As a family we have had two activities that have really bound us together, one is my wife's insistence that we always had dinner together, and camping. We also had a used copy of the World Book encyclopedia in a bookshelf near the dinner table, as a series of the Time-Life books on various topics, as well as various popular desktop references like the Scientific American Science Desk Reference.
At dinner we would talk about things. All sorts of things. And when we wanted details of a thing we would look it up in the encyclopedia and read aloud from it to share that knowledge. Anything could trigger a wide ranging conversation, from why to police officers give people tickets to people crossing the street to why are there parrots living in Sunnyvale, to how do cellular phones work. And model both learning new things as well has how to find things in available sources. We are fortunate to live within walking distance of the library so the kids could check out a wide variety of books.
My wife would often "auction off" the last tasty thing (generally one of her rolls which are super yummy) with an open ended question, best answer wins the treat.
Camping was sort of like dinner++ in that there are things to do while camping, like hiking and fishing and whittling different shapes out of sticks, but there was also a lot of time to just talk about things without the distraction of phones or computers or day to day things.
All of those things to feed curiosity, provide the time to explore the questions and answers, and try to understand things about the world around us.
For our family this worked out well. I don't know if it would work for every family of course. Feeding curiosity is something my parents did and I simply modeled it to my children.
Walking is something I started doing when I began focusing on my health and where I'd be if I didn't do something. These days I walk about 7 - 8 miles a day but being semi-retired helps there. Another friend of mine and I found we can spend our time walking and talking on conference calls very effectively to 'double use' the time.
I just started reading a book that talked about that, called "The self-driven child", and the main message of what the book is trying to say is, give your kids "control". Instead of telling them to do this or that, provide them choices and let them decide for themselves. And let them feel confident and not worry about failing.
Honestly, I'm still going through the book and curious to see how we can apply to our kids.
This is great, but the _last part_ is so important. A lot of parents try to follow this path, but they end up providing the kids only with false choices. Think "do you want to do your chores or play outside?" where the only answer the parent will actually accept is "do your chores". This is ultimately still parents telling their kids what to do, but framed as though the parents were _helping_ the kids. Children faced with these sorts of questions can grow up always seeking validation, always trying to pick "the right answer" -- leading to failure avoidance, lack of confidence, etc. This can lead to an adult who cannot make choices for themselves (everyone knows people who are always paralyzed by decision-making). Works great for training kids to do well in school, though, since school follows a similar pattern of always having one "correct" answer...
out in the world, she's a relative independent creature free to explore and make decisions (it's my job to be patient and supportive, but not overly so). of course i steer her away from sitatuions that are certain to overwhelm her, exposing her to them a little at a time so she eventually learns to handle them herself without otherwise damaging regression to her self-assurance. exposure to small risks, and overcoming them, allows her to build that confidence herself, with minimal intervention on my part.
she's had a few (minor) mishaps, but she's also grown quite a bit in her self-confidence and trust (especially at home, where the relative confinement manifested in near constant anxiety behaviors before). she's learned how to approach other dogs, and the social etiquette therein, able to disengage with (usually fearful) aggressors on her own without my intervention. she's learning that not every large human is a danger to her, but that cars (and roads) are. she knows squirrels and pigeons are fun to chase, but not cats (she lives with a feline sister who's friendly and kind, but still has claws).
it's how animals develop self-sufficiency in the wild, including us if we weren't so obscured by domestication.
This sounds like the fairy tale version of that. Probably doesn't make for great cinema. But I imagine a lot of people here would have loved to have grown up in a family like that.
I think I would have. Then again I asked to be excused from the honors program in elementary school because it conflicted with PE. (Begged to get back in once I hit junior high and got my first taste of an ordinary junior high English class.)
Royal Tenanbaums trailer just because I love this movie:
You do not teach a kid to think, you provide and environment that allows them to. They will learn to do this on their own.
I would also be very interested in knowing more about how the parents of those noble-prize winners, renowned academics, and award winning authors raised them :)
And it may also sound almost obnoxious by just describing it this way, but it truly felt almost joyous around them. It's like they made it super fun to ask questions, think about things, explore creative endeavors...
With my own children, I read to them, have them read to me, and allow them to pursue their own interests, which as kids under 10, are admittedly not too many or technical, although they are wanting to learn Raspberry Pi stuff. I tend to walk them through their own questions, such as having them analyze potential outcomes. At the same time, I don't want to be a helicopter parent. They play outside, largely by themselves since we live in the county. I do keep on eye on them, but they tend to build things out of wood or look for frogs and lizards. We have agreed they want to build a small-scale replica of a fire lookout tower and they will help choose parts and assist in building. One of them already wants to be in Forestry and has for the last few years. I guess my answer is to allow myself to see our comings and goings as projects that we all enjoy and help them learn along the way.
We had our first baby this year and I'm the one who does all the research and evaluation to ensure that we're taking care of our baby well and doing the things to help our child be setup for success later in life.
The problem is I work full time and she stays at home and is the primary caretaker. So I'm not there most of the time to give intellectual input.
As someone who seems to have grown up in similar circumstances, do you have any advice to make the best of this situation?
And just curious. Don't have to answer if this is too personal. How was the dynamic between your parents given the intellectual disparity? And what was your attitude and experience growing up with this disparity?
For myself, I love my wife dearly and she is a kind and loving person, but the intellectually disparity is a cause of disappointment at times. Of course, I don't express that directly. I just lower try to lower my expectations and find intellectual stimulation in other arenas.
What i tell myself is that a happy mom is probably more significant than most scientific advice about average kids. I think twice or thrice if i really want to push for something. One example I would have pushed for is "no rewards for good grades but for effort" but she actually agreed immediately.
I get what you mean, but I’ll add the following: I’m sure she loves the child as much as you do, and wants it to turn out well and happy. Books and formal knowledge are only a small part of human understanding; if your wife is kind and loving, chances are she understands certain things (esp human aspects) better than any book can teach. I’m sure your child will find a lot to learn from her too (and so could you) :-)
My wife has a doctorate. She's very intelligent, far more than I am, if I'm honest, but... she cares nothing for anything other than her field. Nothing. She won't entertain ideas other than her own. I love her to death, but she's very narrow minded.
My parents (deceased) were chalk and cheese. My mother was sweet and loving. Her skills ended there. My father was likely a genius on many levels. There was nothing he couldn't suss out. I was having issues compiling a program written in Basic one day in 1983. He was an Ada/C guy and in 10 seconds saw the issue and had me correct it. He was a math wizard--had to be--he designed flight systems that people's lives depended on. He was anal retentive to the nth degree and that rubbed off on me. He always said, "Son, if you're going to do anything, do it as if your life and others depend on it." He even had me PM my own bicycles and the lawn mower. My mother was distant in many respects and died an alcoholic. Maybe she felt like she never fit in. I don't know. Her parents, my grandparents, were very educated and well read. Odd.
Like you, I find it incredibly frustrating that I cannot get an Arduino or Raspberry Pi project launched and share it with my wife. Her eyes glaze over and she's actually said, "I'm not interested." My kids are too young to grok what I'm doing and don't have the patience yet to learn (yet). She likes those brain dead games and TV shows that offer zero in the way of intellectual worth. I love anything sci-fi, coding, fishing, woodworking, etc. Don't lower your expectations. I would try and find common ground with her in something you both enjoy and let that be your communal source of joy with your wife. You need you time and so does she. Parenting is no joke and she is performing an unpaid job that is high stress. Take the kid out, just you and the kid. Give her some downtime to recharge. Women love that stuff. Just what works for me.
Amen that parenting is no joke. She's a trooper with our kid and is way more patient and persevering that I am. I'm very thankful for her.
Thank you for your sharing and advice. I have this whole subthread bookmarked.
With some things, we can see what's needed, even if we're not set up to attempt it. Education content could be transformatively less wretched, even with current tech. Critical concepts and misconceptions could be punchlisted. Support networks could be thicker, deeper, and non-local. To avoid so many falling though such large cracks.
But embedding in an excellent culture like this? There's some work from MOOCs. But especially for young kids, something more immersive is needed. We could be waiting years for child-compatible AR. And for humans-plus-AI-NPCs local-plus-remote collaborative learning communities. Is there anything beyond "well, there's the daily triage struggle towards slightly less toxic cultures, but really, unless you have an extraordinarily outlier family, you're just bleep-out-of-luck until mid-century"?
Which isn't intended to disparage everyone's day-by-day efforts. But if something like this family's environment is to become norm rather than outlier... we also have to be thinking and aiming bigger.
This whole question got started in my mind after recently reading the book A Mathematician's Lament.
The comparison in the book is along the lines of memorizing methods and facts verse exploring ideas with the mind.
It's this idea of pursuing anything interesting just for the sake of it.
Could you elaborate on the insight you learned from "A mathematican's lament"?
I made an acquaintance with a retired math professor. We had some long discussions about education. He had stated he kept his kids out of school as long as he could. It was his view that much of the structure of the public education taught your child not to think. His son eventually went on to get a PHD in theoretical physics if is any reflection on his methods.
"So how do we teach our students to do mathematics? By choosing engaging and natural problems suitable to their tastes, personalities, and levels of experience. By giving them time to make discoveries and formulate conjectures. By helping them to refine their arguments and creating an atmosphere of healthy and vibrant mathematical criticism. By being flexible and open to sudden changes in the direction to which their curiosity may lead. In short, by having an honest intellectual relationship with our students and our subject."
I have no idea how conscious it was on the family's part, but it seemed like everyone in that family ALWAYS had a creative project that they were thinking about, talking about, and was celebrated by all in the family. It could be the dad talking about some data he was cleaning, or the younger kids about some new comic character they were developing, etc. It was clear that there was absolutely NO judgement as to what everyone's endeavor was, but that being a creative person and exploring and thinking was table stakes to being part of that family.
I don't know what the answer is, but I think if you manage to cultivate that kind of culture in your household, everything else will come easier, because above all, it seemed like they all had JOY in doing all of this. I could easily see how it could become a chore and even a burden, but somehow those parents really managed to lose sight of having everyone see thinking and exploring as primarily a fun thing to do, and it seems to have stuck.