Happy Friday, everyone.
When my oldest son, Sachin, turned 6, I think I felt like most parents probably feel when their children go off to college.
I made him a giant portfolio book of all his work that he had done up until that time. Pages and pages of buttons sewed and Metal Insets traced. And later in the album, beautiful written work—short stories and short animal research and the like (all in Spanish, since he was in our Spanish immersion program at the time). Also impressive, advanced math work. (Sachin has gone on to become increasingly advanced in math with each passing year, and this year, at age 9, he was enrolled in a middle school level math class that he would log on to each week to take it together with our virtual school students.)
As I presented him with his portfolio on his 6th birthday—which he took completely in stride and didn’t seem to feel any special ceremony about—I felt myself getting teary inside.
I thought to myself, “Well, I’ve done all I can do as a parent. It’s up to him now.”
Probably not something that most parents think about a 6 year old!
It is certainly not literally true. Sachin will turn 10 this summer, and believe me, he still has plenty of growing up to do. Immaturities to overcome. Goals to set and pursue and achieve. Life lessons to learn. Lots of current and future mistakes to make. Ray and I still do plenty of parenting.
But when you have the perspective on early childhood that I have, and that we as an organization have, there is something true about it. There is something to the idea that when a child graduates from our Children’s House classroom, an aspect of his essential self is formed. And I think there is something healthy in those of us who are early childhood educators seeing it that way. There is an urgency to education under the age of six because a child’s basic orientation towards himself and towards the world is being formed. And it will never again be as plastic as it is at that time.
When we do our jobs right, children rising up out of our Children’s House classrooms at age 6 have gained a basic confidence in themselves. They know they are fit to live life. They know that if they work at something and practice at it, they can get good at it. They are able to articulate their thoughts and feelings in ways that tickle us with their naive wisdom. They have formed early interests and have absorbed impressions that have deeply impacted them.
They have built the core of a self. The foundation for a life. They are who they are.
During adolescence, it can be much harder as a parent to be helpful. It’s a time of life when many young people are trying to distinguish themselves from their parents and their family—and so they may not want advice or wisdom from that source, because they want to find their own way. Sometimes that’s good and sometimes that’s bad. But it just is what it is.
I worry all the time about what might happen to Sachin in adolescence. He’s so stubborn and so stuck to his own viewpoints (kind of like his mother ;-) ). Who knows what he might choose or how he might change during this tumultuous period?
Of course, even if the parent has less direct influence, there are all sorts of ways to offer guidance in adolescence. Teenagers can choose other adults mentors—and sometimes do choose their parents as a mentor in this way—and better educational environments, like our Montessori adolescent programs, help tremendously.
But even if a family didn’t have these opportunities, or even if their child went off the rails as an adolescent—if he or she attended our schools, or another great Montessori program, and got that core of normalization—something invaluable has been accomplished. That child has a good core self to which he or she can choose to return.
For all of these reasons, I have an underlying sense of serenity about it. He is going to get a wonderful education, which is a tremendous help. And, whatever happens and whatever choices Sachin makes, I can still, if necessary, be patient, wait, and hope that he returns to himself.
My job as a parent up until that point, and especially up until the age of 6, has been and is to make sure that he has built a self that he can return to. If I have done that job successfully, then I can trust him to find himself again.
Have a great weekend,
Rebecca Girn
Chief Programs Officer, Higher Ground Education
Yes, "....to make sure that he has built a self that he can return to." Congrats Sachin! Rebecca, thanks for the idea for all of my daughter's work! Adding that to my summer list =)
Thank you so very much Rebecca Girn. You are entirely right. Urgency.
I deeply hope you and the crew will become close associates with Elon Musk. I think all multi planetary settlers should be grads of Montessori EC.
Thomas