The Pendulum of Parenting

Parenting is a subject which I think I know a lot about, yet I have no direct biological experience of. 

[Just steparenting. And being a nanny in my 20's. It so happens that the little girl in my charge has grown up now and tracked her nanny down. She still lives in Seattle and we are connected. Okay time for an "Awwww!"]

The reality is that I work with students, but the true "client" is the parent, and I have a lot of communication with them. Many times i find myself on hot coals, dishing out tips delicately, on hot topics like preventing power struggles, not pushing too hard, not giving in too much, how to discuss learning disabilities with kids, or their brain, and then there are sleep patterns, social skills, and nutrition. Like I said: Tender Topics. With some parents, I feel they are on their best behavior with me, but my intuition screams about what is most likely the reality at home:

The touchy parenting topic comes up in our Learning Specialists Consulting Group, (which is supposedly quarterly, but...well...). We end up delivering all sorts of tips to our clients for how to be a parent, a teacher, a coach, and a cheerleader to their child. And it only works if the parents are curious about how to improve as people, parents, and family members, and are curious about their child. (as opposed to having an agenda). At our professional gatherings, we end up swapping parent stories, since they are so much a part of the results equation, then espousing quippy suggestions about how to interact with anxious parents, marshmallow parents, or disorganized parents.

When all goes well, in the tutoring situation, we are on the same page about what the child needs, the parents establish warm and humorous rapport with me, and fine-tunes it with their child, so that they use their time wisely in between sessions. And then there are times when it does not go so well. That is when I bring out articles, handouts, or quickie memorable gems, like "When the outcome isn't important, give your child the power to choose. When it IS, make yourself clear, and decide, and don't waver. No apologies. No negotiation." 

I get some of this from my gut, and a lot of it from LOVE & LOGIC. Their premise is about preventing battles using choices and natural consequences. Their marketing materials make it seem, of course, that harmony will reign and that every waking moment will look like this photo, but I DO love the humble nature of the creators of the program: a father and son team who did not always collaborate!

I see all kinds of parenting in my private practice, and sometimes I broach the subject of suggesting they do something concrete to prevent power struggles, establish a "tone" in the home for learning, motivate without candy, and be engaged without being overbearing. That brings me to the pendulum. I steer parents into the center as much as I can, with compassion and humor.

The pendulum is what I observe, and parents are sometimes blind to, and most teachers talk about. Parents at one extreme end approach kids with a "They will find their way" mentality, often coupled with "I don't want to label them," and, at its worst, "I don't use any negative consequences." These are what I call Marshmallows. 

A version of this is the parents who simply have their kids run the show, and they insist on not interfering. They are trying so hard not to raise their voices, or be stern or punitive, that the children run the household. These are what I call Rotweiler Owners, because I have been in households where the dogs run the place. It is apparent the minute I arrive. In this case it is the kids. 

And finally, the Hover-ers. I don't use the term, "helicopter" because that implies that the parent is pressuring their child to succeed, or micromanaging them, but that is not always part of the mix. Sometimes they are simply so intertwined, anf blur the boundary between them and their child, that they apologize on behalf of their child, prompt them while they are speaking, help them so much with HW that the child does not get the satisfaction of independence, and oh, they worry. These parents are professional anxiety-ers. And remember that ADHD morphs into Anxiety, so genetic apples falling from trees are at play here. Drill Sergeant parents is what the media calls one sub-category of these.

So.....either I have a healthy distance from the maternal (and often genetic) tug, and am using that bird's eye view of the parent-child fabric of emotions so as to offer deep wisdom, or I am pompous, off-base, and would be better off keeping my mouth shut. The plethora of articles in the past year about these pendulums (with differing names and nuances) is a testament that I am not so far off.

In the Ideal World...Teaching like Homeschoolers

We should suspend the regular English curriculum for a semester and teach “Reading and Writing.” Every student would produce an essay each week and spend time at the teacher’s desk being edited. We would hire or train teachers to do what my first editors did: Cross out cute phrases, ask what I was trying to say, break overlong sentences into pieces, ask for specific examples, replace inactive verbs with active ones, and so on.

Deep Feedback and Deep Word Use

....Was reading a Mother Jones article about private vs. public universities and how well they teach writing, critical thinking, and the like. Of course there is the familiar argument about how we can't really teach sophistication, and the differences in how your papers are attended to, and by who (professor or TA), but what pranced out at me was mention of how paltry the actual deep feedback is, for written assigments, with  budget cutbacks.


That is what is sorely needed - a mentor, a teacher, a trusted adult, with whom to talk about your writing with. Sigh!


Pity the middle school Language Arts teachers, who subscribe to Educational Journals, read the articles that their guest in-service providers hand out, take summer intensives in how to better teach writing to hormonal media-soaked pre-teens, and YET, they don't have the time to really spend with them, one-on-one, discussing the revisions needed in their writing, create deep goals for their writing improvement, and simply have time to READ all those papers! Okay run-on sentence award there, for me.


Someday there will be a way to tape record comments of a teacher while they skim a paper, with some futuristic mind-reading software, and the student then uses those to create a revision, which then gets read by a Grad Student who is doing an in-service project as part of their teacher certification.  In the meantime we need smaller classes and great teachers and bigger budgets and (refrain of song repeats here)

And how I wish this Scrabble sentence were true!

This summer I am also awash in reflections on the Vocabulary Deficit. For BOTH the students whose families have "means", as well as the foster kids who I am overseeing the interventions for this summer, I see serious gaps in vocabulary, as we read fiction, non-fiction, and everything in between. I am shocked at the limits of their understanding of academic language (aka "book words" or the ability to draw from sophisticated lists of synonyms for what they are reading - or what they are writing).


I mean, I don't spend time with them on a word like "cabaret" or "arid" but when a soon-to-be 7th grader doesn't know what "finite" or "prohibitive" means, we may be headed for a roadblock or two in assigned readings in 7th or 8th grade. Duh. 


Oh, if I am in a thunderstorm kind of day, July mood, with fewer clients than I would like to have this month, and cleaning even the tops of door jambs to pass the time, forgive my melancholy. But the vocabulary gap is real. As is the dearth of adult feedback to our budding next generation of writers. 


As one of my favorite bloggers says, "Today I don't have any upbeat tips, just words strung together to make you think, and smile."

WORD PRECISION

I have harped on my students about strong verbs until I feel like a repetitive robot. I have practiced choosing the precise noun, and they roll their eyes when I look at their writing and ask, "What KIND....(?)" of bug, or desk, or dog or game.


And then there are adjectives. Not so harpy about those, but they do have their place. Tons of blogs about writing warn, "Not too many adjectives; no one will take you seriously" and other such platitudes. Well, I think kids need to learn that when you are short of verbs in a couple of paragraphs, you had better have some adjectives. I have done my own research in children's novels, with a sample of 16, and it is true that J.K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket, Rick Riordan, and others use this rough math equation.


Adjectives are the words that create the most hilarity in Mad Libs. They are what make-up about 1/4 of our English Language. They are what make poetry leap off the page. They are also what sports reporters use well.  Or overuse. 


"The flimsy pitch reeled through the suspenseful air."
"There were even hints of their lethargic 118-108 victory Sunday against an undermanned and injured Sacramento team."
"Wimbledon, the oldest of the Grand Slam events, remains beautifully suited to Federer's Swiss army knife of a skill set."


Use?
Overuse?
You decide.


Adjectives are what kids can struggle with because they know they want to say, "The Waterpark was awesome," but their teacher - or someone like me - has told them that "awesome" is a tired word. So they reach into their lexicon of words and can't quite find a synonym. 


Time for the Thesaurus? Maybe. Remember, that is not a tool to be used without adult supervision, because just dunking a fishing rod into there and retrieving the first word encountered results in sentences like this, from one of my students, an almost 6th grader:

The slides at the Waterpark were majestic and we had a jocular day.

The cost of trying to avoid awesome and fun.


Using the Visual Thesarus is a great strategy, and so much more motivating (!) yet still it needs a tag attached to it: "Do not use without Adult Supervision." Caveat: $19.95 a year.

So....what do the new Common CORE Standards say?


Here is a snippet from Grade 6-8:
Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to convey experiences and events.


My kid-friendly version of that is "Show Don't Tell" and "...use words that will make your readers see what is in your imaginative mind."
And, of course, I show them how their favorite authors use precise words. Wimpy Kid doesn't count as a model, though. Wimpy words. Imprecise. Okay, okay, not every page. I am such a curmudgeon about that series.


Ooops. I was supposed to be talking about Word Precision and Adjective Use.


I am sticking with my rough equation.
Paragraphs need either solid strong verbs, OR precise adjectives, but not both.


And precise nouns are always called for. 

Brain Stickiness

There is no teflon in the house, but there is teflon in the brains that come here to work with me.


My friend told me this week, while I gushed over new strategies on the forefront of the marriage of pharmacology, and alternative modalities, I learned at an ADD Conference last Saturday, that I need to come back in the next lifetime as a brain researcher. I have come to trust medication more than I would have ever predicted, yet I grow more MIStrustful of "Big Pharma."


"But I don't trust the AMA,", I responded, "because doctors only have, like 16 hours of credits on nutrition, and maybe 12 on stress and the body-mind connection, PLUS they have not healed me as much as my own brain and bodywork have." 
"Well", she said, "that is why they need you."


I have been watching TED Talks lately, because they have short time frames for my short sometimes attention span, uber smart people, yet not ones who live in a laboratory and never see daylight or controversial conversations, plus TED is the place I would speak about ADHD, brain health, schools for LD kids, academic skill-building in the ideal setting, and how to coach a kid who hates reading and writing, if I only knew the right "TED" people.


I tried the Seattle area TED Talks with no response. I am fighting my beliefs that I do not have enough degrees, or that I have too many wrinkles, to keep pursuing this goal. I seems you must present some newfangled idea, creative, original, and life-changing, to qualify. Nothing like a high bar to reduce me to inertia. Just like my kids I tutor! So I will practice what I preach, not give up, and keep searching for what it takes to present. I probably need to really practice what I teach, and "narrow my topic."


I said today to one of my 8-year-olds, "Maybe we could create a scrapbook of your summer trip and you could write little captions." Oh No. That did not go over like it did with my 11-year old girl who did that last summer. She took it and ran with it, practicing starting sentences with interesting beginnings. Instead, for him, it was like presenting a "high bar."

Or

"Let's aim for writing great 5-paragraph essays this school year!" Students are eavesdropping on this goal-setting brainstorm in my living room, while I talk to their parent, usually a mom, and meanwhile, their handwriting, grammar, spelling, keyboarding, thesaurus use, sentence length, and sense of organization is paltry. I calmly reassure them, in my most Glenda the Good Witch voice, that we will work just on sentences for a long time and then only when they are ready, essays. Gosh, I know of NO child or teen who lights up when that word is spoken. And then I deliver the hypocritical news, when they tell of some daunting assignment, like writing about why their school is the best, and give THREE reasons grade, that 5-paragraph essays are not how most magazines or newspapers are actually written.


Speaking of entrenched beliefs, I listened to a talk tonight by Joe Dispenzia, who is an articulate geek who makes sense of the chemicals in the brain, and motivation, learning, and habits. Nothing trivial there. The limbic brain, or mammalian brain, or emotional brain, regulates "internal chemical order." Of course, if the frontal cortex is compromised, as in anxiety-ridden, ADHD-ers, or traumatized people or children, there is less of a dance step integration possible. I just could not help think of my struggling writers, and whether changing their thinking could incur tangible changes in their output and flow. 


My current belief is that the "stickiness' of one's brain is directly related to how healthy the nutrients you put in are, plus the dopamine, plus the amount of explicit instruction you get, and much more. 


Changing Your Brain: The 3 Brains that Allow us to go from Thinking, to Doing, to Being


Oh Yeah! I am supposed to place bullet points in my post in order to follow the rules of BLOGGING! I always forget.

• Nerve cells that fire together wire together. 
• If learning is making new synaptic connections, then remembering is maintaining and sustaining those connections. 
• Warning: Many moving images of dendrites and synapses in the youtube video. Kidding.

http://www.drjoedispenza.com/

Love the resources on his website. Who can argue with the Meditation called, "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself?"