A couple of days ago, we had the opportunity to attend Christian's induction ceremony into the National Honor Society. It was quite an elite group of kids being recognized with a regimen of service, exceptional grades, and leadership required for acceptance. The keynote speaker urged the students to recognize their parent's role in them being there and encouraged them to thank them for all of their efforts. I have to admit that it was a pretty proud moment for me. But the more I have reflected on that night, the more I realize that the pride I felt was a little misplaced. Let me explain. I was, and am, incredibly proud of Christian for his academic accomplishments. However, I think that pride in myself for helping him accomplish those things is not somewhere I feel comfortable going because he has done it 99% himself, and the 1% of effort on my part was just pure joy for being able to participate. He has naturally excelled at learning his whole life, and that is what he spends his efforts pursuing--hours and hours every day by himself down in his room. Of course, as a child we helped him with his homework but it didn't really require a lot of effort on our part even then because he thrived on learning and was innately good at it.
Next, my mind went to my daughter Madison who we in fact do spend hours upon hours with studying and teaching while she cries, fights with us, is frustrated with us, and us with her. Besides doing homework with her on a daily basis, we have hired tutors, had her evaluated, talked to teachers and counselors endlessly, prayed for her success, and yet the result has been less than stellar as far as grades are concerned. Even though her grades aren't all A's, we are equally proud of her as we are of Christian because of her extreme effort. If you could see what my husband and I, as well as many many other parents go through with students that struggle like her, you would promptly award us the Parental Job (as in the Old Testament, Job) Award. However, none of us will ever sit in a school auditorium and be given a parental pat on the back for our students with mediocre grades, even though we probably should and our children probably should as well because of their perseverance in the face of hardship. It is tempting to directly connect a student's academic performance with a parent's efforts, but this definitely should not be done because it is not accurate to assume that a student with straight A's and a student with B's and C's had more or less parental involvement. In fact in our case, it is the opposite; we have had to be way more involved with Madison than we have with Christian--we just get more praise for his academic successes than we do for Madison.
I realize their intent to point out to the students that they needed to be grateful to their parents for their help and support came from a good place, but in my situation, it wasn't really deserved like it might have been for other parents there and I don't wish to take any of the credit away from Christian. It has made me think about things I wouldn't mind getting some credit for in raising my children, because they are things I highly value and have put a lot of effort into. These are some of the things:
*Children that know how to work hard.
*Children that are joyful and balanced individuals.
*Children who are grateful.
*Children who are service oriented.
*Children who are independent.
All other things involving talents, school, and personal spirituality are more up to them to grasp and pursue and really aren't so much a reflection upon Robert and I as parents in my opinion. And doesn't it all just boil down to free agency anyway? You can offer your kids every opportunity, and create a perfect environment for them in every way, but ultimately it is all up to them whether they take ahold of the opportunities given to them. So really, for me at least, I feel comfortable being proud of what my children accomplish, but don't really plan on connecting their accomplishments to myself or equating my value as a person to their successes or failures. Which leads me to my final thought: I feel the more you are able to detach your children's accomplishments and failures from yourself, the less their life becomes about YOU and the more it becomes about THEM, which is how I believe it should be. I think having a child's motivations be clearly internally centered within themselves, instead of coming from external sources of motivation such as parental approval is vital in a child's development. Ultimately, I have decided that I want my children to choose good choices in their lives because that is truly what they want, not because they think it's what I want. That may work for a while, but I don't think being externally motivated by Robert and I will create lasting convictions to good things. Therefore, lately I have tried more to center my children's accomplishments on them. I always tell them I am proud of them, but instead of stopping there, I say "How did you feel about what you just accomplished?" Hopefully this will help them be more in tune with the importance of pride in themselves, outside of me, when they accomplish something great. What do you think? Do you think a parent has the right to take partial credit for their child's accomplishments? Do you think internal motivation is more important than external motivation?
6 comments:
Well said.
Yes, yes, yes. I really like your thoughts about this. Some people just have "book smarts" and others for many many reasons cannot. I find that when you chalk anything in life up to one reason alone, it isn't a correct assumption Every situation in life is caused by multiple, multiple events, decisions, choices, failures, the environment, priorities, and everything in between. I think something that you definitely can take credit for is for creating a positive learning environment for all of your kids to learn. You gave them to tools necessary to strive to learn, whether it was easily grasped or not. Not every child has parents who care how well their children are doing in school or have a good home environment in which to study and learn. You and Robert have instilled in all your kids that education is of the utmost importance and a means to have a happy and fulfilling life. I have seen directly how dramatically not instilling those thoughts and attitudes can effect children and futures. Children who are not constantly reinforced that learning and school is one of the most important things they can do for themselves end up not having the confidence to learn or go to college later in life. Schooling and a good learning environment are so crucial for everyone's future.
It reminds of when Megan was really young. (I may have shared this with you before) She was fully reading by age 3, could tinker songs out on the piano, and was naturally very kind, polite and friendly. We got compliments about her all the time, and I began to somewhat pat myself on the back for all the good in her. Then came my 2nd child, that didn't follow suit in the least. In fact, as a younger child, he was almost the exact opposite of Megan in every way. I realized I really shouldn't take the "credit" for Megan without taking "blame" for Luke. It changed much of my parenting perspective very early on. I think parents (for the most part) are behind most of the children's successes, but not is as big of a way as some outsiders think. For example Christians innate ability to learn and excel at it, or Megan's innate ability musically. She is excelling musically, but she is the one that deserves much of the credit. Sure we pay for the lessons and we nag occasionally about practice, but you're right--kids deserve to feel their own sense of pride and accomplishment too.
And you are sooooo right, the things we do deserve credit for are probably rarely going to be the things we get credit for. Like I should get a HUGE compliment for Luke getting 12/20 the other week on his spelling, and so should he. Yet academically, (meaning from school) Ellie will be recognized far more for her 100%'s every week that come with very little from her, than Luke ever will for his EFFORT. He worked so darn hard for that 12/20, but it won't ever get recognized in the public eye.
Great post-I think we could talk for hours on this very subject. Sorry for the essay comment.
Oh, and as far as internal and external motivation that is such a complex subject that probably deserves its own post! Generally speaking, I think internal motivation creates more growth in character because there are no external factors spurring for development. I think that external motivation can be a great tool for short-term goals. For example, when kids want to earn money to buy that shiny new toy or win the reflections contest to get a cool ribbon. Some of the biggest ways I feel I have learned the most about myself was when I had both internal and external motivation. Training for a marathon was internal in the sense that it was greatly about mind over matter and something that I choose to prove to myself that I could do, but knowing that I paid a lot of money to do the race, and that there was family counting on me to do it and a shiny medal waiting for me at the end sure did help! ;)
Parents are always blamed or rewarded for children's behavior and performance which I feel is completely inappropriate. This is an interesting exchange-
Dubner: An economist, named Bruce Sacerdote, he's at Dartmouth. He wanted to know activist-parenting -- if you want to call it that -- actually pays off. And one way to measure this, especially if you're talking about educational achievement -- which is what parents probably care about the most -- is to look at adoption studies, where you can actually measure the impact that a family, that the parents, will have on a kid.
Ryssdal: So what's his thesis, that kids adopted into, I guess, high-education homes will be more likely to go to college, is that the deal?
Dubner: Exactly right. If parents are so important, then parents can take an adopted kid who might otherwise not have gone to college, and that kid will become college material. So Sacerdote sliced and diced a lot of good data and he did find parental influence.
Bruce Sacerdote: But it's not quite as big as I expected to find.
Ryssdal: All right, so quantify for me: how big is not so big?
Dubner: If you're a child who's adopted into a high-education family -- that is where the parents both went to college -- you are about 16 percentage points more likely to go to college than a kid who gets adopted into a low-education family. So that sounds pretty good, OK?
Until you compare that to the rate for biological kids from high-education families, who are about 75 percentage points more likely to go to college than biological kids from low-education families. So on the one hand, this is a little dispiriting for parents. We don't seem to have as much influence as we might think. On the other hand, in a weird way, it kind of takes some of the pressure off, right? At least it did for Bruce Sacerdote.
Sacerdote: This notion that genes are really important and that kids are hard-wired to do certain things, I think understanding that did help me relax and not worry so much that I was going "screw them up" in some terrible way.
Dubner: So there's love and happiness and satisfaction -- all that good stuff. But here's the thing: the data seem to suggest that a lot of parents who get wrapped up in activist-parenting, who push their kids toward accomplishment, might actually make themselves unhappy as parents and might end up sacrificing some of that good stuff. So that's really the balance. If you want to go off the balance, you might even consider the opposite end of the spectrum, the style embraced by my Freakonomics friend and co-author, Steve Levitt.
Steven Levitt: Most of the time, I'm just lazy. You know, I could be investing in the kids or I can be, you know, indulging my own hobbies and sleeping and things. And so I'm sort of lazy. The other problem is that I have four kids. If you have too many kids, you can't invest that heavily into any one of them, because you go crazy.
Ryssdal: Amen, brother. I mean, if it's good enough for Steven Levitt, it's good enough for me, that's all I have to say.
Dubner: Hey, have a nice lazy Father's Day, Kai.
Ryssdal: I will do that, you too.
Dubner: Thanks Kai.
As parents all we can do is create a healthy and safe environment for our children to grow and learn. Ultimately, they make their own choices.
While I agree in rewarding those who are brilliant and excel in everything they do, there are so many who go unseen and do not get recognized for their monumental efforts just to be average--those are the real unsung heroes. These are they who we should be heaping the praise on.
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