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Is your child hitting the books or the parties?
Yvette* wanted her son to graduate from high school and break the curse. Yvette’s mother didn’t graduate. Yvette didn’t graduate, and Yvette’s daughter didn’t graduate from high school either. Her last hope was her son. Kyle*, Yvette’s son, was a very intelligent child, but he was bored by school and more interested in athletics. Although he would play basketball on the court for hours, doing homework became a task. Yvette was vocal with her family about how her son may end up being a high school dropout, and finally one cousin, Cara*—a college graduate—took an interest in mentoring him.
His cousin wondered just what it was that made Kyle so uninterested in school, and he bluntly stated, “I’d rather play basketball. Reading is boring. My mother is watching TV, but she’s making me read.”
Yvette didn’t disagree. “Reading is boring. I hate reading, but I want him to do better in school. He's so rebellious. For awhile I thought he had ADHD, but now I don't know what his problem is. I'm considering sending him to military school.”
This is a disastrous mistake in parents’ households when trying to encourage a child to read. Children tend to mimic what their parents do, and if they don’t see their role models participating in an activity, they may be less likely to try it. Shoving a child off to military school may eliminate stress on the parent, but it can make the child feel unwanted. Yvette admitted that she didn't know what homework Kyle had and never checked to see what homework he had, but she scolded him profusely when he got bad grades. He in turn would find any excuse to get out of the house and avoid doing more homework.
Cara heard about Yvette's dilemma and invited Kyle over for a weekend to hang out. Within two days, Kyle finished a week’s worth of homework and read several chapters in his textbook. The whole time he did homework, Cara sat next to him and read a book. Without the television on and because Cara refused to let him turn the television on no matter how many times he requested it, he gave up and did his work. Two days later, Kyle and Cara were about to hang out the day he was supposed to return home.
But before they left, Kyle asked Cara, “Do you want me to read some more chapters?” Cara was stunned because she thought he was done with all of his homework. But she didn’t want him to change his mind so she quickly sat down with a book too just to keep him company.
This real life example does not mean that every child will suddenly change his or her ways like Kyle. It also doesn’t mean that every parent who is a bookworm will have a child that’s in love with school and will want to read too. But the chances tend to lean that way.
“I wanted to expose my daughter to books, especially a variety,” said Richard V., father of two and a Chicago native. “I enjoy reading and visiting the library. I always have.”
His two children turned out to have opposite attitudes about school. While both graduated from high school, one went on to complete two years in graduate school while the other chose going into the workforce. But both children knew Richard V. and his wife would not tolerate them dropping out of school and both encouraged them to go to the library and kept books handy around the house for pleasure and for school.
However, Richard V., who is a college graduate along with his wife, doesn’t believe that a parent who isn’t interested in reading hurts the child’s chances of an education.
“A child that has a parent that doesn’t like to read can most definitely have a good education,” he said. “Just because a parent does not like to read doesn’t mean that they won’t impress upon the child the importance of reading and the value of books for broadening their horizons. Some parents are slow readers and just read seldom. Also, a parent that is not a reader is not synonymous with a parent that doesn’t value a good education for their children.”
Richard V.'s fatherhood story also proves one other conclusion. A parent who is a reader does not necessarily have children who are readers. Richard V. has two children—one who loved to read and the other who was bored by the idea of reading. Both children were raised by Richard V. and his wife of 29 years. Both children were raised in the same household and were given encouragement for their education. But the lifestyles of the children turned out differently.
Kyle, however, only took two days to mimic what his cousin Cara did who he was not related to. With these three examples, this proves that regardless of the parent, the reality is that the child plays a large part in whether he (or she) will value education and enjoy the art of reading. The parent surely does play a part in the decision, but it's up to the child to value education.
* Names have been changed to protect this person’s privacy.
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Comments
Great! Very nice. I love you for this.
Uku, thanks for reading. I started off completely disagreeing with Richard V. I thought that if the parents were bookworms, the kids would be, too. But seeing how different his two children (one was a hardcore bookworm and the other wouldn't even read a magazine) are now even though Richard is a bookworm made me go, "Wow, I could be wrong." It also made me more interested in Kyle's situation. Just like that I realized at the end of the day, the child has to make the end decision.
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