Puzzling over clock is alarming :
Back to school means asking: Who is Big Ben? School time in our house is a sad, yet happy time. Sad because we the parents had to go through the dreadful school clothes shopping crap, yet happy because we know the children aren’t home to drive us crazy arguing, fighting, competing like mad dogs out of their pens.
They have the distinct pleasure of someone else telling them what not to do all day and still finding time to roll their eyes up at that person when asked to do that awful task or to behave, stop it or listen.
In our home, the children always seem to be in between sizes. No size is ever just right, the clothes are either too tight or too big, which in my eldest son’s eyes would suit him just fine.
To be seen having his clothes bag down to his knees, showing off those oh so awesome boxers would please him.
However, no child of mine is going to dress in such a fashion intil he is well over 18 and long gone from our home.
So after all the must haves for school were refused---the dress shoes, the casual shoes, the sneakers,---and not just any sneakers but the $125 a pair sneakers, my kids unwillingly settled for plain old sneakers. You know the generic shoe to them. I did offer to get a job to pay for the other kind.
In preparation for school, we went shopping. After a weeks worth of clothes, a few hours and several , I repeat, several dollars later, we all got home worn out. Just as I sat down in my chair and started to get comfortable I heard, “We forgot my new alarm clock.” My child continues on, “I won’t wake up without one, mine broke. Remember?” I remember the same child waking up at the crack of dawn nearly half the summer playing with the loudest, noisiest toys they could find. Yet somehow when school hits, they magically become noon sleepers? Go figure. I think for a minute and say, “Oh we have plenty of clocks around here you can use one of the big bens.”
Well I might as well said you could use a fork to wake him up. The child had no idea what a Big Ben was. So I explained that before the electric clock with all those red lights, gadgets, switches, and words all over them there was a plain generic Big Ben.
They didn’t cost a lot or do more than what they were intended to do. They told you, excuse me, they showed you the time. (Realizing some clocks actually do tell you the time.) They woke you up when you set them, and they even glowed in the dark, sort of.
The child did not know how to use the thing. I said, “It’s so simple. What do you mean you can’t set the clock? I mean really how hard can it be, boy? Read the thing.”
After a few minutes, he says, “Mom, it don’t work.” “Oh, give the thing to me, “ I exclaimed. “Geesh. Look here, boy, this is all you do.” I showed him the little bell on the back, where you adjust the volume, how to pull out the little knob, how to wind it up and all that stuff.
When I was finished he rolled those eyes up again and said, “Mom, this is just not right that I have to use this thing. Who made it? Ben Franklin”
It is then I realized that our children have become so dependent on things and gadgets telling us what to do and how to do it that they do little thinking on their own.
To resolve something that didn’t come with instructions or speak to us is a major task with them.
To manually do anything is of great distress to them. To solve a math problem without a calculator is unheard of. Oh, and this one really gets my goat--- “My teacher told me to make a sloppy copy first, then do…” “Well why can’t we do it neat the first time, “ I ask. It sure would save time one would think?
Our children are much wiser, but very dependent these days. I think we need to teach them more independence and more problem solving techniques---rather than to be so intrigued with the hottest, latest, newest, fastest, easiest way to do things, supposedly better.
I am not so sure it is better. I would like to know that my child could solve things on his own when he is on his own.
©1997Nancy Lee Destiny
