Life Skills

My sister lead me to this really interesting quote that I really do like.

From Tumbling Over The Edge: A Rant For Children’s Play by Bev Bos and Jenny Chapman.

“Intellectual development and the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic are areas,which cause parents and politicians to fret and fume over the apparent regression of each generation.  Many harangue the school systems and are obsessed with test scores and early achievement profiles.  These obsessions are meaningless and counter-productive.  It is the ability to relate to others, to work as a group, to problem solve and our intellectual strengths that support humanity in it’s ongoing romp on this earth.”

Doesn’t that make sense??  Goodness me does it ever.  Any typical person can learn how to spell and read and do math.  All of the toys we buy are kids are all based on these kinds of skills, things they’re going to learn in school anyway.  Things like social skills, empathy, relating to other people, etc. aren’t in the spotlight right now where they should be.

As a mother I fall short in nuturing those things in Silas.  I have a hard time getting him into social situations because of my own fears.  I have social anxiety and play groups scare the crap out of me.  When I’m scared then I sweat and get all bloated and so then I definitely don’t want to go out because I’m scared of sweating and bloating.  How dumb.

Silas has no issues with the common intellectual stuff as you’ll see in the video below.  He’s incredibly clever and academically, I know he’s going to TOTALLY rock.  But his social skills…oh his social skills.  They’re so poor already.  In his Sunday School class it’s like he shuts down, he gets really sleepy and he just stares into space.  He doesn’t relate to the kids around him hardly at all.

I’d do anything for my kid but it’s a lot harder to do certain things.  Especially when I’m so stinking scared.  I’d probably be faster to die for him that I’ve been at getting him properly socialized.

Anyway, read that quote over a few times.  It makes sense!!  Lets stop pressuring our children to do the things they’re going to do anyway and lets begin to ingrain within them some skills that will take them further in life than knowing the ABC’s when they’re two.  It’s still impressive but, they’re going to learn it anyway in school.  Perhaps our job as parents should be teaching them how to be a human, not a smarty pants so we can brag to our friends?

Thanks for the quote Jill.

And now for a little bragging lol…I just have to show you what he’s been doing and learning.  I’m trying to embrace his ABC obsession and try to keep the learning moving forward at least.  It seems like I would spend a lot of time working on these things with him but I really don’t.  He only needs to be shown something a few times before he’s got it in his head.  He does ALL of this on his own terms and when HE wants to.  Our learning sessions are usually about 30 seconds long.  The hand things…he just did that totally on his own…he can see the letters whenever he wants to.