JA Missives

2013, It seems like the backseat of my car is like a catalyst for surprising conversations with my children. I have decided that being in my backseat is kind of like Meeting for Worship, on the go. Out of ten minutes of uninterrupted silence emerges a deeply reflective thought or question that reveals the inner thoughts of my kid, like, “Mom, can you name three things I am bad at?” or more recently, “Mom, why do you have to have parent conferences?” Before I stumble over a lengthy response, I usually try to stay true to that Quakerly tenet, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” My child’s questions tell me something about her, of course. They reveal to me her worries, and they always tell me something new about her development. Should I tell her 3 things she is ‘bad’ at, or should I ask her to tell me? Do I ruminate about the purpose of a parent conference, or do I ask her to tell me what she thinks about it? When she speaks, I am always reminded why it is so important to make room for silence in our lives, because we witness the real stuff bubbling up, and pouring out over the top.

So, this year, it seems that third grader of mine is striving for perfection, and struggling with what it feels like to be wrong. She may also be coming head long into the realization that she is not perfect, even though her grandparents have assured her, with regularity that she, indeed, is. We had a lovely apple picking east bay adventure last week, and were headed out, with the last task of picking a pumpkin to take home. I watched my child scour the scene, with great intention, sort of like how she stares at her dresser drawers in the morning as she tries to figure out what she is going to wear. She is patient and careful, all good things, I have decided. And then it came, the panicked moment that we had to leave the farm, and she screamed, “I can’t find the perfect pumpkin!” She stomped off, refusing to choose. Suddenly, my “careful” child morphed into an unrealistic self-critic. All my years in educating teachers and parents about raising resilient kids, comfortable in mistake making, seemed out of my grasp. Here was a child frozen in the face of too many choices, and who has been “nurture shocked” to the point of no return. I try to take my own advice, and not react (‘stand there’) and instead, I just keep walking, and like water flowing over a stone, I ask another question instead, “I wonder what a perfect pumpkin looks like?” 

Erik Erikson says children at this middle childhood age are working on their developing sense of competence-what CAN they do on their own? How good are they, and if they are not good, whose fault is it anyway? They become more self-critical, critical of others, and even of you.  They begin to really worry about what you and the teacher think about them (thus the worry about the parent conference.) I read a book this summer called Being Wrong, by Kathy Shultz, who talks about how our culture is terrified of being wrong. At the heart of why we hate being wrong, Schulz says, is that “we’re terrified of feeling out of control. We’re terrified of not having the answers, and we would sometimes rather assert an incorrect answer then make our peace with the fact that we really don’t know.” We qualify our mistakes, “I was wrong, but…” and never really accept that in all learning, mistakes are inherent. If everything came easily on the first try, what would motivate us? Learning is about discovery, we love a good book when the plot turns, because “You think you know what is going to happen, and then something else happens.” Our surprising mistakes really can make us eager little learners. 

So I remind myself, and hopefully my children, that there just is no such thing as a perfect pumpkin, worrying never solved anything, and being bad at something just means you have more to learn. We give the kids lots of chores at home so they can develop that sense of competency, a sense of their importance in our household, and we even try to have dinner table mistake celebrations, sharing our own flubs here and there, as part of everyday life. However, I still see our culture and my own perfectionist tendencies alive in my kids. They sometimes scrunch up their papers when the drawing isn’t quite right, they aim to please, and they almost immediately ask for a visit from Grandma whenever they think we are about to criticize them. 

When I feel a long car ride Meeting for Worship moment coming on, sometimes I use it, too, and after some silence, far away from the pumpkin patch fiasco, when they might be open to listening, I try to tell a reflective story to my kids about my own childhood experiences with being worried, or making a mistake, or being wrong.  Hopefully, these inductive stories help disarm my kids from feeling they have to be perfect for me, or for anyone else. It never crossed my mind when I was a child that my parents might have chosen to send me to a Friends School in order to give me some chance at developing my inner light and learning in this way. We strive to develop opportunities for kids at Friends to truly develop their reflective voice, and learn to speak up when the time is right. In our east bay commute, we have a rare, but sometimes perfect gift, of sitting in silence, taking a break, sifting through the right (or wrong) questions, and ultimately, letting go.