What's wrong with a little failure?

I bought Claire some Play-Doh this weekend. She loves the stuff and we already have a pile of it, but I was buying Jake a little car. I can get away with buying utilitarian items for one child and not the other - nobody screams about socks. But any fool of a parent knows that you can't get out of the store with one toy and two children without screams that can melt steel. So. Play-Doh to the rescue.

As soon as we arrived home, I opened the pack and showed Claire how to use her new tool. She played with it for about 20 seconds before abandoning the tool in favor of the little brochure that had been enclosed in the packet. I sat down to look at it with her. And then I saw it. "Perfect every time." It was in the description of a kit for little critters.

Isn't "perfect every time" in direct opposition to the whole point of Play-Doh? It's PLAY-Doh, not PERFECT-Doh. I want my kids to feel free to play with it. I want bowls made from coiled snakes, dogs with legs that are too short, and lumpy trees. I want my kids to have the freedom to make it the wrong way as they discover that art isn't about perfection.

A few weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine sat down to help her daughter with an art project. They had a booklet with various products and instructions for making fairy princesses. The mother dutifully read the instructions and showed her daughter the correct way to construct her fairy princess. There was even a moment of panic when the mother thought she might have to draw a circle by hand! She eventually found a round object to trace so that the pumpkin coach would be perfectly round. I've never seen a perfectly round pumpkin in my life - and I consider myself something of a pumpkin connoisseur.

I think we're stealing process away from our children in our relentless effort to protect them from failure. I have no doubt that it's done with love. Failure can be awful and we all know how it feels. I am an horrible artist. I still remember Mrs. Olsen, my fourth grade art teacher, sneering at my painting of Peary at the north pole. "This isn't a finished painting. It's just a red blur on white paper!" On my mama bear level, I'd certainly like to protect my children from that sort of scathing criticism. On my intellectual mama level, I realize that kind of shelter comes at a cost.

What I need to do, what I think we all need to do, is teach our kids how to handle failure instead of preventing it. Let's replace "perfect every time" with "perfect with practice." Let's teach our kids to tell the Mrs. Olsens of the world that criticism needs to be constructive. Let's teach them to ask about what's good, what's not good, and how to make it better. Let's give them the freedom of creative process.

My sharp, Mommy

I've mentioned before that Claire helps me with dinner. I really do enjoy it although it can sometimes be a nerve-wracking experience. She likes to put vegetables into a bowl as I chop them. And every single time, I have the same horrifying vision. I'll be chopping happily along when I see a little chubby finger reaching for a carrot about a foot away from the knife. And then I see the knife coming down on the little chubby finger. It doesn't seem to matter that her finger is too far away for the knife to actually cut it. If I can see both her finger and the knife, I have the vision and I am left sick to my stomach. I always reiterate, "Sharp! This is sharp! OUCH! The knife is for Mommy! Not for you! Sharp!" Then I take a deep breath, ignore the nausea, and return to chopping.

The other night, Claire found a bag of toy kitchen paraphernalia in the basement. She carried it upstairs where she started cataloging the items. When she came across the toy chef's knife, she studied it carefully for a few minutes. Then she showed it to me and said, "My sharp, Mommy. MINE. NOT FOR YOU!" I don't know whether to be relieved by her innocence or peeved that she thinks I'm selfishly keeping the real knife for myself.

Bringing Up Readers

I took the kids to the library on Saturday morning. It's not an unusual event - we usually go two or three times a month. We have a whole bookcase filled with children's literature, but we get bored with the same books. Besides, our local branch has a fantastic children's section. There are so many books, toys, and activities, plus there are always other children milling around. I let the kids pick their own books while I select more books that I think are appropriate for them. We generally end up with a pile of books only slightly shorter than Claire which we read one after the other as soon as we arrive home. I spent much of my childhood reading and it seems that my children are happy to follow in that path.

On this particular visit, the librarian on the children's floor asked us if we had signed up for the summer reading program. Jacob replied that he had indeed. Then the librarian looked at Claire, looked at me, and asked if Claire would like to sign up as well. What??? Why on earth would a two year old child need to sign up for a reading program? For that matter, I'm not sure that a six year old child needs to sign up for a reading program! Jake did sign up and after he reads his first five books, I'll take him to pick up his special pencil (I'm the mean mom who is only counting books that Jake reads himself, not the books that I read to him) and so on until the program ends. But after the request to enroll Claire in the program, I'm beginning to wonder.

In kindergarten, part of Jake's homework every night was for a parent to read to him for 15 minutes each night. We dutifully filled out the sheet with the books we read and Jake carefully colored a star for every book. But we both resented the intrusion into our reading time. Five minutes spent filling out a sheet was five minutes that we had to tear ourselves away from our book. On top of that, we had to fill out a different reading list with ten books we read over the course of the month in order to qualify for a free pizza. Again, we dutifully filled out the sheet to prove that we were reading - which we would have been doing anyway - and received our coupons. We only used the coupon one time out of the nine that Jacob "earned."

I can't help but wonder if all these programs are detrimental. At what point do literacy programs turn into bribery? Do kids really learn to love literature if they're just reading to earn a pencil or to enter a drawing for baseball tickets? If kids love storytime anyway, are we cheapening the experience by essentially putting a price tag on it? I can see the advantage of these types of reading programs if they are actually bringing new patrons to the library, or encouraging parents who do not love reading themselves to read with their children anyway. But for families like ours, where storytime is an activity as normal as bathtime, are the programs accomplishing anything?