It Takes a Village (10 page)

Even in casual daily interactions with children, parents are teachers, and home is a child's first and most important classroom. For most of human history, in fact, home provided the only schooling children received in survival skills, job training, parenting, and becoming citizens of the larger world. Since the industrial revolution, in most advanced societies the lion's share of the task of instilling academic skills and knowledge has been delegated to formal education. But parents still play a crucial role.

As always, though, coaching parents is the first step. As less affluent and educated parents become aware that their own children can benefit from the kinds of experiences more privileged children get, Hart and Risley observe, they are more likely to give their children the advantages that are within their reach and to demand help with the “immense responsibilities a technological society has so casually assigned them.”

 

M
OST EARLY
teaching and learning takes place in an unstructured fashion. “Play is the learning of childhood,” says Dr. T. Berry Brazelton. But that does not mean the process will flourish without thought or planning. Kids need activities that engage them, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and sensually, not hours spent passively in front of the television set. Young children thrive on play that is spontaneous and responsive rather than goal-driven. Small kids appreciate small things. They don't need expensive or elaborate toys. Often a cupboard of pots and pans or plastic containers or a sock turned into a hand puppet is enough to fascinate them for hours.

My own mother was terrific at thinking up simple, imaginative activities to do with us. I remember how one time she took a cardboard box, filled it with sand, and spent the afternoon helping me to create a miniature world in it. We put a tiny mirror on the sand to make a lake, stuck in some evergreen twigs to make a little forest, and imagined adventures there for my dolls. Sometimes my mother and I would spend hours having picnics in our backyard and pointing out the shapes we saw in clouds.

The simple activities I shared with her became favorites of mine with Chelsea. We often spent hours in the backyard at the governor's mansion, stretched out on a quilt and looking at birds and clouds. We also used to lie on our backs in the front hallway when no one was around, watching the dancing rainbows the sun made as it struck the crystal chandelier.

Play continues to provide intellectual stimulation as children grow up. The marathon games of cards, Monopoly, and Clue that absorbed my brothers and me and our friends for long, rainy hours drilled us in basic concepts of math and logic.

An interest in science can be nurtured early and easily too. As every parent knows, children are fascinated with living things. Planting a garden with your child or taking care of a pet teaches valuable lessons and provides equally valuable time together. Dinosaurs are a surefire way of luring every preschooler I've ever met to the local natural history museum. Hanging a thermometer and barometer on the back porch can be an introduction to learning about the weather.

What adults consider work can often be made child's play. Many children find “real” activities just as engaging as toys, and they're also educational. Setting the table, for example, provides an opportunity to practice counting skills. Waiting for the cookies to come out of the oven is great motivation for learning to read the clock. Reading recipes aloud, step by step, gives older children practice with comprehension, and measuring spoons and cups give their fractions a workout.

One of my pet theories is that learning to tie shoelaces is a good way of developing hand-to-eye coordination in small children. Every adult around Chelsea spent time watching her struggle with her shoes. Her grandmother Virginia thought my theory led to wasting a lot of time that could have been spent playing, and she bought Chelsea a pair of shoes with Velcro fasteners; but I refused to let Chelsea wear them until she mastered the laces. It may sound silly now, but I loved the look of accomplishment on her face when she showed us all what she could do for herself.

To encourage these earliest discoveries is to help children develop not only specific skills but, just as important, the personality traits that are essential to later learning: confidence, motivation, effort, responsibility, initiative, perseverance, caring, teamwork, common sense, and problem solving. These “megaskills,” as Dorothy Rich, founder of the Home and School Institute, calls them, are also the foundation of self-respect and the moral, ethical, and spiritual codes that guide us through life.

Children should be encouraged to learn in all sorts of ways, not just scholastic ones. They have a natural sense of curiosity and a love of discovery that needs to be nurtured to sustain itself. Applaud and encourage learning for learning's sake, whether it's cloud-watching or understanding what keeps a kite in the sky or mixing paints to make new colors. Helping kids to identify and explore their passions will prepare them to get the most out of not only school but life.

This is especially important for teenagers. Developing mutual interests with older children is an important way of keeping lines of communication open as well as establishing an ongoing influence on their intellectual and moral growth. Too often parents fail to understand that while teenagers need some space, they also need to know that adults are available and interested in the things that are important to them.

Young kids love repetition and the comfort of recurring patterns. I can't count the number of times that I read
Goodnight Moon
to Chelsea or watched
The Sound of Music
with her, in a nearly catatonic state. Whenever Julie Andrews got ready to launch into “Doe, a deer, a female deer,” Chelsea's eyes would light up and she would say, “Here it comes, Mommy, my favorite song!”

Knowing what to expect next gives children a sense of security. Familiar stories, music, toys, and routines are the everyday landmarks that make them feel they belong. And repetition is one of the most important tools they use to learn.

Still, for many parents the repetition can be a little trying at times. I found that it was better to acknowledge the tedium than to feel guilty about it. I tried to bear in mind my own mother's admonition that what might seem trivial and repetitious to me could be the highlight of a child's day.

Routine—structured, ritualized time—is as essential to kids as unstructured play time. Dr. Brazelton describes a simple routine that works wonders. He recommends that when parents get home from work, they take some time to focus on their children right away. That may sound like a tall order if you feel the way I do at the end of a workday. But if you walked in the door and discovered you had unexpected adult company, you would probably pull up a chair and make conversation. And if you needed fifteen minutes at work to finish an important task, chances are you would make time for that too. Why should we consider spending time with adults and on work (even when they bore or annoy us) more crucial than spending time with our own children?

Family meals are a time-honored and important ritual of daily life, one that is, sadly, disappearing from the American landscape, a casualty of television, fast food, microwaves, and overtime. But it is precisely because our lives are so hectic that Bill, Chelsea, and I try to sit down to at least one meal a day together, usually dinner. After grace, which we take turns saying, there is no better time to catch up on what we have been doing all day, what we are excited about, and what troubles us. This evening, for instance, Bill talked about the budget debate in Congress and Chelsea talked about her history paper. Together, we talked about plans for Thanksgiving.

We're lucky that we “live above the store,” the way a lot of families used to. On the other hand, we have had to give up the easy mobility and daily activities we used to take for granted. When Chelsea was small, I took her to ballet class every Saturday. On the way home, I took her to lunch or on errands, which gave us a chance to talk and be together. Now we have to work harder to find that kind of informal time. We make a point of taking breaks from our respective homework in the evening for a chat or a quick game of three-handed pinochle.

I admire the way Mormons set aside one night a week for family activities. When Chelsea was small, Bill and I adopted this idea. We took turns deciding what we would do. We went miniature golfing (guess who picked that?), rented movies, took long walks, played in parks, and did other simple activities.

One memorable night, Chelsea wanted us to go buy a coconut. She had never tasted one, but they were featured frequently in the Curious George stories she loved. We walked to our neighborhood store, brought the coconut home, and tried to open it, even pounding on it with a hammer, to no avail. Finally we went out to the parking lot of the governor's mansion, where we took turns throwing it on the ground until it cracked. The guards could not figure out what we were up to, and we laughed for hours afterward.

 

M
OST CHILDREN
have bedtime rituals, and Chelsea was no exception. From the time she was a baby, Bill and I took turns reading to her and praying with her. We promised ourselves that we would not skip this routine, no matter how tired we were. There were nights when one of us had to wake the other for “your turn.”

But I don't think we fully appreciated the importance of this ritual to Chelsea until she was in first grade. Bill and I, concerned that she seemed reluctant to read to us at home, mentioned it during a conference with her teacher, a sensitive and insightful woman. She, too, had noticed that Chelsea was not enthusiastic about reading. Something seemed to be holding her back. The teacher urged us not to pressure Chelsea but to wait for her to decide on her own that she was ready to read.

Worried as we were, we took her advice. Eventually we realized that Chelsea herself was worried. She feared that we would stop reading aloud to her if she learned to read all by herself. When we assured her we would keep reading to her as long as she wanted us to, she relaxed and started to enjoy her own increasing skill.

Reading together is a wonderful pastime for parents and children, at any time. Just think: If you spend only twenty minutes reading to your child, that is more uninterrupted time than most fathers spend talking with their children each day. (Getting older siblings to read to younger children gives them valuable practice too.)

The village can encourage this all-important activity. The American Library Association is currently administering a three-year national demonstration project whose goal is to help low-income parents and those with poor literacy skills to raise children who are “born to read.” The program works with adults to improve their own reading skills and emphasizes the importance of reading to children. The Association of Booksellers for Children is promoting a program called The Most Important Twenty Minutes of Your Day…Read with a Child. One aspect of the project has been getting pediatricians to “prescribe” reading aloud for parents, and for children as well when they reach reading age.

In addition to being read to, children love to be told stories. Storytelling has the advantage of convenience. You can do it in the car, in the doctor's office, in the bathtub, waiting in line. The stories don't have to be elaborate or even very good to engross a child. Bill made up episodes for Chelsea featuring characters from her life who performed heroic feats. A sailboat she saw when we visited the beach became “George the Sailboat,” who had adventures all over the world. I told her stories whose heroines were brave little girls who rescued unicorns or slew dragons. Bill and I often paused to ask her what she thought happened next, drawing her into the storytelling role.

Children learn how to treat others from how they are treated themselves. If we want them to grow into attentive, affectionate, generous, and respectful adults, our treatment of them must embody those qualities. And if we also want our children to become inquisitive, independent thinkers who will find creative and productive outlets for their unique characters and talents, we would be wise to demonstrate those qualities in our earliest dealings with them.

Parents discover that this modeling of behavior is a two-way street. How many times have you watched a child playing and thought: If only I could bottle that energy? Children throw themselves with gusto into whatever they do. Not only are their bodies flexible and unwearied, but in some ways their lives are better integrated than ours. Because they are more attuned to the present than the future, the process than the product, they are not afraid to fail or to make fools of themselves, until we teach them otherwise. Spending time with children elevates our perceptions and energizes us.

As we get older, many of us abandon the activities we enjoy. The teacher who secretly writes fiction gives up after several magazines reject her work. The weekend artist puts away his watercolors. The former competitive swimmer can't tolerate the natural deterioration of her body and stops doing laps. Somehow we convince ourselves that to spend time doing these things, which don't pay the electric bill or look impressive on our résumés, is childish.

It is. Children teach us to see things in their most elemental forms. They teach us about uncluttered joy. Natural clowns, they remind us that life is full of comic moments. Whether they are making sand castles or dreaming up new kinds of people and animals, they are always looking at novel ways of putting things together. In all these ways, they remind us what is really important, and in so doing, they renew our spirit.