CSotD: How to inadvertently raise a smart kid
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Keith Knight again. We've really gotta quit meeting like this.
As occasionally alluded to here, there is a group of cartoonists whose work I like so much that I judge them more harshly than others, in part to avoid getting into a rut where the same people are featured here all the time.
Sometimes I think it's not fair to require those particular artists to hit it out of the park in order to have a chance.
Except that they can, and so they should. And he does, a lot.
In part, that's because he casts such a fresh eye upon life. He does more than riff on the breaking news that men like to control the remote, that kids carry heavy backpacks to school and that women like chocolate.
And in part it's that, besides bringing up new, unrecycled observations, his observations are often on a style of parenting that pretty much conforms to my own, so that those fresh observations hit smack-dab in the bull's eye.
And then there's this: Keith Knight seems to enjoy life. He gets frustrated with the petty annoyances of the day, and that can be pretty funny, but, overall, he seems to think life is okay, even fun. He'd rather celebrate "Life's Little Victories" than dwell too long on the screw-ups and bad vibes that come his way.
Today is a good example of finding humor in small moments.
It's more than just a "cute thing kids say," because it's a whole reflection on how they are raising their son and how he sees the world as a result.
The idea that they are reading Peanuts strips to a three-year-old is a good start.
The kid can't really understand the nuances in a Peanuts strip, but so what? He can understand being read to, and why not stretch his little brain with something that's a bit beyond him?
I remember being aware, at a young age, that the kids in Peanuts didn't talk like any kids I knew. They didn't even talk like the kids in Miss Peach. And it didn't matter to me.
The kids in the Mary Poppins books didn't talk like regular kids, either, and neither did Christopher Robin. As for young Gerald McGrew, man, I had no idea where that kid was coming from, but it was a blast listening to the stuff he came up with.
Does everything you read to a child have to involve small animals walking around encountering other small animals, set to stupid, mind-numbing doggerel?
For that matter, does everything you share with your kid have to be for your kid? Why not just let him be a member of the family?
There's nothing wrong with sharing something with the smallest and youngest member of the family, whether it's reading him Peanuts or putting a few pieces of sushi on his high-chair tray.
Maybe he won't get it all, but better to miss the mark now and then than to raise him isolated in the world of stupid, condescending kid stuff. There's a difference between "age-appropriate" and "crap," and it's not just a question of literature.
Trust me: The fact that you have fed him curry and sushi and moussaka will not keep him from ever discovering Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. All he's got to do is go eat with one of his little friends.
Nor will taking him to a restaurant that doesn't feature a playground keep him from enjoying the places that do.
But kids should know that food doesn't always come wrapped in paper, that sometimes it's served on a plate and you eat it with silverware and you have to sit up and keep your voice down because other people at the restaurant are trying to enjoy their meals, too.
And they should take it for granted that sometimes you go to an amusement park with rides, and other times you go look at really cool stuff in a museum. Some museums have things you can touch and some just have things you look at, but it's all really interesting, and the stuff you don't understand is still fun to look at and wonder about.
And it's not "instead of."
It's "besides."
The more "besides" you offer your kids, the more choices they will see throughout their lives. And the more chances you'll get to be delighted when you accidentally discover what has sunk in.
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