Joanne M. Friendman, MEd
I recently came across an article by R. Cort Kirkwood, managing editor of the Harrisburg, Virginia, Daily News-Record. Published in 2003, it's hardly news anymore, but the topic seemed worthy of attention. Mr. Kirkwood's editorial focuses a sharp eye on the practice by some public schools of "grading" parents.
Not surprisingly, this concept has raised a few eyebrows and a lot of irate voices. Do schools have the right to determine a parent's level of effectiveness? Probably not. Frankly, the concept boggles the mind, even of someone as closely allied to the teaching profession as this author.
Do parents make mistakes? Of course. So do teachers, school administrators, physicians, lawyers, politicians. The list of humans capable of error is endless. A better question might be "Who is capable of setting the standards for parents?"
It's no secret that many parents could use some guidance. The children of teen mothers are frighteningly more likely statistically to become criminals, drug abusers, alcoholics, and teen parents themselves. This group is an easy target for critics and academics of all types, and it has been studied and restudied and will be studied some more. A large part of the debate over a woman's right to choose abortion over birth revolves around this group.
There is a much less obvious group, however, that is equally in need of study. The parents whose self-esteem pivots on their child's performance in one or another area may one day be discovered to be almost as deadly in terms of the problem adults they are producing as the teenaged parents.
Recently this group came under scrutiny. In an article in Psychology Today (Jan/Feb 2004, "Parenting: Bragging Rights") Eileene Zimmerman shone the spotlight on parents whose competition over their children's acceptance into the Gifted and Talented program at their school was clearly less about seeing to it that the children were appropriately challenged academically as it was about the parents' dream to produce a GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) child. Ms. Zimmerman's conclusions are well-based in the research done by David Elkind at Tufts University (The Hurried Child), who found that it's all about labels. The problem resides firmly in parents' desire to be known themselves as the mother or father of a gifted/talented/athletically superior/remarkably handsome child.
More recently (Sept/Oct, 2005), Psychology Today published an article by Carlin Flora entitled "Why You Think You'll Never Stack Up." Dealing directly with the issue of status, Flora explains why we feel the need to embellish the truth of our lives in order not just to impress others, but to make ourselves feel a little closer to the ideal we've chosen.
It doesn't take much imagination to see the link between our desire to appear to be more than we are (and better than everyone around us) and parents who push their children into activities and academic courses that the kids probably don't want or need (and may not be qualified for).
Every spring the battleground moves to the schools' guidance departments where decisions about class placement for the following year are made. Waivers fly about the room like feathers looking for a cap in which to stick themselves. To have requirements waived is the ultimate coup. Students sit silently nursing knots in their stomachs while they await the list of demands that will be made on them; or they chatter loudly, spouting their credentials for an upgrade while carefully covering the report cards that would spoil their argument.
In the fall the war moves to the athletic fields as parents battle with coaches who don't seem to see their children's prowess as clearly as they might. And it moves to the classrooms where the children are struggling to survive in classes above their ability levels. And it slips into the offices of the Child Study teams who face demands that failing children be tested and classified as learning disabled so they'll get the adjustmentsÑun-timed testing, shortened assignments, waived homework requirements, tutoringÑthat their parents have decided will smooth the way to success. One child's parent was so insistent that his child (lazy and under-motivated to a fault) be afforded the extra help that special ed provides, that the child faked a disability in order to satisfy his father without actually having to do more school work.
Eventually the toll for such parental loss of focus is paid by the children. Failure would be the natural course, but parents who participate in this self-esteem game won't allow it. They re-enter the battle and restructure the remains into something different but equally satisfactory, and the game continues.
Children protected from failure and from following a natural pattern of learning are handicapped in ways that special education can't remediate. It will not be surprising to find in a few years that populations falling within certain categories of personality disorder will begin to grow. Which categories and how great the growth rate is difficult for a lay person to guess, though even money says psychologists are already seeing a clear direction of movement. As a parent, it is worth considering the real outcome of your efforts over the long term.
Should schools grade parents? Probably not. Parents, however, should become more adept at grading themselves. Children at risk are never a worthy end to the games we play.
Joanne M. Friedman received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Clark University and her MEd in special education from the University of Hartford. A past member of the Council for Exceptional Children, she has spent twenty-five years teaching special education at all levels, elementary through high school to learning disabled, emotionally disturbed, physically handicapped and developmentally disabled children and served on the Learning Disabilities Advisory Board at Sussex County College for six years. Joanne Friedman is a freelance writer living in Sussex County, New Jersey.
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