The big picture approach on your child's setbacks

Parents who micromanage their children’s lives needn’t worry about them becoming Michelangelos.

Originally published in the Moultrie News.

My son’s third-grade art teacher told the class they couldn’t use the paint for a nine-week project if they didn’t follow certain rules. My son is very well-behaved, but he made a mistake on day two and is banned from the paint for the rest of the quarter. It wasn’t a serious rule, and now he has to do some other project on the side while his friends do the painting project. Don’t you think such a long punishment that hurts his creativity is wrong?

I don’t, but explaining why depends on what aspect of the situation you’re most concerned about.

Is it that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime? Don’t let this bother you. You aren’t in that classroom with 25 third-graders, so you have no idea how fair the consequence is relative to the infraction. Anyway, it’s the art teacher’s classroom, so let her run it according to her rules. You state she warned the children upfront what the rules were and what the consequences would be. That’s fair enough. I see no injustice here, but if you do, then coach your child to endure it with patience and reflection because he will face a thousand such little injustices over the course of his life.

Is it the crushing of his creative spirit? If your child is destined to be a Michelangelo, I doubt his creativity will be extinguished by not getting to use paint in the third grade. This is just one sliver of the artistic process; dozens of opportunities have already passed, and a hundred or more are yet to come, so don’t inflate the importance of one situation. I can think of dozens of incidents in school where my enthusiasm for writing could have been suppressed; the fact that you’re reading this column and that I’ve published two novels may encourage you that your son can overcome.

Is it his feelings? None of us like to see our children sad or left out. The good news is he’ll get over it, probably quickly. This may cheer you up: your son will be a kid for 18 years or 6,570 days. One nine-week art class is 45 days for about 45 minutes per day; that adds up to 2025 total minutes or 1.4 days. So even if he’s at maximum sadness every day of art class, it will only account for .021% of his childhood. He’ll still have 99.98% of it to feel better.

As silly as that sounds, a lot of parents need to hear it because so much of the griping teachers receive is about children’s hurt feelings over small incidents. In situations like this where kids feel sad or abashed, look at the big picture, realize they’ll recover, give them an encouraging pat on the back, and move on to bigger things.

Is it his character? This would be my top concern. In varying degrees, we’re all selfish and impulsive. We have to learn to self-regulate our basest instincts. This incident can help your son develop that trait. Even if he’s generally well-behaved, this will reinforce it. And don’t forget that character is a tide that lifts all of life’s boats, so it can also benefit his feelings (how much sadness do we create for ourselves due to acting impulsively?) and his artistic expression (don’t you think patience is a virtue for artists?).

On the other hand, parents who micromanage their children’s lives with the goal of clearing away their challenges or making them always happy needn’t worry about them becoming Michelangelos. Such parents don’t foster artists. They create monsters — entitled, spoiled, and enabled.

So in this situation, I would do like the parents of my most successful students. I would support the teacher, reinforce good behavior, and teach my child a positive lesson by discussing strategies to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Read the original column here.