teaching your own kids

Teaching your child to become an adult seems like something you’d need qualifications for, and in truth, the happiest children in this troubled age (troubled with regard to parenting that is) that I have observed have been the children of teachers or people who work with children. These ‘professional parents’ aren’t operating on a long ago memory of what theirparents said and did. They don’t idolise childhood. It’s a job, they know how to get it done. Both my parents were teachers (before changing to other work) and they knew what to do.

Be consistent. Be a team. Show a united front. Decide on the kind of home you want to live in, and make it everyone’s responsibility to keep it that way. Set chores and police them. You can watch an episode or two of Supernanny and get the idea quite quickly. But sticking to it…

We hardly know what it is ‘to teach’. Does it mean telling someone off? Always correcting them? Setting a silent example (dedicated dad who drives you everywhere, doormat mum who clears up after everyone?) or does it mean letting them ‘find their own way’? We have such negative experiences of school we tend to lose sight of how we really learn. And even when we know we assume that others will just ‘pick it up’. Well some do, like those with a natural talent at sport, just watching it done is enough for them. One child I know learnt how to do perfect cartwheels and flips from simply watching an animated character in a video game. But others need remedial help, they need help in removing the blocks that are stopping them from seeing what is really going on. They need help in getting into ‘the learning zone’. 

The learning zone is when we are open and transparent and eager to absorb anything that looks like it might help, might get us closer to mastering something. It is the holy grail of all teachers to try and inspire this- but in an unruly class of thirty kids where being cool is a higher priority than anything else, the task is not easy. We encourage our kids in their sports and hobbies hoping they will pick up this crucial meta-skill, know how to learn, how to teach themselves something. And somehow, as an average dad this is one thing my children have managed to acquire. Genetic? Taught? All I can say is that I over encouraged the slightest interest they showed in anything I approved of to the point that they would give it up very quickly. It seemed I had failed again. But then, as they edged into being teens, they began to surprise me. And the places where they did show persistence and a desire to learn were all areas I didn’t really value. With Dill it was her endless and meticulous copying and drawing. With Al it was his obsession with street football tricks. It is almost despitemy efforts, or so it seems.

Over eager, over keen, wanting it NOW I had forgotten that beinginterestedis a normal part of being human. It doesn’t need encouragement or discouragement such much as time and space. And this is one thing the lousy modern world is very good at taking away. It is the era par excellence in which there is never enough of either. 

And don’t think sending your kids to an expensive school will solve all your problems. The pressure to fill every minute is perhaps even greater at a school with high ambitions and higher fees. Instead our children need long days of non-toxic time and acres of free space.