Being the right kind of positive...

One of the things I'd like to do with this blog is share resources and news and such with my friends and fellow parents/parents-to-be. And this article is a perfect example:

How Not To Talk To Your Kids

You might want to read the article itself before reading my rant about it... or rave... hard to say.

This one really strikes home for me. I was a smart kid. Aced all my tests. Did insanely well in the standardize tests. Got a 32 on my ACT for goodness sake. And I was always applauded for it. Of course I never had to work much at it. The way our government schools are set up is to bring everybody along even if that means holding the smart ones back, or at least not challenging them. Our teachers, bless their souls, worked so hard to get the less interested and less innately smart kids to where they needed to be, that those of us who got it the first time they taught it were left twiddling our thumbs waiting to take a test that proved far less than it should have. Heck, half the tests weren't about knowing the right answer so much is eliminating the wrong answers.

And so you sit around, not really doing much of anything. And they call you smart for it. And they give you awards and really thick dictionaries and eventually scholarships. And even more importantly, "smart" comes to be how you identify yourself and how you believe others perceive you and what they value in you. That's the sort of thing you'll spend a lot of time protecting.

So you start lying to yourself. It doesn't matter how much fun you had in math class, you decide that college math sounds intimidating, so you opt away from engineering and architecture and study to be a PR flack. And you maybe sign up for honors classes, but tell yourself it really doesn't matter in the real world anyhow, so you drop that program after you can only manage a B in the first honors class you take. And you had to work for that. But its not the work that matters, it showing off what your brain can already do.

And you eventually graduate, still skating by and convinced that you are smart and people respect you for your brains. But now you find a descent job and cling to it. Any challenge that comes your way, you avoid, at least the big ones. Changing jobs, moving away, starting fresh... Why look for career growth when you have a perfectly good job with no upward mobility? After all, you can't fail if you aren't allowed to try. And why look for a new more rewarding career? After all, most folks think you have a pretty good deal as it is.

And then you get stuck with a real challenge. You are gonna be a daddy and there is no way around that. And your wife is pretty smart and you are pretty smart and the kids probably gonna be a firecracker. But then some researcher says something that makes all the world of sense to you and you innately know that you'll have to watch yourself closely. It is fine to love your child and to be awestruck by their brilliance. It is likely to be dang near impossible to show them anything but how proud you are of their intelligence. But so much better to focus your comments of adoration and praise less on their gifts and more on their efforts. To show them a path and encourage behaviors that will continually propel them higher in their life and dreams...

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I'm a man, I'm 31. I can shape myself, my behavior and my options. The road I'm on is one I've opted to take, and I've been aware of my own character flaws for some time. I blame no one for these but myself. What I'm talking about here is shaping the next generation. I'm merely saying this research raises some interesting points to consider.

Whew, what a mouthful. And yes, the second the kiddo says "da-da" I'm gonna be convinced I have a new Einstein and there goes all this out the window... But I hope not. I really think there is something to this one. Its at least worth the read.

-BPA