What to do with a dreaming six year old?
That was my recent request on a "please help me, I'm desperate and don't know what to do" mom's bulletin board on the Internet. It all started with a teacher's note home about my son's lack of focus in the class. This day-dreamy, state of faraway escapades is not new for my son. He always has had the ability to play by himself for hours, to create adventures from tiny pieces of paper and to conjure up imaginary space stations out of pencil erasers.
This quality, while good, does interfere with a teacher's mission to teach grammar, math equations and overall get stuff done. In my head, I appreciate that he needs to pay attention and be respectful. He needs to sit quietly, soak up all the good education stuff that I'm paying a lot of money for and do what he is told. But part of me wants him to go ahead and dream.
The sad but lovely thing is he is so much like me. As a kid, I would cut up paper for hours designing and binding makeshift books with ribbons, yarn or sometimes masking tape. I loved creating. I adored the smooth solitude of being transported in a project, losing track of time, food and people. It was me and the delicious quiet to create whatever I could imagine. Writing and making books were my waysof generating peace in my heart and my world.
Inevitably, my dad would storm in after work and yell at me for "wasting paper" and to do something productive with my time. I was devastated. After that, I hid my writing away in journals but always felt like I was doing something self-indulgent. It took me a long time to realize writing and creating were real gifts, not a waste of time.
I hoped my son would get my husband's uncanny abilities to master math, science, chemistry and other abstract concepts that send my brain spinning. But I can see he takes after me and the artistic, creative, imaginative human being that I am. Good, but darn. And thus, the mom cavalry was called in over what to do about it. How do you help a child understand that there are times to be dreamy and times to focus?
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As a side note -- if you haven't tried them out, mom Help Boards are encouraging places for people like me who are plain out stuck. (Sites such as
www.TheMommiesNetwork.org and www.mamasource.com are two great places to start). I had read all the books, tried all the forms of rewards and punishments and yet found no results. So I posted. I like to think of it as a "virtual mommy coffee klatch." Even better yet, it's like a just-in-time cavalry or calling an emergency mommy meeting.
The responses I got from my post were like hearing from a cross section of moms from every different walk of life - all different, but all encouraging. If I had to sum them up, it would go like this "Listen to your heart. You know what to do - you know your child best. Help him to see what he needs to do by inviting him to be the teacher or the parent. Reward him when he does it right. But by all means, keep that creative fire alive."
In my quest for more ideas on unlocking the mystery of my son, I recently read an inspiring little pamphlet called Raising Wild Boys Into Men: A Modern Dad’s Survival Guide by Tony Woodlief. I was drawn to the author's funny writing and parenting obsessions that seemed familiar to my own. In his pamphlet, Woodlief debates the notion that modern society seems more interested in turning wild boys into mild boys. His writings chart his adventures in finding toys, books, movies and other resources that teach boys to develop their character without losing what he calls "The Cowboy Gene."
I do want my son to keep his wildness. I do want him to be a dreamer and to never lose sight of his gifts and passions. But I do want him to do well in school and succeed in life. I want him to be able to master the times to pay attention. I want him to capture the good stuff, to be wild and crazy, to dream infinitely, to be a cowboy if he wants.
And so we plod on. As in everything, we have days where he can stick with it and days he is lost in his world again. Knowing what I know, I realize he most likely will struggle with this creative talent combined with challenge for the rest of his life. But I also realize being a dreamer is not the end of the world. Being a dreamer could possibly be the best gift a person could ever get.
Cara McLauchlan, a writer and mom, grew up in a small farm town in Michigan. She is the author of The Portable Red Hot Momma - a purse-sized guide of vivacious thoughts and ideas. To see more of her writings or read her blog “Joy Goggles” – visit her at www.crankymommies.com |
