2 Points for Parents to Consider When Navigating Society’s Messages

How to overcome the negative messages that cause our kids to fail

Dear Parent Community,

Messages, messages, messages. They are constantly permeating our psyche. The question is: are we aware of what our own responses are to those messages?

“Your children aren’t suppose to amount to much”
“Your family has no choice but to be successful”
“You are destined for happiness and success”
“Your children are part of this society and deserve to be treated as such.”
Your children aren’t suppose to achieve academically.”

External messaging and our responses are all connected gears in the universe and hence, in my life, which has led me to a place where I’ve had to seek and find the balance between:

my own pursuit toward driving academic excellence in my children’ with
the peace of providing my kids with the freedom to self-pace their own academic achievements.

Basically, it’s Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom vs. Shefali Tsabary’s The Conscientious Parent (two excellent books, by the way).

So, how do we figure out what those messages are doing to us? As Deepak Chopra explains, it comes out in the things that have our attention and our intentions, i.e to win, to own, to dominate, etc…

When I discovered that I would be mother to a set of twin girls, my attention initially focused on all the negative statistics relating to children raised in single parent homes; then my intention transitioned to:

Not on my watch!

With those four words, I went into a tailspin, doing whatever I needed to do in order to safeguard my girls against the backdrop of my ultimate fear: THEIR FAILURE.

I had to shift my focus from fear to my children’s success and whatever was in my power to help them realize their full potential, particularly in math.

Part of that quest led me to the East where many kids learn math using an abacus and messages of failure and capability are a little different from the messages relayed in America. I immediately fell in love with the tool and the messages.

When I decided to adopt the abacus in my children’s home education program, I soon realized that I also had to establish what my own messaging, values and expectations would be. I had to also connect or disconnect from some of the messages or ‘leftovers’ that I had with my own experiences surrounding education.

There are some questions that you should consider that lead to a larger conversation that needs to be had. Not so much a conversation between people, but more of an internal conversation for you to have.

What are the massages that you are acting on?
Have you established your role as your child(ren’s) primary educator?
What messages do you communicate regarding your home-education system?

Teaching and or educating our children at home requires us to actually sit with them and that we work through all the ‘stuff.’ It requires us getting to know them, their strengths and weaknesses; and them getting a glimpse into our own‘stuff,’ our impatience, our fears and worst of all the s**t we actually don’t know. It requires that we face the messages that control our actions or non-actions.

The same components have to be done when you adopt abacus math in your home education program. It's not one of those things that you just show your kids once and walk away.

You have to lay down a strong foundation to make sure that your children fully understand the mechanics of trying, the feeling and phases of effort, and what your family’s messaging around success is.

When you have these conversations with yourself, you are essentially deciding how great your children will be and what methods you’re committed to using at home to establish the path to their ultimate success.

When you have established your expectations, they will naturally be embedded in your child’s psyche and will help make your family a united front who hold explicitly defined and unified values or messages.

2 Points to Consider Related to Messaging

Be mindful of your own thoughts related education

Be mindful of the words that you use around your child. You may find your child quick to say, “I can't.”

How do you respond?

Be sure to establish your own philosophy on effort, perseverance, trial and error. Or even how much ‘try’ your child exerts independently before they ask, change course or receive help.

Because we ‘wing it’ as parents

Because we ‘wing it’ as parents, its important to establish the fundamentals of what your home education philosophy looks like, feels like and tastes like. Your home and home education environment should exude “ALL THE MESSAGES YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO ABSORB AND LIVE BY.”

Don’t leave the important messages up to chance. Take as much control over establishing your child's efficacy as possible.