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Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
THE LESSONS OF SUMMER 2007-06-22 Sean has completed kindergarten and will start first grade next year. For now, as his teacher breathes a sigh of relief and enjoys a few months of freedom, Sean is home for the summer with his two sisters and his mother, who has already begun to realize just how much one year can change things. Kindergarten has given Sean a new sense of his own power, and lots of ideas for how to control things. He will no doubt try to apply rules he learned in kindergarten to his two younger sisters, who are not old enough to understand kindergarten protocol, nor smart enough (yet) to argue effectively against his authority. And while Grace tried to be the authority over her almost two-year old sister (sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't) while Sean was at school for five hours each day, the summer will offer her no such respite from his attempted dominance over both of them. Thus, the non-stop sibling rivalry has begun. Sean will also try mightily to control his mother. He has already started letting her know when he is angry at her. His wise mother has at least taught him that he must express anger in words rather than in actions or screams (although he does have his lapses). Now he mostly just lets her know how "very angry" he is when she doesn't let him have his way. Unfortunately Grace has begun imitating Sean and doing the same thing. When my daughter told me this I suggested she find an "angry place" where each of them can take a little time out to cool off and think about things when they get angry. At least it will give them something to do other than continue telling her they are angry at her. And it will give her a break from hearing them. Kindergarten, in its attempts to civilize and promote order, teaches children some things that can, if not handled effectively by parents, contribute to problems at home. Kindergarten, after all, is a place where, in order to help large numbers of children get along, rules of fairness must be instituted. The teacher sets down specific rules regarding each aspect of the school experience: schoolwork, story time, playground behavior, lunch and snacks, lining up, obeying bells, respecting fellow students, sharing, etc. Since all the children are the same age, they have all reached a developmental stage in which they can understand and generally learn to follow such rules relatively easily. In addition, the toys and equipment at school belonging to no individual child. They are owned by the school and must be shared. All the children understand this and so the fighting over things is generally minimized and has more to do with time used than with ownership. Home, however, is a different matter. Sean's sisters are both younger than him and do not know the rules he lives by in kindergarten. Furthermore, they do not understand the concept of fairness that is the principle behind many of the rules Sean must follow at school. So Sean may expect them to behave like his friends at school and they will not. This is going to lead to many fights and much frustration on everyone's part. In fact, all school age children must learn to navigate two worlds with two sets of rules. While at school Sean always eats lunch at a specific time, at home lunch could fall anywhere within a two hour framework for a variety of reasons including when everyone ate breakfast, when mom has time to fix something, when Maddie is awake or when she isn't in need of specific attention. Additionally, Sean must learn that his mother has to take his sisters' needs into account throughout the day, needs that are unlike the needs of his five and six year old friends, and that he will frequently not be able to do things the way he wants to do them. While his class was a gathering of children close to each other in age and development, home is a place where there are three children, with distinct and different stages of development, competing for attention and dominance. And so what works at school doesn't always work at home. In fact what works at school can be almost counterproductive at home. School is where children learn order, rules, and conformity. Home is where children who have siblings must learn flexibility, frustration tolerance, and patience with those who are different and unique, who demand instant gratification, and who try to monopolize your mother's time. School is where children learn fairness. Home is where children learn that life isn't always fair. School is where children learn to be individuals and to compete. Home is where children learn to be part of a family and to be unselfish. Once children go to school they must learn to adapt to the different rules and cultures at both school and home. The first few days of summer are always the hardest as children learn to adapt to being in the home culture 24 hours a day, instead of just part of the day. Sean will have little respite from having to be with a two-year old girl and a four-year old girl, instead of with twenty regimented six-year olds, half of them boys. I imagine he will manage the transition with the help of his mother. And it doesn't hurt that his two little sisters adore him. By the time Sean has adapted to his new situation, it will be time to return to school. His mother will breathe a sigh of relief as she hands him off to his new teacher, who will have to help her class of twenty unruly kids, fresh from summer vacation and the culture of family, adapt to the culture of school once again. |