
and phrases that mean nothing to me. Ask me about marketing strategies, social
networking and ROI, and I’m your girl, but start using educational terms and
you may as well be talking Greek. I know what phonological awareness is as a
concept, but I have no idea what it actually means in reality. What is he
supposed to be able to do that he can’t?
There were two distinct approaches to the
intervention.
The school: Keep him back in Grade 1 for
another year
The parents: Put him forward and help us
build the skills he needs
Diametrically opposed points of view.
Neither party vaguely resembled the bamboo of Eastern philosophy. Two hours of
talking in circles later we got nowhere.
I think we all need to bend a bit. I
hate confrontation, so in sitting there in the headmistress’s office my anxiety
gets the better of me. Sitting in his classroom, my son’s anxiety gets the
better of him.
The thing is that what one person finds
totally stress free can move another to tears. Supermarkets are not stressful
for most people. For me, supermarkets are a full on nervous breakdown and end
with me sobbing in the frozen food aisle. The lovely sunny library at school is
a wonderful place for most of the boys, but is a place of terror for my son.
His anxiety levels are hindering him from learning.
Perhaps it is time to make a list. Lists
are good.
Staying
back in Grade 1
|
Pros
|
Cons
|
|
·
More time to solidify his
skills base
·
More time to mature
emotionally and developmentally
·
Less stress with learning as
he will have already done it
·
An environment he is already
comfortable in
·
An easy solution
|
·
When the “switch” flicks
he’ll get bored
·
Anxiety based on having his
peers advance while he stays back
·
Future stigma attached to
“failing”
·
Doing the same thing over and
over is the definition of insanity
·
Should perhaps do this at a
new school and the logistical implications at year end mean it is nigh
impossible to find him a new school
|
Going
to Grade 2
|
Pros
|
Cons
|
|
·
Remains with his social peer
group
·
A new teacher and new
environment may break his behaviour cycle
·
New skills might excite him
·
The “switch” flicking will
motivate him to achieve
|
·
His lack of basic skills
makes the gap widen more and more between him and his peers
·
His confidence fails more as
he fails to achieve raising his anxiety levels more
|
I am sure there are others, but these are
the basics.
What about the one thing we are all
missing. My son. What does he want to do? He wants everyone around him to be
happy to his own detriment. He’ll give me whatever answer he thinks I want to
hear. The school psychologist is now going to take two play therapy sessions
with him to find out where his head is at.
If he wants to go up a grade I’ll move
heaven and earth to help him.
If he wants to stay back and re-enforce his
skills, I’ll move heaven and earth to help him
I’m making a decision here that will impact
the rest of his life.
There are consequences and risks whatever
we choose to do. It is terrifying.
My husband has been scouring research
reports. Something like 69% of American high-school drop-outs have been kept
back a year at some point in their schooling. There is no quantifiable proof
that keeping a child back helps his development and academic achievement in any
way in the long term. Short-term there is a great improvement in marks, the next
year they are average and the third year they are behind again.
Where
to from here?
All of us need to make what the Chinese
call “concessions”
My ideal is this:
Let him go to Grade 2 for the first term.
If he copes fantastic first prize.
If he doesn’t we can move him in Term 2 and
it gives us the time to find a school that can accommodate him.
Or we can move him down back to Grade 1.
We could let him stay in Grade 1 for the
first term and if he exceeds expectations and the “switch” flicks he is moved
to Grade 2 in the second term.
Either way, right now I don’t need a full
scale IEP (independent curriculum). What I ask is that for the remainder of the
term he gets a little less work in class than everyone else so he can complete
the task without panicking about time.
The important thing I ask is the hardest to
give. Put your pre-conceived notions about my child away. When he achieves
something don’t say, “Well, will he remember them tomorrow?”
I love my son. However, I also know him
better than just about anyone. He is the middle child. His siblings are louder,
more extrovert and run roughshod over him. How does he get attention? He opens
those big blue eyes and plays the helpless one. Everyone rushes to comfort him.
He is manipulating the classroom
environment to get the most attention possible and it is working.
Why should he read the question when the
teacher will read it for him?
Why should he do the work, when the teacher
will give him the right answer?
He doesn’t need to be babied. He needs
direction, limits and boundaries. I don’t let him away with emotional
manipulation at home, so don’t let him do it at school. Be firm. Be strict. Be
understanding of his challenges, but empower him to find the answers, don’t
give them to him. Praise his successes so he knows that is where he’ll get
attention. Right now he gets more attention for his failures than his
successes. That’s backwards.
He has a mother. Me. I am not a teacher.
He has a teacher. You. You are not his
mother.
We are a team, but we have different roles
and responsibilities.
Don’t let him play symphonies on your
heartstrings.
He’s a veritable Mozart when it comes to
that.
