How many times over my 30+ years in education did I hear how disappointed teachers were with parents? You can't go a day on any social media and not see a cartoon or article about how to be a better parent. Interestingly, these posts and articles are typically by people who have no children or work with children and then go home. Hmmm, that was me thirty years ago.
When I first began teaching in an upper middle class school district, I had no children. I was fresh out of college and had everything figured out! I would conference with parents (most of whom stayed home) and tell them they needed to read to their child for 30 minutes every night. Have two children? No problem, each parent read to a child and then switch. Each child will have 'special, independent' time. It made perfect sense to me. Notice I didn't consider anyone might have more than two children or work outside the home.
A few years later I had my first child. My philosophy still held true. My husband or I read to her every night. It was easy. Our lives revolved around her, we had nothing else to do. Then a few years later we had our second daughter. We still read every night but by the time we got home from work, got dinner and baths we read to both at the same time. Plus, the girls liked being read to together.
Fast forward a few years and along came our son. Yes, the children now outnumbered the parents! Our oldest was in Kindergarten and bringing home homework. She was supposed to be read to every night for 20-30 minutes. By the time we got home and got her additional homework done, which by the way was usually a family project, we all read together. I must admit a few nights we fudged. We didn't read but we said we did, There were even a few nights I had our oldest read to our youngest. We were running out of daylight! I must confess while I was driving I even threw a book into the backseat and called it reading a few times.
I wasn't a bad parent, life just happened. Until you have children, you don't get it. I think back to all the parents I had at the beginning of my childless career and wish I could apologize to them. I believe they were trying to do the best they could.
I will go to my grave believing that no parent looks in the mirror and says, "I want to be a bad parent today." I think parents parent the way they were parented or try to do the opposite. Some parents read so many books they don't know what to do.
As educators, we have the degree. We know it's important to read and talk to children. A lot of parents know that, a lot don't. That doesn't make them a bad parent. There are a lot of parents just trying to get dinner on the table, working as hard as they can. As teachers we ask a lot of parents. Yes, asking a parent to read 20 minutes a night doesn't seem like a lot on the surface but it might be.
I truly believe parents are doing the best they can with the knowledge they have. I think as teachers we need to suggest easy, quick things parents can do at home and cut them some slack. I think parents need to realize a lot of what they can do is easy. In the car, turn off the DVD player and talk while you are driving. That's a start.
Everyone just breathe.
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