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September 28, 2009
“We Can Go Where We Want To”
Third generation, baby.
It’s a bit of a coincidence that I have been increasing the amount of work I’m doing with tweens at the library at the exact moment Lucas seems to have turned to tweendom. Friday, he got the happy news that he made the Safety Patrol. My earliest memories of his mother, Tammy, are from one of my fifth grade Safety Patrol assignments, when I had to stand at the top of the stairs and make sure no one ran up them. I didn’t really care if someone ran up the stairs, then or now, but I remember what a sense of pride it gave me to be on Safety Patrol, and how much I enjoyed my other assignments—working the school bookstore (Why was that a Safety Patrol duty in our school? I have no idea.) and helping the Kindergarteners at dismissal.
Lucas’s pride was much in evidence this morning, as well it should be. He seems to be happy to contribute to the school in some way. Along the same lines, he’s been spending his lunches in his classroom so he can help clean out the class pets’ cages. I went to open house this past week, and I can personally attest that those animals’ cages are cleaner than Lucas’s room.
The whole thing has me thinking even more about a couple articles I’ve read recently about giving older kids freedom and something real to do. One is “Why Can’t She Walk to School” in the NYT a couple weeks ago (which, thanks for the idea, but no way). The second, more compelling one, is Rebecca Stead’s “Tweens—Who Are They?” (Thanks to Fuse #8 for pointing the article out.)
This freedom thing is a balance. Different kids have different abilities and needs, and it’s really a lot easier to say that tweens as a group need more freedom than to even contemplate the idea of letting your godson walk to school by himself. I think I’m going to come down more strongly on the side of giving the kids something useful to do. Lately, I’ve been teaching Lucas how to use the blender to make smoothies and a butter knife to cut up his own pancakes. You have to start somewhere.
Posted by adrienne at September 28, 2009 09:20 PM
Comments
We let Hannah use a steak knife just before she went to college...I figured that was a good time to start.
Posted by: Pat at September 28, 2009 10:13 PM
Thanks for posting the links. The one about children walking to school touches on the brooding I do. My daughter's six and we currently drive her to and from school (two miles away). I wonder when she'll be ready to take the two busses to school, if we'll even be living in the same house by then, and where we're all going in general. Our neighborhood is not the safest one in Seattle, and has been struggling with gang violence for years. On the one hand, we're vigilant. On the other, that vigilance is exhausting, and ultimately not healthy for anyone.
Posted by: Saints and Spinners at September 28, 2009 11:24 PM
Oh, that's so cool. We didn't have anything like a safety patrol at our suburban school -- maybe we should have. We had jobs, instead, and got badges for that. (But that vest is maybe a little cooler than my badge.) It meant a lot to be part of the mechanism that made the school go. Those are the kinds of things that make a kid proud of what they can do, and what they can offer, and encourages them to want to take those pre-adult steps.
Does Lucas iron yet?
For some reason my Dad thought my brother should learn at 9. It was... exciting, to say the least.
Posted by: tanita at September 29, 2009 03:44 AM
Pat, That makes me feel better. Honestly, it wasn't until about a month ago that I even questioned the idea of cutting up his pancakes for him. When I introduced the idea of cutting them up himself, he wasn't thrilled (about using the knife, that is--he's perfectly happy tearing them up with his fingers), but I told him that if he didn't learn, he was going to be sorry someday when he was eating a meal at someone else's house. He's been working at it ever since. This morning, he did quite well.
Farida, I think busses are almost scarier than walking.
Tanita, Lucas doesn't wear anything that needs ironing, and BOY I do not like thinking of him with an iron. Nonetheless, it's a skill men should learn at some point. Maybe more like when they start shaving, though.
Posted by: adrienne at September 29, 2009 10:07 AM
Safety Patrol is like giving the best acting inmates some duties in prison. It's a reward for being complaisant about your imprisonment.
Posted by: chuck at September 29, 2009 04:42 PM
They've already threatened to kick him off if he doesn't do his homework, which, well, is kind of working out.
Posted by: adrienne at September 29, 2009 07:40 PM
I do try to show him how to eat like a civilized human but somehow it works better coming from you. Max attempts to use the flatware...
It's weird to think that he is the third generation safety patrol, my mother was on the safety patrol, who knew they had it that long ago, apparently there have been whiny over-achievers like us for a while.
Posted by: tonderdo at September 29, 2009 07:41 PM
Well, Lucas does have an excellent vocabulary. He can't be good at everything.
Posted by: adrienne at September 29, 2009 08:50 PM
I'm jealous - they didn't have safety patrol at any of my schools. Maybe the Catholics didn't need it? ;)
Go, Lucas! :)
Posted by: olivia at October 2, 2009 07:47 AM
I imagine you needed some patrolling, trouble-maker. ;)
Posted by: adrienne at October 2, 2009 10:56 AM
Too true...Sabrina says that's why she's here now. She keeps an eye on me. ;)
You should have seen me back then - running in the halls, shoving my classmates, stealing lunches....it was so much fun!
Posted by: olivia at October 2, 2009 10:15 PM
GO LUCAS!
Posted by: Little Willow at October 4, 2009 03:10 PM