childhood depression

What interesting points you raise. I agree there is a great rise in childhood depression. We need to remember that 1 out of 2 marriages now end in divorce and divorce can be traumatic to children. What’s just as true is that many of us live hectic lives. The old 9 to 5 workday is a thing of the past and many working people work much longer hours than that. Families eat dinner now at 7 and 8 oclock. It’s wearing on children. And we’re running as hard as we can just to stay in the same place. Does anyone ever feel like they really get ahead? Weekends are just like work with all the errands that need to be done on the weekend that can’t be gotten to during the week.

And school has changed. There’s a great book called Whatever Happened To Recess and Why Is My Child Struggling In Kindergarten? School tries to make itself as rigorous as possible. More and more schools are giving up recess and adding more worksheets. Children sit for hours taking mandated standardized tests.

Sadly we judge children in our schools, we don’t nurture them. It is depressing. And it’s hard to have hope that things will change anytime soon.

It is interesting you raise this point. On one of my sons test he had during social issues one of the questions was: why do you feel there is a rise in teen suicide? My sons response to this question was “unrealistic expectations by parents and society.” He went on to clarify that ALL students are expected to excel at academics or sports. In other words the child is expected to be the next Einstien or the next Michael Jordan. He said “average” just is not acceptable any more. Another reason he stated was the break up of the family. He said how are kids suppose to cope if adults can’t. Adults get divorced, they drink, they do drugs, ect. He stated that parents arent home to raise the kids because they are busy working trying to make a living. This leaves kids to raise themselves. Of course I paraphrased what he said because this was an essay question and his response was long. He traditionly does not score well on this type of question but on this one scored 23/25 points. I thought he was pretty insightful.

I think school has gotten more depressingly fragmented— and we don’t sing & dance & draw enough, either.

Why do we insist on having a kindergarten writing test in the spring to rate each child’s writing skills. Now, in the fall of K, we are talking about kids doing OK if they know letter sounds and are beginning to read words.

My daughter, in 10th grade, was in K about 10 years ago. At that time the beginning to read words part was relegated to late K. Her brother didn’t read at all in K and he turned out to be the GATE child.

A number of forces have caused this problem. One of the more prominent is the pressure parents have placed on their children. When my children were preschoolers I sold children’s books and did book talks, reading readiness talks to parents. One concern parents used to raise was the concern over getting their 4 year old reading.

Our whole society has geared itself toward ever earlier and earlier achievement. Look at our math standards and the goal of algebra I in 7th grade. When my children were that age a few schools placed the very cream of the crop in algebra I in 7th grade (our local school did not). The top 20% or so had algebra I in 8th grade and the C.P. students started in 9th grade.

Like all things, the course must be run and when the cycle is complete we learn something and go on to become overzealous over some other point. Just look at our history.

Gee, where I lived as a kid, we didn’t even HAVE Kindergarten. I remember knowing the “ABC” song before I entered first grade, but I’m not sure I could match the names with the symbols. I clearly remember a bulletin board with little kites on it for learning to count. You would go up to the teacher’s desk, one at a time, and count plastic spoons for her. When you could count to 10 your kite went up off the ground, and as you learned to count higher, the kite continued to rise.

Somehow I learned to read well enough that I hardly pulled my nose out of a book by Jr. High. I even learned enough math that I’ve forgotten most of it since graduation. (granted, graduation was a long time ago) I’ve managed to struggle through to a fruitful adult life even with such a deprived childhood.
;-)

Karen

We need to remember though that parents are simply a part of society and they reflect society’s norms. In our society, we equate school and achievement in school with success in life. Thus, parents who want their children to achieve in life first want their child to achieve in school. School achievement is reassuring to parents in our society that the child will also achieve in life. It’s also true that many people feel increasingly insecure about the future and that insecurity expresses itself by parents looking even the more to their child’s achievement in school to ‘cement’ their coming achievement in life.

Schools are hardly blameless in this as its schools that broadcast the message and tell parents that achievement in school is fundamental to achievement in life. We only further reinforce what they already believe - that their child’s achievements in school are crucial to the child’s well-being in life - and so increase the sense of pressure parents feel. Thus, risk feeding the fire that’s consuming us all.

Sara have you been talking to my husband? He believes if his children do not get straight A’s and do every activity that they are doomed to a life of failure. He does not believe in LD, he thinks his boys are lazy. He always tells them when I was a kid I use to read “real” books. He means books like the Lord of the Rings Series, Moby Dick, and all the classics. I try to tell him that each child is different but he don’t want to hear it. He always compares the kids to the top of the top and tells them those kids will get somewhere some day, where will you be? He does not look at our freshman sons reportcard and see all passing grades, he sees nothing but failure. He tells him how you going to amount to anything if the best you can achieve is a B-/C+ average? What is wrong with average? Since when was mostly B to B-’s failing? I grant he did receive a D+ in Lit, but it was a very difficult class. His son plays trumpet in band he is last chair, this does not please his dad. My son wants to play because he enjoys it but hates the constant harrassment so don’t put forth much effort to move up chairs. If he is enjoying band why does he have to be number 1? He does not plan on making a life of music. I apologize for going off but find myself really frustrated lately. I too worry about my son but know that he has a no quit attitude and have a gut feeling he will do well for himself. I do I tell my husband that my gut tells me things will be alright. I try and say look how far he has come. He has grown by such leaps and bounds the last year and gets no credit from his dad.

I was the most relaxed parent in the universe when this all started. I know and have always known that my son was bright. I didn’t care that he couldn’t learn to read coming out of first grade. I knew that he would learn to read. My problem was that he saw himself as an underperformer in school. This did reflect on his self esteem.
I know other kids who read early and always feel like the smartest, even if they aren’t. I think children have a tendency to live up to their own self image. I believe self image is so important. This is just a reflection of the values they see at school and they do take it home with them.

They just don’t value his type of smart. I have had to work very hard to convince him and keep convincing him that he IS bright. I think it is a shame that schools don’t value all the different types of smart.

Introduce yur district to the theory of “Multiple Intelligences”. Our district recently held a continuing education seminar on this, including recognizing the different types. There are many resources out there on this, if they are not using this theory, help them to know how to help your child.

Sara, I believe our whole culture supports this. I do not believe this message originated with the schools at all. I suspect the public conveys to the schools what they want them to be, through publications and through the ultimate passage of laws. The schools are whipped into cooperating. I think if we controlled the situation, we would not have algebra 1 as the 7th grade math standard, we would not insist that children decode words in the fall of K or that they take district writing tests in May of K. I really think this is the school responding to the pressures that are placed upon us.

There are a number of factors that determine success in life, probably academic prowess is one of the lessor.

Which came first - the chicken or the egg - is always a good question. I think in this case that literacy - acquired in schools - was a valuable thing and did lead to a better life. Thus, the message that school and the literacy it conferred was a stepping stone to success was valid.

It was also true that in the time when few were high school graduates that graduation from high school resulted in a more white collar job than could be had otherwise. I think it’s unquestionable that school was a surer path to success in life in the 19th and early 20th centuries so that when parents and teachers offered this message then they were telling the whole truth.

Now though it’s not just literacy or graduation. It’s the grades you earn and the kind of courses you take that are thought to insure success in life. And it’s also that we use this message as a way of trying to control students and their behavior. Parents and teachers alike seek to have children comply in school by predicting failure in life if they cannot get with the program now.

“Less is more” has gone by the wayside and we speed up the curriculum and put on the pressure. I like the book Whatever Happened to Recess and Why is My Child Struggling in Kindergarten but many people don’t as it speaks against what is now a cultural axiom - success in school is success in life.

In a time when cars cost what houses used to cost, I guess we need to turn to something to try to insure good fortune. Other cultures beat drums, dance, and wear amulets and we preach school.

As a teacher, I try to have my teaching not fall lemming-like in order with that. I don’t tell my students that their future is on the line if they don’t do well in school. I do encourage them as well as their parents to understand a difference between ‘book larnin‘ “and learning in life. I try to offer the message that school does not have a monopoly on learning but is rather only one kind of learning and that learning outside of school is just as valid. I don’t use grades as weapons to punish students for a lack of compliance.

I also tell them Thomas Jefferson never went to law school and Aristotle didn’t have Ph. D in philosophy. Whatever happened to our respect for the self-educated person? Yet I find many teachers hold the concept of self-education in disdain and see school as the only source of learning. That narrow point of view only increases the lack of perspective many parents have and serves no one well and ultimately doesn’t really work to control students in these modern times anyway.

I’m even more alarmed at the many folks who don’t seem to comprehend the concept of self-education; who think “education” is doing the butt-time and handing in assignments that nothing’s been learned from. I wish I could say these were lazy folks — but these are students who seem to really want to succeed and do well. Somehow they’ve gotten a well-constructed model of “education” as being a ritual.
What’s sweet is when one of ‘em actually tastes learning — where they read or learn something that they really understand, and then take a test or write an essay and discover what it’s like to explore ideas and think, not try to guess which phrases will get that “C” or “B” or “A” for that assignment.

http://www.nfgcc.org/33.htm

This is the one about how the various animals were educated…

My son’s teacher is like you and I thank God for that. He hasn’t always been so lucky. She sees him for all he is not just the parts that don’t work so well.

I didn’t need help seeing this in him but I think the right teacher can help a parent see their child’s strengths. I think it would be an incredible gift to give the parent and the child.

You’re right. Bs used to be considered good grades. But with each passing year it seems our definition of success is getting more and more narrow and there’s now there’s just a wee bit of room at the top of the success ladder.

Now true success in school is defined as straight As, first chair trumpet, lead in the play, head of the debate club, captain of the soccer team….and doing volunteer work in a hospital on Saturdays and Sundays.

It’s a kind of frantic dance that we seem to think kids need to do to keep away bad luck or ill fortune and to prove over and over again that they’re not ‘lazy’.

You might like Mel Levine’s newer book called The Myth of Laziness.

Good luck.

nt

NT