Discovery of existance of rudimenary planning skills.
This is a sign. Yes, a sign that there might be some hope for my child at college next year.
You see, this is a diagram of what he wanted his poster for a project to look like, and it actually contains signs of pre-planning the placement of the photos and text. As it was done BEFORE he pasted on any of the illustrations, and while a rudimentary attempt, it is enough to give me hope.
I didn’t bother to whine about not using regular white paper that I have reams of in my office versus pieces of stationery with matching envelopes that I put in a special place that are hard to get at for his planning diagram. No. I was happy to see that there is a thought process that involves thinking aheard.
Parents know that usually the thinking/planning ahead process takes place 2-3 minutes before any event, and it is a slow process to prod and poke the subject (child) to get them to move the timeframe back to where it may actually be of any use to the responsible individual (parent). When you reach the point when the parent gets an hour notice ahead of time, it is a cause for some fragile hope. When you get to a 24-hour notification, you plan a party. And you might even spend money on the party because you know in the long run, any sign of planning by your child will save you tons of time, frustration and in a lot of cases, real cash money. Case in point.
If there was no pre-planning of this English project poster, the photos and text would have been placed, complete with glue, willy nilly. The subject would have then looked at it and realized that it looked like crap and that it was obvious that it was slapped together. They would even have extra photos, probably littered across your floor, with no place on the poster to go. And frustratingly, there would be big open places on the poster that said illustrations could have gone if there was about 1 inch more room. Then would come the plea for help. It could be in a variety of forms. There is the request for information on how to dissolve glue from in front of a photo/illustration, which means involving witchcraft, (not good to practice in front of children); the request to help peel said graphics off with them and not rip them (not usually successful and may expose child to cursing); and the eventual request to go buy more posterboard. Some wiser parents of school-aged children keep a supply of tag board in the back of a closet somewhere. We do not share its location or it would be cause for the younsters to plan on having that as backup (yes, they can plan to be lazy and wasteful just fine), which inhibits any development of the planning process.
The final project came out just fine. He liked it so much that after his presentation on Friday, he hung it in his room. Hmmm. Pride in his work too? Wow. What a weekend.
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“It is important that you recognize your progress and take pride in your accomplishments. Share your achievements with others. Brag a little. The recognition and support of those around you is nurturing.” ~Rosemaire Rosetti
3 responses so far ↓
1 grannyann // Jun 8, 2009 at 10:43 am
Now you gave that some deep thought on a piece of stationary. Not sure I would have gotten all that out of a similar design unless my child had asked what I thought. Good for you.
2 Jennifer @ It's A Beauty Filled Life // Jun 8, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Ahahahhaaa! ROTFLMBO! Hope is alive!
3 Children's Bedroom Furniture // Jul 2, 2009 at 9:59 am
It looks like there is hope. They can be pretty hard headed at times. Ours is starting his second year of college in August.
There’s definitely a world of improvement in his planning and thought processes regarding how he approaches tasks and gets them done.
It looks like your son will do just fine!