The essential parent

Here’s to a simpler new school year—and happier students

By Leslie Chandler

This morning, still wearing my nightgown and holding a cup of coffee, I walked onto my deck to greet the day and clear a mental path for the sea of adolescent and client complications that might cross my desk. As I was listening to the sounds of nature, I overheard the voices of a family who lived behind me. They were trying to get their kids out the door and in the car to go to school…

“Did you remember your backpack?”

“How could you possibly forget your books?”

“Mom, don’t forget to pick me up at four today because I have soccer practice!”

“Did you get your shin guards?”

…and so this conversation went (but with much more feeling and emphasis of import).

As I listened, I remembered all too well those same conversations when my children were younger, and I thought about what I know now about the essentials of parenting school-age children. What are reasonable expectations in terms of how much to push, plan or even expect a child to be able to perform at any given age? And what are the real ingredients necessary for children to turn into happy, functioning adults?

When my kids were growing up, I read an article from noted pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton regarding this very issue, and I think his parenting points are still applicable today. Here are Dr. Brazelton’s ideas, which I’ve updated to fit our current technological culture:

In today’s world of getting ahead and being the best, we all are striving to make sure our kids have a leg up on the world of technology, education and, last but not least, social and emotional skills.

Meanwhile, our kids are dealing with school—and it is demanding! They are learning new rules, new ways of socializing, new ways of thinking, and new ways of studying via laptops, and connecting to the world at large via the Internet. They must make those adjustments themselves; no one else can do it for them. A hovering parent can become an obstacle in a child’s path, a worried parent only fuels a child’s fears, and a parent who’s too quick to rescue a struggling child doesn’t allow him to resolve his own problems, but instead prevents him from adapting to the real world of disappointments.

Finding balance

Once upon a time, adults would watch children as they learned and played and be gently reminded of the goodness of simplicity. But today’s child is in a hurry to be something more, something different, something better—as if she were not already in her perfect, God-like state! The problem is not with the child, but with the parents who impose their own ego-driven energies onto this beautiful canvas of a being. There is no time for the child to play in the dirt, to bake cookies, to watch clouds, to enjoy the simple freedom of her own imagination.

So how can parents ensure their children are resilient and ready for what’s to come, yet allow them to simply be whatever age they are?

Listen—and understand

The key is to be understanding, sympathetic and empathic—and not to overreact to normal childhood or adolescent drama. Listen to your children and accept what they have to say, but understand that it’s coming through a 10-, 12-, 15- or 16-year-old lens/filtering process.

Encourage them to find the solutions to their own problems by asking questions like, “What would you do in this situation?” or, “How would you handle this?” Then follow up with them to see if they carried out their plan, and talk together about the results. Every kid who masters ways to handle his own issues or anxiety learns valuable coping skills for the future. Every kid who learns how to create balance in her life grows with resilience.

The power of positive thinking

There is a lot to be said for positive thinking and developing it in our children. Optimism is the great motivator, while anxiety undermines the intellect. This is not just a theory. In a study of college freshmen, University of Kansas psychologist Charles R. Snyder discovered that a hopeful attitude was a better predictor of students’ first-semester grades than were their scores on the SAT, a test supposedly able to forecast how students will fare in college (and highly correlated with IQ).

Snyder’s conclusion? “Students with high hope set themselves higher goals and know how to work to attain them. When you compare students of equivalent intellectual aptitude and past academic achievements, what sets them apart is hope.”

Here, then, is to a school year filled with the essentials: balance, understanding, hope and a great deal of prayer.