SOLSC '21 Day Eleven: A piece of advice

 

I am participating in my ninth Slice of Life Story Challenge run by the team behind the Two Writing Teachers website.  We are challenged to write a blog post a day throughout the month of March.

A Slice by Fran Haley ("Elegant") has me thinking about children and choices.

My mother was not one to dole out advice for future use. I think she was a live-in-the-moment mom, there when you needed her with the advice needed at that time.

Or maybe I just remember her that way, because I lost her too soon to give me the advice I so sorely, desperately longed for as a young wife and mother.

She was ill for most of my first-born's infancy and toddlerhood, diagnosed six months after we brought our baby girl home from the NICU. She died nine months after they celebrated their shared birthday, my daughter's second and her fifty-first.  My mom was a loving, supportive grandmother, but so much of what we were going through as preemie parents we had to do alone, and she had her own terminal illness to endure.

Years before, when I was still in the classroom as a special education teacher, I remember discussing behavior management with my mother, including the giving of choices to help a student calm down.  My mother wasn't a trained teacher, but she vigorously agreed that offering choices was important, and told me a story from her own young parenting days.

She told me that when I was little, she would take me on shopping trips to buy patterns and material for the clothes she sewed for me.  I remembered the well-made clothes, but didn't recall the shopping trips.  My mother said she would pick out the patterns, then let me choose the fabric (with some guidance, of course).  She went on to say that her own mother chastised her for giving me a choice in the matter, to which she replied, "Children have so very little choice in their lives; it is okay to let my daughter have some control over this minor detail."

I also don't recall being a child prone to many temper tantrums.  I can only guess that her practice of allowing me some control in my tiny world may be the reason why.

As a teacher, I was keen on giving students choices, long before the term "choice board" was popular.  As a librarian, I am adamant about student agency in choosing the books they check out.  After many of my PreK through second grade read-alouds, I invite students to give me a thumbs up-sideways-down vote on the story, reminding them that it is okay if they don't like it--not every book is for every reader, and it's important to know themselves as readers.  They are in control of what books they like and don't like.

As parents, we gave our kids lots of those little choices.  They've grown up to be pretty good decision makers; I'd like to think that making those choices helped develop that skill.

When you truly think about it, children have so very little control over much of their lives--where they live, what's in the fridge, which teacher they get, what the temperature of the room is, how loud or bright their surroundings are.  Can you imagine those restrictions as an adult?  Much of our comfort and happiness comes from what we can control; children should be afforded that opportunity, too.  Even the smallest choices can go a long way in helping them feel safe, heard, and capable of decision-making.

Thanks, Mom, for the advice.