Annie's mailbox
1. Recognize that you can’t force your child to change, nor can you make changes for him. Think of inspiring your child’s behavior instead of demanding it. Ask yourself, “What can I do differently?” or “How can I trigger a better reaction from my child?” You’d be surprised how much better this works than lecturing, yelling, or bribing.
2. Realize that your child may remember good times, but he will definitely remember the bad ones. Twenty years down the road, he will remind you about punishments doled out in anger and words said that you later regretted. Treat your child with respect, particularly when you are annoyed and at wits’ end. You will be treated with respect in return.
3. Be realistic. Change happens slowly. Do not expect that a child will learn to share overnight, that siblings will suddenly get along after you lecture them, or that a toddler will go to bed after being permitted to stay up late. Notice and acknowledge the small steps, and positive changes will happen.
Catherine Tobin offers her pearls of wisdom to parents––and to teachers, who are ‘in loco parentis.’ Teachers, too, can choose to “inspire” rather than “demand,” to make lessons invitations rather than “lecturing, yelling, or bribing.” “What can I do differently?” can become our mantra whenever things are not working.
When teachers (true for parents) are “annoyed and at wits’ end” and lose control with a child or with a class, those moments become embedded and lurk for weeks. Recovering may be a slow process but treating children with “respect” eventually earns “respect in return.”
Teachers know their successes will have to be earned. They stay in it for the long haul. Tobin’s advice, “Be realistic. Change happens slowly,” reminds them to take “small steps” every day, and “positive changes will happen.” That is why they continue to teach.
Teachers who read Tobin’s letter understand that their job also entails being a ‘parent.’ Most likely they spend more time every day with children than their parents do. Tobin’s three principles remind that teaching entails patience––with their students and themselves.
Their rooms become a special place, where children arrive anticipating new ideas, concepts, and understandings. You take them to new places through “small steps.” Every day, you offer your “respect,” hoping for “respect in return.”
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward” (Kierkegaard)
I write to bring ideas and methods from my life as a teacher in the latter half of the 20th century to help teachers and the public to “live forward” in this century. My latest book, Teacher in the Rye: Doing It My Way is available on Amazon. And I welcome comments here on my Substack or by email at frankthoms3@gmail.com.
