College

I recently shared with my girls I was returning to college.

Ever wanted to blow a 4 year old's mind and not know how? Tell them you decided to go back to school when they still think you know everything. My youngest let that marinate for about 5 minutes with no other comments, and then all of a sudden, a barrage of questions flew and I chose to quick hit the answers and see how long she could roll.

Why are you going back? I have a goal I want to accomplish, and I like to learn
Old people go to school? Technically child I'm not that old....but yes
I thought school was for kids? I left a tad early.
What's a tad? It's about your size, and it asks lots of questions
Are you going to play volleyball for your school? If they have an over 40 team with lower nets and promise I won't yank a hammy, maybe.
Does this mean we can do homework together? I would like help with calculus, you got my back?
Is your teacher nice? They seem to be, but can you really know anyone on the internet?
Do you get recess? It's called happy hour, same general concept
Do you get a buddy? I get one at school, it's a 4th grader. Just the other "students" at happy hour
Why don't you have a uniform? They don't make 'em in my size, but you look good in yours...

The exchange made me think. Am I communicating what I want her to believe about learning as a life long endeavor, or, have I been conveying that learning is only for kids and when they finish school they are done?

At a certain point in the conversation with her, it must have sunk in that I was in some type of "adult" school for old people. I now receive encouragement from her when I sit down with my laptop to complete my homework. Sometimes that encouragement is hidden in the form of "you're done right?" repeated 74 times while attempting to get my attention. I've received no calculus help offered yet, however, I'm sure she would lend me her crayons and dolphin lunch box.

Without going back to college, how do you teach a child to enjoy learning so much, they take joy from the process of doing so and decide to continue doing it? How do you convey that learning happens in and out of college, and is really a mindset? I've met many people who would benefit from the paraphrased advice of the Dalai Lama, "If you speak, you only learn what you already know, but if you listen..."

Perhaps teaching my children to be better listeners is the first step now. Perhaps the second will be to encourage them to love the process of learning by positively reinforcing attempts and failures as learning errors. If they love to make attempts, regardless of outcome, and listen well, perhaps they will find the joy in the process.

I doubt their minds will be blown if I'm still finishing school when they are 13, although, Rodney Dangerfield has certainly laid a blueprint for an interesting college experience if I'm still in college when I'm 60. Regardless, the experience has taught me that I need to work harder on teaching my girls to enjoy the process and not the outcome.

I plan to give it the old college try, so in the immortal words of Thornton Melon from Back to School:

"Please, try to understand. I don't have the background for this. I mean, the high school I went to, they asked a kid to prove the law of gravity, he threw the teacher out the window!"

Enjoy

bvd

The struggle is real

If you have ever attempted to "share" the feelings of a seven year old daughter as described above in the definition of empathy, it's a bit like riding a roller coaster with no seat belt while alternating between holding on and crying, or raising your arms and laughing till your stomach hurts. And I almost forgot to add, the roller coaster may be on fire or may be perfectly fine, you won't know for about 10-15 years after the ride if you did your job as the carney appropriately.

Yesterday, my wife and I shared a discussion with our 7 year old version of Clark Griswold on a coaster, and I learned in some of her frustrated words, I was not "able to understanding her feelings". Personally I thought this began at age 13 and lasted till the 20's, so perhaps, we are going to have this run a bit earlier, which means we will get this knocked out before high school? Or it could mean state fair is going to last an extra 7 years and I'm going to be buying a lot of popcorn for the show.

So I chose to run this discussion like we were excavating an Egyptian tomb, slowly and carefully.

Background:

We have three family rules for our kids in sports:

1. Look your coaches in the eyes, listen and say thank you after each practice or game
2. Give your best effort
3. Have fun

I watched a sporting event yesterday evening where it appeared my daughter was not having fun. Her coach asked her three times if she was hurt, and told her 7 times where she should be on the field and wasn't, as he was yelling her name sternly and clearly frustrated. This was her first year and game moving from the little field to the big field, and shifting from 4 players to 8 on a side, along with an age jump playing against kids 1-2 years older than her. So as the youngest player on the field, we had expected a rough transition, and certainly witnessed one. So my wife and I agreed I would drive her home.

I began the conversation as I always do, "Did you have fun?"

The answer was a mumbled maybe, clearly a "Hell No! Did you see me out there and hear my coach hollering my full name like I had broken a Ming Vase?", in my 7 year old's language of course.

So I asked, "What would you need to change for you to enjoy it?"

I received a shrug in the rear view mirror. Silence for a taylor swift song to finish....which seemed overly long by the way.

"Dad I was tired, I don't like all this running around on the large field, I should not have signed up for this sport when I knew about all the running"

Inside I was smiling, I'm not a huge running fan either kiddo, and not sure I'm ready yet for pop up chairs and over excited dad's on the sideline yelling "cross it" and "foul" at 7-9 year olds. But that was selfish of me, as would have been the decision she likely wanted to make. She became frustrated I did not understand her and she let me know it. I asked her if I could ask some questions to better understand her feelings. She said yes.

"All the other kids did the same running, so tired isn't an excuse for not listening or giving your best effort is it? Her answer was no. "Were you hurt?" Her answer was no. "Did your effort help your team?" Her answer was no. "Did you commit to play this year?" Her answer was yes.

"So what do you think you can do to make this more fun and help your team for the remainder of the year?" Her answer was definitive "Listen to my coach and give my best effort"

It's fair to say that the discussion was difficult for my daughter, she was uncomfortable at several points. I spent a few minutes sharing her feelings, and a few minutes where it felt as though she shared mine. The ride was our first addressing why she did not have fun in a sporting event, new ground for both of us.

I have zero idea whether this conversation was effective, for all I know, I could have taken the roller coaster off the tracks and set it on fire myself. But like most things difficult, they usually are worth doing. Either way, what a lesson for me as a parent on empathy and a lesson for her on commitment. I will learn in the future if the juice was worth the squeeze.

Enjoy!

bvd

School

Do you remember your first day of all day school?

Think hard about your first memory of this. Not daycare, but actual, "school" where you got books, backpack, pencils, and your own assigned seat in a chair with a desk attached. As you get older, the memory may become as fuzzy as "new math" feels. I can barely still grasp the feelings that must have danced through my brain and the thumping as adrenaline raced through veins on the car ride to class. I'm sure I probably talked someone's ear off in excitement those many years ago, with questions regarding useless information that seemed utterly critical before I entered the hallowed halls of learning.

With daughters, there is much prep, coordination, and certainly excitement. The social nature of this unique species that is an elementary daughter, creates a Petri dish of learning, for both daughter and her father. In the first week since our daughters returned to class, with our youngest finally attending class every day during the week, I've learned:

1. The first day school photograph has not improved. Folks in early America in the 1800's would still be proud of the difficulty we have in achieving a great picture. In spite of the fact camera technology has progressed to the point we can photograph an up close image of Satuurn's surface, and you can easily shoot 1,000 photos in a second by holding down the button on your phone, it remains a fact that 999 of these shots will involve some combination of a finger up a nose, eyes closed, a forced smile, or a pissed off child. 

2. The backpack has grown. Like a hermit crab, my daughters chose to accessorize their school uniforms with a small themed hotel room on their shoulders. Aren't books going digital? Are we saving the environment and preventing global warming now by blocking UV rays with backpacks? I can't keep up with the green movement...

3. Either my children were excited, or they simply wanted to try to jump out of a moving vehicle. Removing a seat belt faster than Superman can change clothes, it was very clear my wife and I could only hope to contain them in the car long enough to stop the vehicle. They race walked to the doors, and never looked back. 

Had they turned around, they might have noticed their parents a bit choked up and in awe, quite simply, trying to remember what this must feel like for a kid on their first day of school, and attempting to reconcile the emotions a parent feels when they realize their children's dreams are being formed and fed while you are apart.

Dusty that first morning, really dusty.

Enjoy!

Bvd