I don’t cry much, even when crying is precisely what I feel like doing. I don’t remember exactly how I learned not to cry when I felt like crying. I remember kids who did cry – especially boys who did cry – being ostracized by peers. I didn’t want that. I think the zeitgeist of…
When two children irritate each other, and start to fight, physically or verbally, the first thing we try to do is stop the fighting. This means physically separating them and getting them to stop talking for a minute. That’s the first step in all the conflict resolution strategies I know of. But once teachers or…
When children take standardized tests, or other pieces of paper deemed significant are produced, those papers are sometimes put into file folders, which are subsequently put into file cabinets. Most of the time, those papers stay there, minding their own business. Most teachers don’t keep checking to review children’s stanine ratings or percentile ranks; most…
Modern society does things to make children feel that it’s not okay to be children. Children are quick to pick up whatever messages society seems to be giving them. Some want to be “cool,” and it doesn’t take long to learn that it isn’t “cool” to be a child – that being an adolescent is…
My brother Richie came home from school one afternoon and told me that ontogeny recapitulates philogeny. I was old enough not to take his word for it, but my own ontogeny hadn’t yet recapitulated enough philogeny to know what he was talking about. I had the vague impression that I’d get in big trouble if…
I recently came to terms with a certain level of my own egocentrism, and it’s made it much easier for me to deal with other people’s. As students of child development, we’re taught about an “egocentric stage” all people go through. It’s supposed to taper off when the child is a toddler, but we all…
It doesn’t seem fair. You make all kinds of adjustments to raise a child, and before you know it, the child becomes a separate person who doesn’t necessarily feel like showing everybody how well you’ve parented. You’ve seen some of the things your child can do, you’ve bragged about it, and now that there’s finally…
Not everything we say is for children’s ears. There are various reasons adults don’t want children to hear certain thoughts or communications. We may worry that they’ll be unnecessarily frightened, excited, angered, or embarrassed. We don’t want to spark those feelings, or deal with the behavior that usually accompanies them. Ideally, we find time to…
I’m challenging another dichotomy. The open classroom, according to one of my professors, started in England during World War II. Many teachers went off to war, and they were replaced in classrooms by adults who had no idea how to run a classroom. So they gave lots of responsibility to children – put them in…
I’ve often heard a certain kind of advice that has given me pause for thought: “Don’t give that child attention; that’s just what he/she wants.” It always seemed to me that if attention is just what the child wants, that’s a good reason to give it. I tried not to give too much attention for…