He's not smart after all - How I've ruined my son

The snow has restarted in earnest around here.  Leaving class last night, it appeared as the the wind and snow was conspiring to make a blizzard.  Coming home, I could see the little whirling snow rivers created by our passage highlighted by the headlights of the car behind us.  This is the kind of weather I can support.  Of course, the fact that we regularly get weather like this makes me look askance at those southern folk.  I guess when you don't get weather, it's hard to know what to do when you get it. 

 Little Guy and I were working on his letters and numbers yesterday, and I praised him to the heavens, just like any other parent.  Then I read an interesting article (Don't Call My Kid Smart) that has me rethinking how I approach this.  Jeff Weinstock writes that we shouldn't call our kids "smart".  By labeling them as "smart" and attributing their success to natural talent, we set them up for failure and, even worse, we set them up not to try. 

I can see some of this emerging now.  I have called Little Guy smart ever since he started exhibiting advanced tendencies.  He can count to 100, how smart he must be.  He can read some of the simpler books, he is so smart.  But getting him to practice, getting him to do the stuff he's NOT good at...  Then he balks and doesn't want to try.  Why?  Because it's not easy for him and he already recognizes that he is "smart" and therefore things will come to him without having to work at it. 

As we all know, though, life does not favor the easy route.  If you want something, you have to work for it.  This is true in all things: school, work, and even relationships.  This puts me in an awkward place though.  He is smart and I know it.  He does have a high level of innate intelligence and things will come easier for him than they will for others.  He is fortunate to have that ability.  But, that doesn't mean there isn't a certain level of effort he must put forth to succeed. 

But, how should I praise him now?  Telling a 4 year old: "Great effort!" or "What a nice try!" just doesn't seem right.  Those are the phrases that you give to kids who really do mean well, but just can't quite reach that bar.  Those are lines that just seem coated with an undertone of pity that you feed to kids to ensure their self-esteem isn't too damaged by failure.  And by avoiding the use of the word "smart", are we in danger of hurting our kids' self-esteem by not acknowledging their intelligence?  No one warned me that being a parent was so dangerous.  Are we all destined to ruin our children either by over-inflating their egos or destroying their self-esteem?

After discussing the article with Big Guy last night, he's of the opinion that I read too much and worry too much.  He says that Little Guy will likely survive the fact that I call him smart and be the better for it.  He's got a point and was in a position to know.  Back when we first dated, he did audits for CPS and it truly upset him at what some of those poor children went through.  And, to a certain extent, he's right. At the same time, I do need to find ways to praise and encourage Little Guy for the work he does.  

In more amusing news, I finally found my keys while I was at school last night.  They've been missing since before Christmas and I was really getting worried that I had done something horrible with them or maybe even left them someplace.  I found them in my purse.  Yeah, I know, I know. 

Watching Jimmy Fallon last night, I realized that Little Guy's hair style is catching on.  Michael Cera has the same exact hairstyle.  I can now pass it off as intentional.  I would like to point out that my son had that hairstyle long before Michael Cera did though.  That's my boy, always on the cutting edge of fashion.  And he's super smart to boot. 

Dammit, he'll never recover from having me as a mother! 

The Week Begins

Today begins the last week of class for the month.  That means final exams and grades. It also means it is a Monday, the end of the weekend, and the need to start behaving like a grown-up. Angels and devils, choices to make, do I act productive, or do I wallow in my creature comforts. 

I always start the week with good intentions.  I plan out what I need to get done on which days of the week.  I even try to figure out approximately how long it will take so I can maximize the efficiency of my days.  And then something happens.  I could probably blame it on ADD, Little Guy, or a combination of the two, but nothing ever goes as planned.  I always end up with part of the list done and none of it hen it was supposed to happen. 

Little Guy does more than his fair share of throwing wrenches into the works. The child has not met a room he could't destroy in under five minutes.  There are times I picture him as Pig Pen from the Snoopy cartoons, surrounded by a whirling mess of toys and books. Right now, I've got the door to his room closed as I try to ignore the mess he's created.  He's since spread out from the bedroom and overtaken the Front Room as well. 

Admittedly, I am holding the wall on the Family Room and attempting to prevent the mess from further incursions, but it's a losing battle at times.  Particularly with a busy boy like Little Guy.  He constantly surprises me.  When he was born, I couldn't imagine what kind of child he would become.  Now, at 4, his personality is emerging on a regular basis.  He has his likes and dislikes and expresses both on a regular basis.  In general, he's a happy kid, but I worry about him. 

His life has changed so much over the past year.  As his mother, it is my duty to make sure that the difficulties that his father and I deal with don't affect him overly much.  How do we really know what he thinks or how it affects him?  I suppose the happiness he exhibits is a good enough sign that we're keeping most of the issues from registering. He's a smart kid and it's going to require fancy footwork to keep him free and clear as he get older.  He already wears me out now!

Lazy Sunday

I've retreated to the sofa and Big Guy's laptop to write today's journal entry. When I am at my desk at this time of day, the sun manages to drive its shiny spikes right through my eyes and into my brain. I am not a day person. I don't approve of rising before noon, I am not fond of spending time in daylight, and this time of year only makes it worse.

It's January and it's raining. There's something seriously wrong with that. Give me great white blizzards where you cannot see three feet in front of you, give me cheerful little snow showers... But don't give me sun that shines of the snow and blinds you, don't give me dismal, grey days that are cheerless, and please, by all that is held dear, do not give me rain in January. It's a muddy, depressing mess outside and it's only made worse by the rapidly changing clouds.

I recognize and accept that both sun and rain have a place in the cycle of things. Both are needed to grow plants and refresh the earth. But not now. Now is a time for the ground to sleep and regain its strength for the growing season. This is a time where we wait with anticipation and excitement for the first buds of spring. Winter has its place in the cycle too and this rain and grey is throwing off the cycle.

As much as people complain about winter and snow, there is a need for it. Without this season, the ground would not have a chance to rest and our attempts to grow things will be thrown off. And, despite my love for winter, I do love the growing seasons. Last year, my garden didn't fare so well. This year, we're going to build a raised bed, fill it with wonderful dirt from my mom's yard, and, hopefully, actually be successful this year.

In the meantime, Big Guy, Little Guy and I will sit in our house and await the spring. Today, I do need to enter grades into the spreadsheet but I'll save that until after dark. Big Guy has started on the Song of Ice and Fire series, but for right now, he's watching a truly terrible movie called "The Time Guardian". It's apparently a 1989 rip-off of The Terminator and, despite starting only a few minutes ago, is already pretty horrible.

It stars Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap, Battlestar Galactica) and Carrie Fisher (Star Wars: The Original Trilogy) in what, I can only assume, is a part of their lives they'd rather forget. They use laser guns and the killer robots appear to be Space Barbarian Transformers with horned heads. They bear an astonishing resemblance to Optimus Prime. Dean Stockwell apparently plays the stock douchebag that he's known for, while Carrie Fisher is a Princess Leia type character circa "Return of the Jedi". They time travel from the 40th century back to 1988 in Austrailia. Why? Why would anyone want to travel back to 1988?

Even Little Guy couldn't watch it. After devouring about 10 crackers, he ran back to the front room to play with his cars and shoot up the Cantina in Lego Star Wars II. Big Guy did better than any of us and made it through 20 minutes before he decided enough was enough. We'll probably zone out now and read while not really paying attention to something on the television. Gotta love Sundays.

The measured tree overflows.

Willful, stubborn, bullheaded and smart

I've been working with Little Guy on the fundamentals of writing.  Things like how to hold a pencil, how hard to press on paper, the basic of basics. We've been working on tracing in his workbooks and he likes to count the lines as he traces them, but he gets bored with it easily.  Yesterday, after trying to get him to trace the final group of diagonal lines, I put the workbook away and gave him some paper to draw on.  He proceeded to draw letters out on his own. 

They were a stereotypical large and childish attempt at letters, but you could see what letters they were.  And while I am proud of him, this concerns me for a number of reasons.  I am thrilled my son is smart, I am thrilled that he catches on and figures things out quickly. But his dad and I are smart too, and I recognize the dangers of things coming so easily.  Already I can see some of the more treacherous aspects coming through. 

When he tried to write a word out and realized he couldn't, he got frustrated and tried to have me do it for him.  When I told him no, HE needed to work at it, he threw the pencil down and ran out of the room.  He's learning that, because he is a smart kid, things tend to come easily to him.  Unfortunately, he's also decided, like most smart people, that because so much comes so easily he doesn't want to waste time on the things that don't come easily.

He likes to read, he likes to draw, but if he can't get it right away, he doesn't want to wait.  That, unfortunately, he gets from me; a short attention span and a severe lack of patience.  He wants it and he wants it now, and if he can't have it now, the world will pay.  It is good that he is stubborn.  It is good that he is smart.  I just wish he hadn't inherited the character flaws. 

What I need to do is buckle down and make him work.  But I am also afraid that I will turn education into a punishment and he won't find enjoyment in it.  Finding some sort of balance between needing to work and enjoying the effort is difficult with a 4 year old.  And then I worry that I push him too hard.  He can count to 100, is reading some things all on his own, knows colors, letters, sounds, can sound out words and is no slouch in the imagination department either...  Am I pushing him too hard?  Or should I feed the beast and keep him working at it?  How do I make sure it's enjoyable without scaring him off?

Being a parent of a strong-willed, stubborn child is difficult.  Finding the path through those minefields is dangerous and exhausting.  As I tell him regularly, there's a reason why animals eat their young, he's lucky he's so skinny and worth keeping around. 

We took him to breakfast and then a trip to Barnes and Noble today.  I had finished A Clash of Kings and had to pick up the remaining two books of the series.  Normally, we'd hit the Bargain Books store, but they didn't carry the series and I needed the books. Right now, while I type up this entry, Big Guy is finishing up the last book in the Temraire series and then will likely pick up the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire. 

We've forced Little Guy into nap-time.  He's getting willful and fractious and that generally means he's tired.  Small wonder, since he went to bed at 1:30 this morning and was awake and excited before 9 am.  Soon, I'll snuggle back with my book, A Storm of Swords, and undoubtedly burn my way through that one as well.  Sadness for me when I finish it.  What will I do after I finish this series?  What shall I read next?