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People in former Soviet regime did treat reading as one of few vents (along with guitar songs skirting the repressed thoughts and intelligentsia leaving the city for the weekend's nature respites. And vodka, of course).
People in poor countries do see education as a way out of poverty; education becomes an incentive.
Here, both incentives are removed: no totalitarian regime and no abject poverty: "Could we have a tad of totalitarian repression to raise a reader, but after - jump back to America, please?"
Strange that it was OK for her to get distracted by pop culture at 14, becoming a non-reader for many years, but it is not OK for her small children to be distracted by the same open culture of choices.
Wow. This is begging for a reply much more substantive than I'm able to type on this amazingly dispensable invention called iPad. In the meantime...let me just say...who said "it was ok for me to do x...but not for my kids to do y". It just goes to show that I was right when I was lamenting all those "War and Peace" volumes left unread. Any argument more complicated than a reality show message or a "win/lose" vision of reality...will be hard to process, I know.
No, it was not ok for me to be distracted by pop culture at 14...and yes, you are so cute when you talk about that culture of "choices". Just adorable. It reminds me of the choices I have on the cereal isle when I go to the grocery store. Same sugary junk packaged in one million colorful boxes. What I would actually want to choose is never there.
Oh...and is this why so many parents fail to say no to the electronic jungle their kids grow up in? So they won't grow up repressed like the Soviets ?
Keep inspecting the cereal isle for more amazing "choices".
Last edited by toobusytoday; 09-14-2012 at 10:17 PM..
Wow. This is begging for a reply much more substantive than I'm able to type on this amazingly dispensable invention called iPad. In the meantime...let me just say...who said "it was ok for me to do x...but not for my kids to do y". It just goes to show that I was right when I was lamenting all those "War and Peace" volumes left unread. Any argument more complicated than a reality show message or a "win/lose" vision of reality...will be hard to process, I know.
No, it was not ok for me to be distracted by pop culture at 14...and yes, you are so cute when you talk about that culture of "choices". Just adorable. It reminds me of the choices I have on the cereal isle when I go to the grocery store. Same sugary junk packaged in one million colorful boxes. What I would actually want to choose is never there.
Oh...and is this why so many parents fail to say no to the electronic jungle their kids grow up in? So they won't grow up repressed like the Soviets ?
Keep inspecting the cereal isle for more amazing "choices".
A lot of your posts scream of the "good old country's ways". You either can't reproduce "the good old country's ways" in your own family (and what is stopping you?), or you can't go back in space, or you can't go back in time, - and hence your posts represent squirming of a person who is totally uncomfortable - with herself and with the way the things are around.
You are also uncomfortable with accepting that your son may not fit the mold you prepared for him (due to syndromes, or just due to he will never fit into it) - but you are going to suck it up in the end. It will take a lot of useless battles, paralyzing wonderment, lots of heartache for you, school and the kids. That's why people feel for your kids.
Besides, if you want to create "the way things were" with all that accompanied them, you will need to remove all the electronics, including the capitalistic iPad you are using, strip your house of all decadent bourgeois entrapments, create a void in your kids soul, so that they would crave reading to fill up the vacuum. You would have keep the spiritual vacuum running, remove democracy, install corruption, clear up shelves in stores. In short, create a perfect environment for a young reader.
I just don't get it. You are struggling with your son, you post repeatedly asking for input and ideas, and yet when those are given you ridicule and lambaste the poster. What is it you want? Seems like validation for what you are already doing is the most likely answer. You know things could be done differently, or else why would you ask?
The thing is I didn't grow up much differently to you, resources were scarce. I find it hard to believe children's literature was unavailable, but whatever. In the back of beyond where I grew up we still had access to Grimm, Dickens, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Little House, Asterix, Tintin, etc. My parents did not read to us, I was a reader, my sister was not. The thing is now we are living in the US in 2012. We KNOW a lot more about child development, the impact of parental influence and role-modeling, etc. You can cling to the belief that the way you grew up was perfect and can never be improved upon, or you can use your awesome education, and actually do whatever it takes to help your son reach his full potential by using all the resources at your disposal, which include your education, masses of research by experts in the field, and the knowledge and experience of others who have been there.
Wow. This is begging for a reply much more substantive than I'm able to type on this amazingly dispensable invention called iPad. In the meantime...let me just say...who said "it was ok for me to do x...but not for my kids to do y". It just goes to show that I was right when I was lamenting all those "War and Peace" volumes left unread. Any argument more complicated than a reality show message or a "win/lose" vision of reality...will be hard to process, I know.
No, it was not ok for me to be distracted by pop culture at 14...and yes, you are so cute when you talk about that culture of "choices". Just adorable. It reminds me of the choices I have on the cereal isle when I go to the grocery store. Same sugary junk packaged in one million colorful boxes. What I would actually want to choose is never there.
Oh...and is this why so many parents fail to say no to the electronic jungle their kids grow up in? So they won't grow up repressed like the Soviets ?
Keep inspecting the cereal isle for more amazing "choices".
This is where you show how narrow your world actually is.
You see, to some people, tactile computers such as the iPad are indispensable. I am an avid reader too, but my work requires making art (though you probably wouldn't see it that way) that uses computers as the primary medium, and being able to control a computer by touching it has changed the way the art I work with is made.
I can't possibly do it with paper. Paper doesn't transmit signal. So to YOU, it's a dispensable piece of rubbish. To ME, it's an instrument.
Not to mention the immense access to knowledge contained in that little mobile device which is allowing me to do stuff that I never could have accomplished even with 5 continuous years at the library and a college degree in the new field I'm in.
It's ridiculously narrow to say that the iPad or whatever other piece of technology you find is junk is unworthy just because you won't use it to its full capacity. That's your problem, not the technology's. There's no need to make it your child's problem too, although thankfully you're probably going to lose that battle.
BTW, a lot of the classics are free at the iBook store, and I've just started War And Peace.
I have not read every page - just taking a quick packing break and here's my thoughts - throw them out, modify, ignore, whatever works.
I LOVE to read. My oldest is an avid reader - everything and anything. Like me, he HAS to be reading, aside from a football game on tv, he'd rather read. He didn't get that way because I read to him after he could read himself, he got that way because reading was fun. He wasn't a fidgeter. He could sit and read.
YOUR child is a fidgeter, needs to move, get up and do, wiggle, twiddle, whatever. He is diagnosed as ADD/ADHD. He can't sit still long enough to let the words engage him. And there is medication that will permit that - that will allow the words to pull him into the concepts, to allow him to sit and think. You are at a crossroads here. Eventually, he will be able to wean himself off the medication. But eventually is not when he will learn to love reading. The time is now. Time is of the essence, in fact, in giving him an opportunity to let your love of books and the written word cross to your child.
If the medications don't work, you can stop them - later. But if your child doesn't learn to enjoy reading NOW, there is no remedy; there is no later.
Will comment more when I get rid of the annoying iPad. The rest of the posters got vexed that I dared, once again, to point to systemic issues, aka "their beloved system". Fair enough, they need to keep it strictly at the individual level because some people simply can't see beyond that.
Speaking of individual level, I hear you. It is with the point you brought up in your post that I struggle most. The system in which parents must raise their ADHD children is a complete nightmare. It is exactly because it can't be changed that I often think that what you proposed, as outrageous as others found it, is probably the only way to give my son a chance to become the reader he needs to be. Personally, I don't buy the junk about "readers are born so". Yes, some will die to devour books even in the middle of the most junk-filled culture you can imagine (and we certainly don't need that much imagination to get that picture given its staring us in the face). But most people won't and will simply make the easy choice when given so called "choices", without having ever had their tastes trained to appreciate the harder choices or without having ever been defended from the junk. Just like most of us will pick French fries over raw broccoli when given the "choice", even when we know fries are terrible for us and broccoli is awesome. I, for one, pick the da$n fries every time, if they are there, in front of me. Good thing I see them rarely.
As a result, I am tempted to apply your advice and just medicate, if it is indeed true that the ADHD makes him too restless to fall in love with the printed word. However, I am convinced this medication has bad side effects no matter how much the medical establishment wants to downplay this aspect. As such, I still don't know what should weigh more: his long term physical health or his ability to compete in this world. It is easy to say the former, but the latter will hardly let you live if you choose to ignore it.
This is where you show how narrow your world actually is.
You see, to some people, tactile computers such as the iPad are indispensable. I am an avid reader too, but my work requires making art (though you probably wouldn't see it that way) that uses computers as the primary medium, and being able to control a computer by touching it has changed the way the art I work with is made.
I can't possibly do it with paper. Paper doesn't transmit signal. So to YOU, it's a dispensable piece of rubbish. To ME, it's an instrument.
Not to mention the immense access to knowledge contained in that little mobile device which is allowing me to do stuff that I never could have accomplished even with 5 continuous years at the library and a college degree in the new field I'm in.
It's ridiculously narrow to say that the iPad or whatever other piece of technology you find is junk is unworthy just because you won't use it to its full capacity. That's your problem, not the technology's. There's no need to make it your child's problem too, although thankfully you're probably going to lose that battle.
BTW, a lot of the classics are free at the iBook store, and I've just started War And Peace.
With all due respect, most people don't use the iPad to do the unique artwork you mention. To them, just like to me, this thing is higly dispensable. The only Reason I am using it is because it was given to me for free. Not in a million years would I have wasted my money on it. We're digressing, right?
I just don't get it. You are struggling with your son, you post repeatedly asking for input and ideas, and yet when those are given you ridicule and lambaste the poster. What is it you want? Seems like validation for what you are already doing is the most likely answer. You know things could be done differently, or else why would you ask?
The thing is I didn't grow up much differently to you, resources were scarce. I find it hard to believe children's literature was unavailable, but whatever. In the back of beyond where I grew up we still had access to Grimm, Dickens, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Little House, Asterix, Tintin, etc. My parents did not read to us, I was a reader, my sister was not. The thing is now we are living in the US in 2012. We KNOW a lot more about child development, the impact of parental influence and role-modeling, etc. You can cling to the belief that the way you grew up was perfect and can never be improved upon, or you can use your awesome education, and actually do whatever it takes to help your son reach his full potential by using all the resources at your disposal, which include your education, masses of research by experts in the field, and the knowledge and experience of others who have been there.
Zimbo, children's lit started with black and white small print and one small black and white pic every 30 pages. No, the tons of hard cover books with eye burning colors...that kind of "literature" wasn't available.
The way I grew up was far from perfect, but it sure was a much more favorable environment to reading than what my kids grow up in today. This is not up for debate, my dear forum fellow.
Zimbo, children's lit started with black and white small print and one small black and white pic every 30 pages. No, the tons of hard cover books with eye burning colors...that kind of "literature" wasn't available.
The way I grew up was far from perfect, but it sure was a much more favorable environment to reading than what my kids grow up in today. This is not up for debate, my dear forum fellow.
As a result, I am tempted to apply your advice and just medicate, if it is indeed true that the ADHD makes him too restless to fall in love with the printed word. However, I am convinced this medication has bad side effects no matter how much the medical establishment wants to downplay this aspect. As such, I still don't know what should weigh more: his long term physical health or his ability to compete in this world. It is easy to say the former, but the latter will hardly let you live if you choose to ignore it.
But, your son is already able to compete. The title of your thread describes him as being at the top of his class. Obviously, he does read, just not to the extent you desire. How has his schoolwork suffered? You have not provided any evidence that medication is necessary, beyond him being "fidgety" and having a messy desk, which is completely normal for young boys.
With all due respect, most people don't use the iPad to do the unique artwork you mention. To them, just like to me, this thing is higly dispensable. The only Reason I am using it is because it was given to me for free. Not in a million years would I have wasted my money on it. We're digressing, right?
The Ipad has many uses. My autistic grandson learned to speak with an app called Proloquo2go. His Speech therapist and Occupational therapist use various apps to help him with pronunciation and even with fine motor skills and handwriting.
You may not want to use it that way, but there are other interesting things that can be done on it. If you happen to enjoy science, Richard Dawkins book for children The Magic of Reality can be downloaded and not only is it a great explanation of various scientific concepts, but the games are fun as well.
As for children's literature: I grew up in the US. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, my dad always brought home Little Golden Books for my sister and I to read. These cost 10 cents back then. I read them all. My mom had a collection of books and I read all of them as well, but my sister was not as much of a reader as I was.
If you have not looked at the great chidren's literature that is out there, I suggest you put away your preconceptions and read a few of them. They touch on many difficult topics. The lists are often broken down by grade and age so that you can find things that work and are appropriate for your child's maturity level *and* reading level.
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