Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Chris, in a very chummy father-son way, when are having a
conversation, you might ask him whether he's doing as well as he wants.
And ask him what he thinks he needs in order to do as well as he
wants. You don't want to start a war with his mom, but depending on
your son's answers, you could talk to her about the both of you setting
things to meet his needs.

I think it's really destructive when parents do the work of the kids
because they want them to get good grades, or when they take over the
work because they are exasperated with their kids.

I was in a meeting with a very smart and very wise psychologist who
received a phone call from her daughter, a freshman at college. She
stepped to the doorway of the room and began dictating the opening
paragraph of a paper to her daughter. She returned to the table and
offered as explanation (none was requested), "this is my second chance
in life." WOW, what a merged identity that is. Can you imagine? 
  

    
Welcome to Uncle Sams' postmodernity where our isolated positionality
and ennui has supplanted most idealistic notions of oneness––the idea
that everyone is interconnected.  In our increasingly mass,
consumeristic society we are also increasingly privatized so that we do
not react very well to true collectivist experiences like sending our
children to public schools.  Even our sports are far more specialized
and supervised.  Forget the sandlot experience where the kids ruled
and, with a Darwinian heirarchy of might-makes-right, we managed our
games of baseball, football and basketball.  Now we have the era of
bully-free, but not unmanipulative soccer moms and a very expensive
immersion into the organized team concept where the playground is now
the adult-monitored, 12-year-old Premiere League.  

Talk about wimpifying. Ex-hippie children are no less vulnerable to
electronic cocooning through cell-phones/computers/I-pods/Gameboys than
other kids. A school environment where teachers could employ corporal
punishment and serve as more severe authority figures was one of the
casualties of a US Supreme court decision in the early 1970's brought
about by students/parents demanding more rights and respect in schools.
 We demanded our freedoms and rights, but, honestly, isn't America
less polite and respectful today than it was when a clearcut
Judeo-Christian Eisenhowerian authority structure ruled?  The
behavioral give-and-take between teachers and students in most public
school classrooms is much more complex in 2008 than in 1968.  

Authoritarianism is now more insidious in our schools, but blatantly
present in our policing behavior at the airport, on the highways, or in
most public venues.  As a whole, we're more afraid of one another and
of any excessive behavior. Safety and security come first, obviating so
many expressions of personal liberty. In the late '60s Richard Nixon
went onto the West Lawn of the White House at dawn to talk to the
hippie anti-war protesters sleeping there.  The hippies were surprised,
but how close would any protester get to the lawn of the White House
in this day and age?  

Today, the federal authorities arrest Saab driving teachers attending
a U.S. Presidential appearance because of peace signs on their bumpers.
 The demise of hitchhiking is also very symptomatic of this cultural
change. Why? Because we are too afraid of one another. We hear from our
MASS media the worst case scenarios when people hitch rides. (Is air
flight really safer than driving?) 

Have you been to a music concert lately where it seems like there are
as many security guards as paying members of the audience?  And isn't
the uppermiddle class idea of a commune now composed of a suburban
gated community where paid guards keep out the riff-raff and everyone
pays to share a swimming pool and clubhouse?  Our "wimpy" children are
just a reflection of who we have become as evolving/devolving American
adults.  Maybe we have become America––Home of the Secure and Land of
the Wimps?
  

    
Whether a judgment seems harsh or mean-spirited depends in part upon
which end of it one stands.
  

    

 #126, good tip. thanks.  Adam (my son's) reactions have
 been interesting in all this.  I mentioned he's a math whiz
 and the public school's procedure is to let him skip ahead
 a grade in math. He's done that, and he's competing
 well with kids older than him.  I'm a statistician in real life (!)
 so I do what I can to encourage him to explore the math
 and so do his teachers.  and he loves math. His mom tends
 to micromanage his other subjects, and its in those where
 he's either bored or not interested. And his mom thinks
 its perfectly normal to get so involved in the homework.
  It may be a stretch of an analogy, when i grew up
 I found my parents left me alone if I got good grades
 and Adam's mom definitely lets him alone to do his math.
 I do hope there's a way for him to develop as a literate
 mathematician, to coin a phrase, a math-whiz-novelist.
  

    
What types of skills or suggestions do you have for the young adults that
are trying to develop the skills of unwimpiness that they did not learn from
growing up with their parents?  Or, what do they do now?
.y
  

    
Lisa, I don't think there is any way through this except the hard way.
It's something we all have to do: face life with all its vicissitudes.
They simply have to know that failure and stumbling are inevitable and
necessary AND that they can pick themselves, up, dust themselves off,
try to analyze the situation and come at it from another angle. This is
what coping is. And no one will think less of them. After a while,
when they realize that life goes on if you make a mistake, and their
psyche can survive, they get some confidence in their own ability to
handle the unknown. They can then begin to look forward to the
challenging situations that scare the hell out of them now. 

What's more important than getting things right is how they handle
getting things wrong.
  

    
But do you advocate letting them figure out how to handle getting
things wrong on their own?  Or is there something specific parents
SHOULD be doing?  Just listening and caring?  Or is there any more of
an active role for parents of young adults?
  

    
I think if you're active, you're hovering.  They can do it, David, and deep
down, you know it.  The survival instinct, and devotion to family and clan
is deep dnough that our children will figure out, without our help, how to
save themselves in a difficult situation.  And that is the ultimate goal.
And even more than survival, being out in the world independent of your
parents gives you a life of your own.  You get to be the decider, and you
have to make good decisions.  Kids will be okay, for a while, on their own.
After they come home and tellyou all about it, you can give honest feedback.
 At least, that's how I do it, most of the time.
  

    
I too think that if you're active you're hovering. I think you can
convey your confidence that they can meet challenges, and you can let
them know you're there for support. But you can't do the inner, mental
work for them. It's just not possible.

Not long after my younger son graduated college, his former girlfriend
died. They had been going out since high school, and after their break
up they were still close friends. They had a lot of friends in common,
and they still did things together. My son was not only in great pain
after her death, but, as he said, had "a great hole in his life." There
was no way I could pull him through that grief. It was, fortunately,
at a time when I was mostly working at home, and his work schedule
could be erratic, so he knew he could call and come over any time he
wanted to talk, or just be in a familiar place (he was living
independently!!!). It was agonizing to see my child in such pain and
that I could not pull him out of it. But I was a support, and he healed
himself, and he is emotionally an amazing person. It literally pained
me not to be able to make his deep sadness go away. I was a resource to
be called on when needed. I listened. And listened. But I couldn't fix
it. That hard internal work is theirs to do, and theirs alone. And if
they don't do it, they will remain forever fearful and dependent and
stuck.
  

    
how do these kids fare when, say, they go on outward bound
or outdoor leadership school or the many challenging
volunteer situations in developing countries many
teens engage with? or, saying, volunteering
over springbreak to help katrina victims...
  

    
Betsy, your post reminded me to mention that while my daughter's
middle school permits water bottles, they have a policy that only two
bathroom trips are permitted, per class, per marking period- which
means the kids are only allowed to have to pee every four weeks in each
class.

So, they're encouraging them to hydrate, but expecting them to fit a
trip to the bathroom (four stalls each) into the five minutes between
classes, when my daughter, for example, often has to sprint up two
flights and down a long hallway to her locker, grab her books for the
next class, and run back down. 

Oh, and they're not allowed to carry their backpacks to class, so the
locker trips are mandatory. 

Fwiw, I don't think authoritarianism is more insidious now than it
used to be. I sure as hell didn't have any security guards in my high
school, nor did we undergo background checks as transfer students,
reporting of misdemeanor offenses to our principals, or random
locker/bag searches. I think authoritarianism is right out there in the
main lobby, grinning at our kids and ordering them to avert their
gazes. 
  

    
I don't know that these kids go on Outward Bound trips. If they do,
great. i remember one of my kids doing a four day solo on an
uninhabited island in maine...solo, after a month of sailing. had to
forage and feed himself. other son climbed in the wind river range of
wyoming with a group totally out of contact for a month. this was
before cellphones were in wide use. but other trips they went on have
changed over the years to add parents. trips abroad that used to be
only for the kids have added a week to accommodate parents who want to
come and join the kids' fun. i was horrified to learn this. i think the
kids should have their trips with their cohort, and their experiences
should be theirs alone. there's a time and a place for family trips,
something different altogether. 
  

    
My nephew's previous school prohibited talking during lunch.
  

    
Prohibiting talking during lunch? Where do schools come up with these
rules? And, more important, why? What purpose could possibly be served?
This sounds like bureaucracy gone haywire. Was this some sort of
contest...let's see how grim we can make school? All I can say is that
it is a place run by people who know nothing about child development.
And just what is their view of human nature? Wise that your nephew is
no longer there.
  

    

>  bureaucracy gone haywire

That would make a great book title.
  

    
I don't think they prohibit talking during lunch even in prison.
  

    
Imagine...school is a place where you want to encourage interaction
and the exchange of information (of all kinds). Human beings are social
creatures. Isn't the exuberance of kids something to be encouraged?  
  

    
"I think authoritarianism is right out there in the
main lobby, grinning at our kids and ordering them to avert their
gazes." 

Yes, Divinea.  The point I was trying to make is that Authoritarianism
has a much different stripe today than when we were in school.  I
recently taught a collaborative creative writing segment to eighth
graders.  The main teacher was gone many times so I saw numerous
substitutes during my two month stint.  When I was in eighth grade we
used our shop class to make paddles for the teachers to use (complete
with holes so the swat would hurt worse).  Teachers have long since
been stripped of corporal punishment as a looming form of
authoritarianism.  Instead, in many, many schools, as you suggest,
there are cops/guards on duty to prevent the most egregious student
behavior.  

Likewise, the principal's office here has two isolation booths for
kids who are written up for bad behavior.  We never had that.  My
impression of the classroom which is most changed today, stems from how
each teacher must barter/assert/persuade/coerce the relationship
between themselves and the class.  The most impressive teachers aren't
the ones who are constantly writing slips for poor behavior, but the
ones who earn respect and manage to excite the students.  

When we went, there was an implicit understanding of the teacher's
authority, a more united front of teacher/principal/parent.  The
parent/teacher rift seems much more pronounced today, with many parents
standing up for Junior, no matter what Junior has done.  Today,
because of kids bringing guns/knives to school, etc, etc., the price
for violent or racist overstepping of boundaries is more severe. 
Whether the authoritarian hammer is "grinning" or not, I'm not sure.  

With diversity honored more highly, and dress-codes less interested in
the length of the mini-skirt or the boy's hair, and more concerned
with gang colors, or overt sexual writing on the shirts, today our
schools are more hip with regards to personal expression.  Yet with the
severity of the security guard presence and consequences, we are also
more authoritarian.  This, I believe is a product of a postmodern
synthesis between many countercultural assertions of the late sixties
and the straitlaced Eisenhowerian zeitgeist that came under attack
then.  In other words, today our society as a whole is both more hip
AND more authoritarian than in the past.  It's the pervasive sense of
fear and ennui that concerns me most today. 
  

    
wow! GREAT topic.  Just stumbled upon it. From reading the first dozen
or so postings the author's thesis is something I strongly resonate
with.    i'll AMazon the book, read it, and then join in.  How long
will this discussion be going on?
  

    
These are two-week discussions starting on Wednesdays, so looking aback at
the date on the first post you can tell it will wrap up on the 16th.
  

    
> if you're active, you're hovering....  our children will figure out,

> without our help, how to save themselves in a difficult situation.

Parents should have NO active role in the lives of their children? 
What SHOULD we be doing with them, then?

Even adults need help from other adults to figure things out.  Surely
the least we can offer our children is what we offer our spouse, our
co-workers, our friends?  And perhaps just a teensy bit more?
  

    
Those are good questions, <aslan>, and I wondered the same thing. It's
judgmental and dubious, I think, to equate "active" with "hovering."
  

    
Active means doing, and I'd prefer my kids to do and me to be more like a
coach.  Wait until they do something or think of something themselves, and
then be available for feedback.  Too much feedback becomes criticism. That's
where I need help.  I walk a fine line, and I know I need to manage that
better.

There are certain things that I have a harder time letting go.  Like
education.  I have a real need to know what is going on at school.  I don't
want to change it or do anything about it, usually, but I am so damned
curious. What are they doing all day?  I try to get my kids to share, but
sometimes it isn't worth the pain of the effort.  See? it's habit forming.
Remembering that they have skills, and they can do things helps.  But not
all the time.
  

    
No, active does not equal hovering. but the questions was raised about
what you do when kids get things wrong.

When they get things wrong, you have to wait for them to come to you.
You can't rub their noses in it EVEN IF you you had predicted they
would fail. Humiliation does nothing but breed revenge; not a wise
parenting strategy at all.

Alternatively, if you see them struggling, you can offer something
sympathetic like, it seems difficult, doesn't it. And you can gently
enter into a conversation where you might get your child to brainstorm
ways of looking at whatever is stumping him/her. What's another way of
looking at that? How else could you handle that?

The coaching approach is just the wisest. Available as a resource if
sought out; of course, you have to let them know that you are confident
they can do things, then step back and let them do them. Coaching is a
positive mindset and it's just not invasive.  

Asking kids what they did all day or what their day was like is just
plain annoying to kids, and not likely to elicit an answer, in part
because it's just too broad a question. Asking a kid, how was your day,
is a little better...if it's followed by a question like: tell me
something good that happened today? This is really great for little
kids, too: Tell me something that happened today that you liked. And
once you get a conversation going, you can ask, tell me something that
happened today that you didn't like so much. This is often a great way
to get a handle on budding problems. The most important thing is, kids
won't tell you if you're not listening. You can't ask while
multitasking. You have to be 100 percent listening.
  

    

>  You have to be 100 percent listening.

That's very critical and very difficult sometimes.