Do I As I Say Not As I Can't Do

When my kids do something clever they "get that from me", when they don’t they "get that from their dad". I’m a laugh a minute.

As much as it it is lovely to see the best parts of ourselves in our kids it can be equally as painful to see in them the things we like least about ourselves. Is it genetics? Are they predisposed to be nail biters, control freaks or clumsy? Or do they emulate our behaviour? How closely do they watch and mimic until being overly sensitive or too competitive is something they became not something they are?

Nature vs nurture

The great debate. Our genes or our behaviour? Either way it’s our fault. Their shrink is going to tell them that one day, we might as well face facts.

You Can Do Math Even If I Can't   

My kids go to a math enrichment program once a week for an hour called Bright Minds. My daughter was less enthused about it than my son but she went for two years and he still goes, happily. She used to ask why she had to go to the classes and I explained that she comes from a long line of women-who-hate-math and that she would be the first woman on my side of the family tree who does not hate numbers.

She started the classes before she had heard that “math is hard”, “girls hate math”, “girls aren’t good at math”. And it has paid off. Last week, for example, she had a math test at school, she’s in grade 5, and I asked her if she needed to study, wanted to look things over and she said: “Nah, I’ve got it Mom.”  She aced it and was proud but pretty blasé about it. I asked if she had been nervous, was the test hard. “Nah, it was a breeze Mom.” and I reminded her: "Remember when you used to ask why you went to Bright Minds? It was for this moments like these kid, ones I never had."

She knows she can learn any math, or ANYthing for that matter, she encounters in the coming years. She has the confidence to ask questions, she can try to work it out, and she’s willing to learn how to solve the problems. Math isn't something she fears. For her it will never be something "girls can't do". I would have given anything for that kind of confidence in math.

Research shows that school-aged children are especially apt to emulate the attitudes and behaviors of the same-sex parent—a source of concern if we want to improve girls’ still-lagging performance in traditionally male-dominated fields like science and mathematics. If mom hates math, a young girl may reason, it’s O.K. for me to dislike it too.    (more here)

Well, there was no way I was going to be able pretend to be okay with math, I wouldn’t have been able to help her with her homework without having a breakdown, so instead I told her about her great grandmother’s, her grandmother’s and her mother’s math woes and explained that she wasn’t going down that path. It wasn’t going to be okay to hate math. I was going to get her the help she need to make sure it was a no brainer.

If we can’t model it, whatever IT is, we can sure help them to not make the same mistakes. That’s the job.

Do as I say, not as I do. (or can't do)