Struggling Child Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life

1 If You Believe What Children Say I know that school is meant for learning and expanding your personality but adults either don't think you're trying hard enough or they don't care. Sixth-grade girl Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The Hebrew Bible, Ecclesiastes 12:12 The question "How was school today?" may be the most-asked and least-answered question in America. It is the question that all parents are compelled to voice every day sometime between three p.m. and bedtime. "How was school today?" No matter how gently you ask it, no matter how cleverly you phrase it, 99 percent of children don't give you the information you crave. "Fine," they reply, or "Okay." Younger ones may give you some details; a child who is a real talker, a born journalist, may give you an extended news report. But such kids are rare. Most children don't share the kind of information about school that parents want to hear. Besides, they know that if they made the effort, you'd just ask again the next day. You'd never be satisfied. That's the way it is with all of us parents, and as our children get older they may protest being asked the "How was . . ." question. "Mom," they declare through clenched teeth, "it was fine." What they mean is: "Don't bug me!" Still, we cannot help ourselves. We were so connected to our children when they were little. We watched everything they did; we charted their developmental progress daily. We phoned our closest friends when our eleven-month-old seemed ready to walk. "She's cruising around the living room holding on to chairs and the coffee table." Nothing escaped our vigilant attention and eager celebration. Then off they go to school and suddenly we're starved for information. We can't see what they're doing or what's happening around them or to them. We're cut off from much of our children's lives. We want scraps, quiz grades, gossip about the teacher's personalityanything. I once asked an audience of parents what they would ask for if they had "the teacher of their dreams." A mother said, "I'd like my son's teacher to call me every day and tell me about his day." "In what grade is your son?" I asked. "Tenth grade," replied the mother without embarrassment, as the entire audience laughed. But what do we really hope to learn from that question we keep asking? I imagine a parent asking a child, "How was school today?," and the child answering with something like this: "Mom, I'd like to tell you, I really would, but it is all too complicated to put into words. I don't know where to begin. The truth is that you're not asking me about school really, you're asking me how my life is going, and I don't have any perspective on that. I'm trying to develop into a person here and sometimes the school seems to be something of a help and at other times it feels like it is totally in the way of my becoming a person. Besides, why do I have to tell you what school is all about? Didn't you go to school? Don't you know what school is like? Why keep asking me?" Of course you did go to school, but what does that have to do with your child's education? The aim of this book is to take you into the minds of children as well as back into your own school memories in an attempt to put you back iBarker, Teresa H. is the author of 'Struggling Child Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life', published 2004 under ISBN 9780345450128 and ISBN 0345450124.