The “baby boy” was the driver, the “biggest boy” was the host, his lovely and talented bride of two years, the hostess, and Dad and I were guests.
For our first, ever, Christmas-away-from-home since before this “biggest boy” was born, we journeyed to their new home, thrilled to have been asked, delighted to go, with mixed emotions and lots of questions. Just when was it, do you suppose, they became old enough to have the folks come for holidays?
The years do fly swiftly through infancy, past toddlerhood, flashing through school and college, but happening one day at a time as they mostly do, so the seasonal benchmarks are what usually make us catch our breath and wonder where all the time went.
My head was a kaleidoscope of old movies that entire visit: learning to ride his first bike, the proudest Cub Scout in the pack, the best track runner. We didn’t realize, then, that he was running rapidly into a future we could hardly imagine or might not be there to see.
Parenting is about preparing the next generation to accept the challenges and responsibilities of caring for one another, for our world, and for the next generation. Our children must know, must learn, must master so much, just to function in our complicated and often dangerous world; we as parents must not miss any opportunity for teaching.
Every single day, in every activity, learning for the future can and must take place if our children are to absorb all they must know. We can no longer even imagine what problems our children will face but we can be certain there will be no easy answers. Parents cannot just provide “recipes,” we can no longer teach solutions. We must teach problem-solving.
Another way to say problem solving is “thinking.” It isn’t something children automatically do. Teaching children to think requires parents to allow children to question, to experiment and explore safely and with limits, to wander, to make choices and live with the consequences, to guess, and to risk being wrong, and all of this needs to start really young, even while kids are toddlers.
Teaching young children to solve problems means we adults have to look for those times we can help thinking take place rather than providing easy answers. Before you answer the next question or give directions to your child, pause. Can you help your child answer his own question? Would your child learn more if you helped him figure out what to do rather than telling him?
We also need to listen to our children so we recognize thinking when we hear it. During a dinner-table conversation about how one acquires a driver’s license, our four-year-old informed our 16-year-old a license could be had from Walmart. He reasoned, on the basis of his observations, that every time you gave a check you got a driver’s license.
Was he right? No. But, more important, was he thinking? Yes. His thinking, like yours and mine sometimes is, was a bit flawed, but he was problem solving using what he knew to figure out what he didn’t know. It was a small problem, and the solution wasn’t exactly right, but if kids have enough practice in solving the small problems, the larger ones will be possible.
