In a NYT story today, Michael Winerip asks: "But When Is There Time to Be a Kid?" It is a fairly common litany of over-programming of children. He describes the frenetic pace in one household:
The family lives in a lovely off-the-record tristate suburb. The afternoon I visited, the 10- and 12-year-old girls had basketball practice for their traveling teams after school (they each have two practices during the week and two games on weekends). Their 14-year-old brother had an after-school club meeting, ski team practice and religious class that night.
Mom was feeding the 12-year-old dinner at 4:30; the girl had practice from 6:30 to 8. “Her coach told her to eat early so she’s not running around on a full stomach,” said the mom. “Excuse me, I have to call to cancel a tennis lesson tomorrow — we have a doctor’s appointment.” All three children have been in physical therapy for sports-related injuries in the last year.
When I asked the three if life seemed too programmed, they said no, it seemed normal to them. But their mom grew up as I did, with a far less scheduled childhood, and she wishes her kids could, too. “If I could, I’d slow it down,” she said, adding that the community has had meetings and speakers come talk about this, but that nothing has changed.
“Every year, soccer starts earlier,” she said. “It’s kindergarten now, but they’re talking pre-K. Now they have third graders trying out for travel instead of fourth. They’re dividing the kids into A and B teams at a younger age.”
We rush endlessly to fill our children's time. Much of this, for middle class parents, is wrapped up in the anxiety of getting kids into "good" colleges. Each activity is aimed at another line on the Ivy application. In the meantime, children lose their sense of how to create their own activities, how to make something for themselves from their time. Winerip sees the absurdity in all of this:
But here’s the ridiculous part: Despite all the extra years of organized basketball, by high school, my three boys were no better than I was at that age.
We are parenting harder just to stay in the same place.
That last line just about nails is: parenting harder just to stay in the same place. It could be a line from the Tao Te Ching, scoffing at the irony of modern life.
But what would a Taoist alternative look like? Could you really "do nothing," or allow "nothing's own doing" to guide your parenting? Being a parent, by definition, seems to require sustained oversight and intervention to lead a child through the thickets of life and learning, bringing them along to adulthood. But maybe there is a less intense possibility, as these "unschoolers" in Chicago demonstrate:
On weekdays, during what are normal school hours for most students, the Billings children do what they want. One recent afternoon, time passed loudly, and without order or lessons, in their home in a North Side neighborhood here.
Hayden Billings, 4, put a box over his head and had fun marching into things. His sister Gaby, 9, told stories about medieval warrior women, while Sydney, 6, drank hot chocolate and played with Dylan, the baby of the family.
In a traditional school setting, such free time would probably be called recess. But for Juli Walter, the children’s mother, it is “child-led learning,” something she considers the best in home schooling.
“I learned early on that when I do things I’m interested in,” Ms. Walter said, “I learn so much more.”
As the number of children who are home-schooled grows — an estimated 1.1 million nationwide — some parents like Ms. Walter are opting for what is perhaps the most extreme application of the movement’s ideas. They are “unschooling” their children, a philosophy that is broadly defined by its rejection of the basic foundations of conventional education, including not only the schoolhouse but also classes, curriculums and textbooks.
There is much that is Taoist in all of this: following the child; rejecting social conventions; focusing on the present moment. Of course, the educational professionals do not like it; but who is to know, forty years from now, how any particular "unschooled" child might stack up against a schooled child, especially if our measure is happiness.
Chuang Tzu, if he were a father, would likely walk away from the overbearing mania of Ivy-grasping parents and follow his children in their education. And we might ask: are we brave enough to do it, too?
Those two families seem to me to be the extremes; my answers lie somewhere in the middle. I believe that over-scheduling children is dead wrong, as I said elsewhere...but I also think under-scheduling them doesn't do them any favors, either. I look at the second example and wonder at what point she gets off her butt, takes the box off her child's head, and shows him what numbers are. There are plenty of ways, without making them sit at a desk with a textbook. Hell, with a little creativity, you can use the box to do it. :)
Yeah, children will come to adults with questions about things, but there has to be some basis for the questions to start with. I could even get with the box on the head, if she'd just look up, point out to him that when two things bump into each other, they bounce apart, then let him go on his way again. Welcome to physics, kiddo - have fun.
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