The Perfect Child

I was about 17 years old when I yelled back at my mother that she hadn't worried about me since the 8th grade because knew that I would could take care of myself. Now that I teach, and have "children" I think I have a pretty apt take on this part of parenthood. You tend not to worry about the child that does what they should.  When we were growing up my brother was always the one acting out, and because he did more (both good and bad) like play baseball and run track and play basketball I felt like our lives, and more importantly my parents' lives revolved around him.  I don't remember acting out very much and I never had my parents called to school like my brother did, but I do remember doing a few really big things that got me in big trouble. I wonder now, looking back, if this was my need for any attention. In any case this is a key example of how I felt ignored and felt that my siblings weren't. 

This is natural. People always heap tons on the one who can handle it.  It's like when the boss heaps lots of work on the trusted employee. Since I get to be the "boss" in my classroom this usually means that I give the assignment and let the kids who understand and know what they're doing alone. I have others who need my attention, who would rip my room down around my head like Samson do Delilah without my attention, and so the good ones get thrown to the side. I'm afraid this marginalization has damaging consequences.  

First, this means that we treat the good kids like adults. I'm sure I've said before that school has become a business that is measured by the bottom line gained from passing or failing a test. Much like any business a "failing" score or class or red bottom line, if you will, leads for the Big Boss (Principal) to ask what happened that you didn't turn a profit. This leads you to constantly be on the lookout for the slackers. What ends up happening though is that the child that doesn't produce gets more attention through his negative behavior than the child with positive behavior who you don't have to worry over. In the end, much like I did to my parents every now and again, this good kid turns into a BeBe's Kid, and then the teacher is left to wonder what the hell happened to that sweet, innocent, example of virtue you were holding up to the rest of the class like a cow at a Hindi picnic. In the end we may be forcing our good kids to grow up too fast and not making our bad kids grow up enough at all. 

I also remember feeling like even though I couldn't live up always to my parents' high expectation that the ones I had set for myself were even harder to reach. I'm sure that this is because I was used to pushing myself and having things come to me easily. I rarely had to try for an A until late high school and still didn't work all that hard until my second semester of college. Then things started snowballing. I was doing this and that and this and this and all of it together at the same time. Long story short, I ended up failing (or what I consider failing) at something that was really important to me. What made it worse is that there were factors that I couldn't control, but because I had no real coping mechanism for failure I ended up alienating people and even worse punishing myself for it. There area litany of ways to flagellate oneself: Hitting your forehead and chanting stupid like a Buddhist mantra, drinking, drugs, or my personal favorite; trying to starve out all your imperfections.  I won't sidebar on the swift, public downfall of my year and a half as Kate Moss' twin with a penis, but I will say that even today, when I feel less than perfect, I seek out that control I felt from depriving myself, from being stronger than the world around me (seriously) and fight like hell not to go back. Sadly, like my parents, I tend to focus on the failure than on what my kids do really well. This is doubly true for those kids that I tend to see as above reproach. 

As an adult I have forgotten that children have to be taught how to behave, and that this really takes a lot of (positive) reinforcement. This is a new generation. Gone are swats, and slaps and spanks. Today's preferred method of discipline is "talking" to your child and giving them ownership in their upbringing. If you're thinking this isn't the biggest oxymoron EVER, you're not alone. My point is this; since adults are rarely perfect, expecting their progeny to be is even more foolish. There's nothing wrong with expecting excellence, but just remember getting there is never perfect.