As a little treat for myself, I bought the New York Times this Tuesday. I can nurse a Tuesday times for several days, thanks to the Science Times. This article caught my eye right away, and I violated my reading rules by skipping to the back of the section to read it.
I’ve been meaning to blog about Hold on to Your Kids for a while now, but haven’t taken the time. Thanks, Jane Brody, for inspiring me. The book was eye-opening for me- as it helped translate what I already believed about raising small children into raising tweens and teens. I didn’t agree with everything in the book, but it did help me frame the days that Carter goes to school with a process of “collecting” him– the authors describe making a firm connection– through laughter, talk, reading or just sitting together quietly before and after school. Basically, it’s a way of teaching your child that you are a steady presence, ready to guide or assist as needed.
Hold on to Your Kids also started me thinking about the transference of attachment- about assisting Carter in viewing his teacher as a safe stand-in for parents by making a connection with the teacher and communicating that through a confident “hello” in the morning. Child sees that parent trusts and likes the teacher and then is willing to ask the teacher for help when he needs it.
Most importantly though, Hold on to Your Kids illustrated the importance of a primary attachment figure at home. Family is the priority. Make time to have fun together, to share your lives. Parents do have an impact on children- but as a society, we turn over that responsibility to their peers, through poor child/teacher ratios at day care, the media, the rushed schedules and longer work and school days.
Which brings me back to this week’s Science Times. I get to the bottom of the article, which had some valid and interesting points on acclimating to middle school and read of a success story: “his parents received family therapy aimed at limiting the fun he had at home. . . ” What? Maybe I misread it. Did she mean limiting the anxiety the boy was experiencing at school? Nope. That happened with an SSRI and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Maybe what they meant was increasing his confidence and fun at school? Buzzzzz, wrong again. Holy detention, Batman- what gives?
So I am to believe that a family therapist accepted payment for helping a family learn how to be less fun? Watch The Simpsons for heaven’s sake. It’s on eight times a day, chalk full of family dysfunction and is definitely cheaper than a family therapist.
This is a family that could benefit from Hold on to Your Kids, taking comfort in knowing that the parents are ultimately more important than middle school cliques, and that taking the time to make sure their son has an education that meets his individual needs is their parental duty and right. They could let go of trying to alter their lives to make school somehow more fun than home.
The fun-reducing therapy results from the same mindset that gives way to ignoring a crying baby because it’s just “manipulating,” or using forced isolation as a punishment for social infringements of preschoolers. What if, instead of making an automatic assumption that children are lazy, dishonest swindlers, intent on sucking up our last resources through constant crying, whining and getting muddy, we assume that children are doing their best to get along, and their behavior is offering us clues on what they need to do better, to mature and grow. I’m certain that “less fun at home” is a rare need indeed. Most families need all the help they can get maintaining a strong attachment through the teen years, and “teaching” them to be less fun won’t foster close ties.
Perhaps if, as a society, we were more focused on enjoying children, and less on controlling them, more involved in cherishing them than fearing them and spent more time playing with them rather than testing them, the answers to school anxiety might seem more self-evident.
