The Real Work Of Being A Parent

When parents complain, "He doesn't listen to me" what they really mean is that their kid doesn't do what they want them to do when they want them to do it. Believe me: they are listening to you. They are almost always listening to you. You just disagree with what they opted to do, or continue doing, after listening to your words.

Of course, some of the time, they simply don't understand us, they're not ready to "get" what we're saying to them, like when I talk to young two-year-olds about knocking down other people's block constructions, but more often than not they are listening, then choosing something else.

We know they're listening because our own words come back to us, channelled through them, often days or weeks or even months later. I remember when my own daughter first cursed traffic from her carseat. We know they're listening because they repeat word-for-word, usually at a holiday party right in front of everyone, the mean joke we made about the harvest of hair growing from Aunt Millie's nose. I know a child's been listening when she can repeat, word for word, the argument her parents had that morning over a piece of dropped toast.

We know they are listening when they insist on wearing their unicorn bicycle helmet ice skating, like a four-year-old did, saying, "I'm going to wear my helmet because I might really fall instead of almost."

We know they are listening when they turn to us and say, like a three-year-old did yesterday, "When someone does something mean to me I talk to them to stop."

We know they are listening when they are courteous to their friends, like a two-year-old was earlier this week when he said, "Hello Anna. My name is Elliott. Let's play!"

And we know they are listening when they put their arm around a sobbing friend, like one two-year-old year old did to another, saying softly into his ear, "You're crying about something. I'll take care of you."

They are always listening. Not just to the words we say to them, but those we say in their presence to others. That is their real classroom. When we adults take that seriously, that's when our children begin to make us better people, the kind who think about the words they say and the tones we use with the people in our lives. They make us work to become the people we've always wanted to be if only because that's the sort of person we want them to be.

Children don't learn anything from obedience other than how to command and obey, a dubious education at best. They learn almost everything else they learn from us by listening (and watching, of course). Real learning requires processing, repetition, time, and experience to fully comprehend. It takes place on their schedule, not yours, which is why it can seem as if they are not listening. But they are, know it, and strive to be the person you want them to be. That's the real work of being a parent.

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The Work Of Creating A Community

We didn't have a huge set of big wooden blocks, which was okay because we didn't really have enough space for more and besides, if the kids are going to play with them, they generally needed to find a way to play with them together, which is what our school was all about.

The kids in our 4-5's class had been playing a lot of "super heroes." It was mostly boys, but they hadn't been particularly exclusionary, with several of the girls regularly joining them, often making up their own hero names like "Super Cat" due to the lack of female characters of the type in our popular culture. This in turn inspired some of the boys to make up their own hero names like "Super Dog" and "Falcon," along with their own super powers. And although there had been a few instances of someone declaring, "We already have enough super heroes," in an attempt to close the door behind them, most of the time, the prerequisite for joining the play was to simply declare yourself a super hero, pick a super hero name, and then hang around with them boasting about your great might, creating hideouts, and bickering over nuance.

At one point, however, a break-away group began playing, alternatively, Paw Patrol and Pokemon, which looked to me like essentially the same game with new characters. One day, some boys playing Paw Patrol used all of the big wooden blocks to create their "house," complete with beds and blankets. A girl who was often right in the middle of the super hero play wanted to join them, but when they asked, "Who are you?" she objected to being a Paw Patrol character at all. Indeed, she wanted to play with them and with the blocks they were using, but the rub was that she didn't want to play their game.

After some back and forth during which the Paw Patrol kids tried to find a way for her to be included, they offered her a few of their blocks to play with on her own, then went back to the game.

She arranged her blocks, then sat on them, glaring at the boys. They ignored her. I was sitting nearby watching as her face slowly dissolved from one of anger to tears. An adult tried to console her, but was more or less told to back off. I waited a few minutes, then sat on the floor beside her, saying, "You're crying."

She answered, "I need more blocks." I nodded. She added, "They have all the blocks."

I replied, "They are using most of the blocks and you have a few of the blocks."

"They won't give me any more blocks."

I asked, "Have you asked them for more blocks?"

Wiping at her tears she shook her head, "No."

"They probably don't know you want more blocks."

She called out, "Can I have some more blocks?"

The boys stopped playing briefly, one of them saying, "We're using them!" then another added, "You can have them when we're done," which was our classroom mantra around "sharing."

She went back to crying, looking at me as if to say, See?

I said, "They said you can use them when they're done . . . Earlier I heard them say you could play Paw Patrol with them."

"I don't want to play Paw Patrol. I just want to build."

I sat with her as the boys leapt and laughed and lurched. I pointed out that there was a small building set that wasn't being used in another part of the room, but she rejected that, saying, "I want to build with these blocks."

I nodded, saying, "I guess we'll just have to wait until they're done." That made her cry some more.

This is hard stuff we working on in preschool. And, for the most part, that's pretty much all we do: figure out how to get along with the other people. Most days aren't so hard, but there are moments in every day when things don't go the way we want or expect them to and then, on top of getting along with the other people, there are our own emotions with which we must deal. Academic types call it something like "social-emotional functioning," but I think of it as the work of creating a community.

It's a tragedy that policymakers are pushing more and more "academics" into the early years because it's getting in the way of this very real, very important work the children need to do if they are going to lead satisfying, successful lives. In our ignorant fearfulness about Johnny "falling behind" we are increasingly neglecting what the research tells us about early learning. From a CNN.com story about a study conducted by researchers from Penn State and Duke Universities:

Teachers evaluated the kids based on factors such as whether they listened to others, shared materials, resolved problems with their peers and were helpful. Each student was then given an overall score to rate their positive skills and behavior, with zero representing the lowest level and four for students who demonstrated the highest level of social skill and behavior . . . Researchers then analyzed what happened to the children in young adulthood, taking a look at whether they completed high school and college and held a full-time job, and whether they had any criminal justice, substance abuse or mental problems . . . For every one-point increase in a child's social competency score in kindergarten, they were twice as likely to obtain a college degree and 46% more likely to have a full-time job by age 25 . . . For every one-point decrease in a child's social skill score in kindergarten, he or she had a 67% higher chance of having been arrested in early adulthood, a 52% higher rate of binge drinking and an 82% higher chance of being in or on a waiting list for public housing.

Here is a link to the actual study. And this is far from the only research that has produced these and similar results, just the most recent one.

If our goal is well-adjusted, "successful" citizens, we know what we need to do. In the early years, it isn't about reading or math. It's not about learning to sit in desks or filling out work sheets or queuing up for this or that. If we are really committed to our children, we will recognize that their futures are not dependent upon any of that stuff, but rather this really hard, messy, emotional work we do every day as we play with our fellow citizens.

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The Courage To Admit We Were Wrong

It's a well known psychological fact that when someone is experiencing a strong "negative" emotion like anger, fear, or sadness, it is very difficult, sometimes even impossible, to actually think. I know it's true for me. As my loved ones will attest, when I'm in the throes I've been known to dig in my heels in the most irrational ways, usually requiring some form of apology or at least mea culpa in the aftermath. 

Every parent has been there with their child: upset and unable to listen to reason. We know that as loving parents our preferred response is to offer some version of "connect to redirect," to acknowledge their feeling, to let them know they are loved, to help them first un-flip their flipped lid. Only then can any amount of "reason" take place. And we all likewise know that it's not always easy. In our less mindful moments we've all reacted to our children's difficulties with difficulties of our own, by yelling, commanding, and generally behaving as an authoritarian, which may "work" in the sense that we've frightened or shamed them into compliance, but at the possible price of long term psychological harm if it becomes too frequent.

A recent Australian study took a look at parenting styles and what is called "psychological flexibility". Psychological flexibility is vital to good mental health and resilience, and is linked a whole host of positive psychological and behavioral outcomes. The researchers found that authoritarian parenting, the kind characterized by the my-way-or-the-highway approach, predicted low psychological flexibility in their children later in life. In other words, the kids learned it from their parents: inflexible parenting teaches inflexibility. Perhaps it's not a groundbreaking revelation, but it's worth thinking about, especially in the context of a child who is experiencing strong emotions and our own response. Children are always learning from us and each time we respond to their flipped lids with connection, we are role modeling psychological flexibility.

I'm not suggesting that our occasional moments of "authoritarianism" are damaging to our children, especially if we are, on balance the kind of calm, loving, respectful, and authoritative parents our children need. Indeed, what we teach them in our bad moments is that we are human too, that everyone flips their lids at times, that we can't always hold it together, and that it's normal. That's why the apology is so important, especially when accompanied by connection. It is never too late to connect. When we have the courage to admit that we were wrong, without first demanding an apology from our children, we show them the path home from the wilderness of anger, fear, and sadness.

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The Meaning Of Life

Every human society that has ever existed was built around the biological imperative to care for the children.

"Figuring out why being a parent is worthwhile isn't just a personal or biological question, but a social and political one, too. Caring for children has never, in all of human history, just been the role of the biological mothers and fathers. From the very beginning it's been a central project for any community of human beings. This is still true. Education, for example, is simply caring for children broadly conceived. ~Alison Gopnik

All "higher order" animals must care for their young, but none are born as helpless and for as long as human babies. From a purely evolutionary perspective the species won't survive if the children don't survive so we must care for them. The question for every society is "How?"

As a boy, I was raised during the Cold War, and was subject to a great deal of propaganda around the evils of Soviet Union style communism. One of the things we were told was that Russian mothers had their babies taken from them shortly after birth so that they could get back to work, and that those babies were institutionalized to be raised not by their parents but by "the state." I don't know if this was true or not, but when I look around and see how many American babies are today being primarily raised by paid caregivers in places that could certainly be characterized as institutions, I don't find it unimaginable.

Having been, in my way, a professional caregiver for a good part of my adult life, having known thousands of others, and having spent time in hundreds of these "institutions," I am not necessarily here to criticize how our society is answering the central "How?" other than to point out that if this is the way we're going to do it, we need more and less expensive options. Of course, I have my opinions and I have my ideas for reform, which is what underpins the 3000+ posts in this blog's decade long history. And you have your opinions and ideas. One of the strengths of the way we have chosen to answer "How?" is that "the state" has, for the most part, left that to be answered by individuals. One of the weaknesses of our answer to "How?" is that our economy is organized in such a way that it all too often leaves individuals, especially lower income individuals, with little choice.

I think it's safe to say that there are very few parents who are entirely happy with the way we are answering "How?" either societally or individually. Yes, I know some parents who are joyfully homeschooling, for instance, unconcerned about the economic or career consequences. I know other loving parents who are thrilled with their child's paid caregivers, institutional or otherwise, confident that their child is being sufficiently nurtured in their absence. And I imagine there are some who simply accept things the way they are, like, we were told, those Russian mothers, who were resigned to reality. But most of us are torn. Most of us know that there must be a better way to answer the question of "How?"

I don't think that there is any doubt that caring for children is the central project of humanity, yet when I look around it's clear that we, as a society, treat it as almost an afterthought. Our political parties do not seek to build society around this central project. Our economic entities do not. When people ask what we do, only the lowly paid caregivers speak of caring for the children. And while there are plenty of stay-at-home parents who proudly assert our role, we all know that the "good for you" lip-service that people give us in response is a slightly embarrassed admission of our low status.

I wonder what would happen if we could somehow find the courage to step back and acknowledge that caring for children is the central project of every community. We complain that we're disconnected. Mental illness is at near-plague levels. We crave something more meaningful, deeper, better, and we know we won't find it in more stuff, inebriation, or working harder, even as we continue to search for it there. We're showing the symptoms of a society that has forgotten why we are here: we are here to care for children. The rest is in support of that.

And at the core of caring for children is love. We are reminded of this each time a child cries when they are left:

"But it isn't absence that causes sorrow. It is affection and love. Without affection, without love, such absences would cause us no pain. For this reason, even the pain caused by absence is, in the end, something good and even beautiful, because it feeds on that which gives meaning to life." ~Carlo Rovelli

Caring for children is the central project of humankind. And at the center of that is love, which is the meaning of life.

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"We Protect People"

There were always kids in Woodland Park's 4-5's classes who spent large portions of their days together playing "super heroes." They might call it something different, like good guys, bad guys, Star Wars, or Ninjas, but the essentials of the game remained the same: they formed a team, negotiated their roles, discussed in detail just how powerful they were, then race about talking tough, making fierce faces, and striking assertive poses.

And just as predictably, there were always some children who came to fear the super heroes.

It's tempting for adults to simply impose restrictions on the super hero play in defense of the children who are afraid, but I think that misses an opportunity for the children to learn about what it means to be members of a community. And it begins with the all-hands-on-deck class meetings that we call circle time.

One year, several children had expressed their fears, both directly to me and through their parents, so when the children assembled for circle time, I wanted to steer the conversation that way. We started off talking about our classroom rules, the agreements the children have made with one another. I was prepared to broach the subject of super heroes myself, but was hoping that it would emerge from the kids. I knew that one girl, H, via her mother, had been attempting to summon up the courage to suggest an outright ban on the super hero play, and this was the day.

I said, "H has something to say," and she replied, "No super hero play."

There was a moment of dead silence as her words sank in. Then the super heroes, their expressions full of shock and outrage, raised a chorus of, "Nooooo," which was followed by a more scattered chorus of, "Yesssss." It was obvious that we were not going to reach consensus on this rule, but that wasn't the point: the point was to have the discussion. Once we'd settled down we took turns making our cases, starting with those who were feeling afraid. Several classmates joined H. As they spoke up I watched the superheroes who were paying attention the way one does when the topic is of utmost importance. As they listened to their classmates say that the super heroes frightened them, their expressions turned from outrage to what I can only describe as dismay.

When it was the super heroes' turn to talk, one of them said, emotion rising in his throat, "But we're good guys." Another said, "We protect people." They were simply astonished that they had been so misunderstood. They were genuinely shocked that anyone to be afraid of them.

The discussion that followed was long and rambling. We knew we couldn't all agree to H's suggested rule, but we talked about things we could do like being more aware of one another's feelings, being more direct with one another about how we were feeling, and figuring out better ways to share the space and resources. We learned in that discussion that most of the children were neutral about the super heroes, sometimes joining them, but not every day. They had concrete suggestions, but perhaps their most important contribution was to let their friends know that they weren't afraid, which I think helped some of the more fearful children see that there was an alternative to either-or. I didn't check the clock, but it was a long, productive discussion in which the kids learned something about one another: about who we were as a community.

This wouldn't be the last time we needed to talk about this, but it was a good starting point and the parents of the anti-super heroes reported that their children came away feeling much better, empowered even. As for the super heroes, they had been sincere in their desire to not frighten their classmates going forward, even if they sometimes forgot as they immerse themselves in their dramatic play. And we adults now had a concrete reference point for supporting the children as they worked this through.

A few days after our classroom discussion, one of super heroes was running full speed near the swings. A boy standing nearby flinched as he passed, which caught our caped crusader's eye. He slowed briefly and said, "I'm sorry I scared you," and his friend replied, "That's okay. I was only scared for a second." Like I said, we're going to be working on this for the rest of the school year, but man that was awesome.

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"Too Emotional"

There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom. ~Friedrich Nietzsche  

The stereotypical argument used to exclude women from business, science, politics, the military, or indeed just about any category of public life is that they are "too emotional." Emotions, the theory goes, renders them incapable of making rational decisions. Most of us, of course, instinctively recognize this as a baseless patriarchal assertion, one that is disproven every day as we find women succeeding in every area of society.

Chihuly glass

As a preschool teacher, I've learned that emotions have no gender. Every child cries. Every child has tantrums. Every child experiences fear, frustration, envy, joy, disappointment, and melancholy, and gender has nothing to do with how and how often. As children grow older, however, society tends to be more accepting of girls' expressions of the full range of emotions, while boys quickly learn to hide their "negative" feelings behind stoicism and anger, the only public emotion "allowed" to them. A boy who cries or is afraid is often mocked. A boy who smiles too much is often considered flighty or unserious. This doesn't mean, however, that boys and men don't feel the same emotions as girls and women, only that we are not as free to express them.

We are all emotional, but that begs the question: is it possible to be too emotional? I suppose the answer is yes, to the degree that our emotions become incapacitating or destructive. We all have those moments when we flip our lids, curl up in a ball of anxiety, or trudge through days as if under a dark cloud. When it becomes chronic we call it mental illness. So yes, I suppose it is possible to be too emotional, but it is equally possible, and perhaps even common, to not be emotional enough. It's only through our emotions, not our intellects, that we fully connect with one another, understand, empathize, and communicate. Without emotion, we are but automatons, doomed to stand outside of humanity either as outcast or villain. We all have our times when we become emotionally exhausted, when we detach for a time. When our emotional detachment becomes chronic we call it sociopathy.

It's tempting to conclude that it's all about finding a balance, but there's no fulcrum here upon which to rest an easy center. Our emotions are too important for that. They are to be felt fully and honestly, not balanced out with cool rationalism. Indeed, rationality cannot exist without emotion.

For much of the 20th century scientists were convinced that emotions played no role, and were perhaps even an impediment to rational thought, which provided much of the "scientific" underpinning for denying women (and children for that matter) rights and opportunities. But more recent research has found that emotions play a critical role in our ability to make decisions. Rather than clouding our judgement, the neural systems that underlie emotions are essential to high-level cognition, in other words decision-making. One of the pioneers in this research is an American-Portuguese neuroscientist named Antonio Damasio. Much of his work has been done on patients whose brains have been injured and who, as a result, are missing the connection between their sensory input and emotions. The rapid beating of their heart at the prospect of crossing a narrow bridge, for instance, doesn't provoke fear. Based on traditional views, one would conclude that this fearless person would be more clear-headed and, therefore, be more inclined to making rational decisions. But Damasio has found the opposite to be true: his emotionless patients proved incapable of making reasonable decisions. This is a conclusion that has now been replicated numerous times by other scientists.

In other words, we need our emotions in order to make sound judgements and our greater doubt should be saved on those who do not credit their emotions because they are more likely, according to science, to be the irrational ones. But like much of what scientists are "learning" about humans, this is actually ancient knowledge, long understood by artists and mystics alike. As Lao Tzu wrote in the 6th century BC, "Let your feelings flourish and get on with you life of doing." That is, and always will be, the path of wisdom.

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Teaching The Children A New Game

Among the first games we play with our babies is some version of give-and-take. We show an object to them and they take it from us wth their little fingers. As they get a little older, they often enjoy a more advanced version of the game in which they hand the item back to us, then take it again, then give, then take, delighting in the pattern, the cooperation, the interaction. Over time, we stop recognizing it as a game, it's just part of how we interact as we play with our kids. If they snatch a block from our hand as we're building them a tower together, we hardly notice it. If they commandeer the book we are reading to them to turn their own pages, we find it cute. If we're rocking a doll in our arms and our child wants to imitate us, no words are spoken as they take that doll as their own.

This is all as it should be at home, but as any parent with older children will attest, it's not a game that goes over well with other kids. As adults we don't attach any particular value to playthings, indeed we tend to think of them as rightfully belonging to the children, but other kids, be they older siblings or preschool classmates, tend to be far from sanguine about having valued things snatched from their grasp. At any given moment at this time in the school year, there is likely to be a child who is upset about it and a child who is equally confused about the fuss. After all, this is how they've learned the world of play works: I want something, I take it.

As a preschool teacher, I do not allow children to snatch things from my hands. Whenever I see a tiny fist reaching for the object I'm holding I tighten my grip and say, "I'm using this." I then follow that up with something like, "If you want it, you can ask me for it," or "You can play with it when I'm done." If the child is very young, I then relinquish it almost instantly. With older children, I might play with it for a few seconds, or even minutes, before saying, "I'm done with it. Now it's your turn." My objective is to simply role model a pattern of interaction that I hope becomes, so to speak, a new "game" for the children to play.

The other day, we were playing with our Fisher-Price toys, a significant collection amassed over the decades as families have donated their old toys to the school. The big plastic tub contains dozens, if not hundreds of those squat figurines representing both people and animals. A group of children were struggling with snatching and emotions were on edge, so I sat beside the tub, picked out a polar bear, saying as I held it up, "I found a polar bear." As I expected, one of the children immediately reached out to make a grab. I pulled it back, "Hey, I'm using this!" She looked stunned. I then said, "If you want it, you can ask me." She said, "Please?" and I handed it to her, saying, "Sure, I'm done with it now."

I then proceeded to remove other animals from the tub, "I have a tiger," "I have a parrot," "I have a bear," and so on. Children gathered around. At first many hands grabbed for the toys and I went through the process again and again. Soon, as you would expect, the children began to catch on, many of them clearly delighted with the game we were playing. Occasionally, I would answer them with, "In a minute, I'm still using it," or "I'll give it to you when I'm finished," an addition that the children accepted with apparent patience. Before long they were playing it with one another, practicing both sides of the equation.

I'm under no illusion that we will be a snatch-free classroom going forward. Old habits die hard, but we have plenty of time -- weeks, months, years -- plenty of time to learn new ones.

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Getting Home Safely

While visiting Athens, Greece some time ago, I decided to challenge myself to find the house our family lived in when I was a boy of 10-13 years old. It involved taking a train from downtown to the neighborhood of Kifissia, cutting across a large park, passing through the village, then winding my way around a maze of suburban streets. Arriving there from memory without a hitch, I set myself the additional challenge of locating the old American Club where I'd spent a lot of my childhood leisure time. This required a bit more trial and error, but I found that as well. Feeling good about myself, I elected to return to the train station via an alternative route and proceeded to get hopelessly lost.

There was no phone reception, so resorting to GPS was out of the question. I came across precious few fellow pedestrians out during the heat of the day, and I couldn't make myself understood to the ones I did solicit. I was too shy to knock on doors to ask directions. Of course, at one level I knew that I would find my way home. I would eventually find a place of business or wander out of the telephone dead zone, but there was a primal edge of panic there nevertheless, one that didn't go away until I found myself back in familiar territory.

It's unsettling to not know how to get home. As author and poet Diane Ackerman wrote in her book A Natural History of the Senses, "(R)oaming is one of the things humans love to do best -- but only if they can count on getting home safely." I think this is particularly true for young children and explains the undying popularity of such classic tales as Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, the story of a boy who roams, has strange adventures, then returns to the security of home. It is knowing that we can get home that allows us to be bold, which is where much of the magic in life is found.

I'm thinking about this here at the beginning of the school year as preschoolers everywhere suffer from separation anxiety. Even as we assure them that mommy will come back, that we will take care of them, that they will return to their homes, they still don't quite believe it. They are in an unfamiliar place without phone reception. Our assurances might appeal to their rational minds, but until they are convinced that they will get home safely, their journey will be one fraught with anxiety. This is an ancient human fear, one that can only be assuaged through practice, through learning the "map" of how to get home.

It takes time for children gain this knowledge, longer for some than others. They create their "map" home through practice, familiarity, and routine. It's obviously vital that they know we adults can be trusted, that we love them, but that is only the beginning. We can provide comfort and predictability, but the difficult, frightening work of finding the way home is theirs to do.

This is important work. The knowledge that we know the way home, safely, is ultimately what allows us to feel powerful, confident, and bold in the world.

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The Emotion Called "The First Days Of School"

First days of a new school year can be exciting, but also intimidating. This goes for children, parents, and teachers. It's about stepping into the unknown and it has an effect on us all, even if you, like me, have been doing it for decades.

I've always started the year with easel painting, a kind of personal tradition, one, I suppose, that brings me a bit of comfort and control. Before applying paint to paper, one four-year-old, a veteran of our school, combined red and blue to mix up a proprietary hue, then took a brush in each first and began to paint energetically, swirling her paint into a massive storm of purple. She painted like this for a good twenty minutes. Adults commented on her work, but she barely looked up. Other children suggested adding other colors, offering yellow, red, and blue as suggestions, but she didn't take them up on it. A few people asked her, "What is it?" but she didn't answer.

Last year, I'd not thought of her as a child with particularly strong focus, but here she was, only three months later, pouring every ounce of herself into a self-selected project, indistractable. I stood beside her, for a time, more in admiration than anything else. Occasionally, I thought I saw her entire body quiver, betraying some strong emotion. At one point she began to paint with her hands near her mouth, as if speaking the paint onto the paper. And then I understood: she was painting the emotion that can only be called "the first days of school," a purple storm made with intensity.

As I watched, she spoke, not looking at me, but at the paper that was beginning to wrinkle under the force and wetness, "I can make anything I want." She said it again, "I can make anything I want." She was speaking to herself, to her painting, to me, and to the school. "I can make anything I want." She painted for several more minutes, stopped, decided to add a few dots of orange and green, then declared to the room, "I'm finished. It's time to get it dry."

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Helping Children

He had learned to climb to the top of the concrete slide earlier that day. Unable to ascend the face of it directly because it was too steep and slippery with sand, he had discovered a shorter span of concrete off to the side that he could manage, albeit with much effort. After proving himself a handful of times, he had the idea of taking a truck to the top of the concrete slide with him. He had needed both hands and both feet to make the ascent on his previous attempts and the challenge of occupying one of his hands with the truck was a trick one step removed from his capabilities.

I was forming this opinion from a position of about three feet away, perched amongst the lilac roots that stand at the top of the concrete slide. I could have helped him. Indeed, I considered it, either bodily or with unsolicited advice, but fought back the urge. He was repeatedly climbing a few inches, putting every ounce of himself into the effort, only to slide back down, truck and all. Eventually, he gave up, never once even looking in my direction.

It's hard to not help children when they are struggling, either physically, as with this boy, or emotionally. We are, as adults, inclined by both nature and nurture to help the children in our lives, but at the same time, we want them to experience the satisfaction that comes with doing things for themselves. We want them to grow into self-sufficient, independent, confident people, something that only comes through practice and struggle.

I think it's easier to find the line when it comes to physical challenges, like the one this boy set for himself. Even if he had asked for help, I'd have likely said something like, "I won't help you, but I won't let you get hurt," or perhaps remarked on his efforts so far, "You're working very hard right now." Maybe, depending on the circumstances, I might have offered a tip, like, "I'll bet you can do it if you don't take the truck," or pointed out that some kids have found an easier route that involves going the long way around. One thing I avoid, both as a teacher and in life, is to offer unsolicited help or advice.

The line is blurrier when a child his struggling emotionally. The instinct of many people, I've noticed, is to simply swoop in and pick them up, which is, I think quite often a version of offering unsolicited help. I always ask a child if they want me to hold them or take them on my lap, and I've found that I'm rejected more often than not, so I simply tell them "I'll stay close to you while you're sad/angry/frustrated." Adults likewise indulge in the urge to begin suggesting things that we think might "help," like eating a snack or getting involved with some activity or going to a quieter place, all of which might be valid ideas, but also fall into the category of unsolicited advice. It's easy to forget that it's not our job to end their struggle: it's our job to be available to help them through it, and ultimately only the person experiencing the emotion can determine what kind of help, if any, they need. That's the path to self-sufficiency.

Finding these lines is one of the most important things we do we do as adults in the lives of children. We do it most accurately when we allow the children themselves to show us where those lines are. And for any parents reading here, the line will be in a different place with you than with, say, their teacher. I can't tell you how many children need mommy with them as they go to the toilet, for instance, but don't need any adult help at all when mommy isn't there.

John Holt wrote, "We cannot assume, just because we hear someone say, "I am doing this to help you," that what he does will be good." And what good help means can only be determined by the person being helped.

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