by Tara Pringle Jefferson
If I say so myself, I’ve got two pretty smart kids.
My daughter just went for her kindergarten assessment and at barely 4.5 years old, scored better than some of the five-year-olds (who are about to be six). The headmaster of the school called and said that many 4-year-olds are not ready to handle kindergarten but my daughter had an excellent skill set. We should send her.
My son (almost 3) is very talkative, knows his shapes, colors, letters, numbers, how to spell his first and last name, all that jazz. He’s very good with puzzles. He follows his sister’s lead in everything and if I had to make a guess, I’d say he’s more advanced than she was at that age.
But when I read articles like this, about a 5-year-old prodigy, I begin to feel a little inadequate. I read to my kids every night. We’re always talking about what we’re doing, going in-depth about why things are the way they are. I ask my daughter to spell the colors she sees, and we sound out words together. She’s well on her way to being a strong reader. We cook together, and I use that as an opportunity to teach them about addition and subtraction (“If I use three eggs, and four are left in the carton, how many did we start with?”). I take them places, regularly spending time at the library, the zoo, the bookstore, the children’s museum, the park.
But still. Doesn’t seem like that’s enough. Especially since they’re home with me now.
As a work-at-home mom I feel a lot of anxiety about the fact that I am working a good chunk of the day. I worry that I am not enough, that I am not feeding them the knowledge they need to be successful in school and beyond.
They’ve been in dance classes to help them channel some of that creativity they display every single day, and I’m looking for some art classes now. I’ve created new flash cards and posting “affirmation words” on their walls to help them feel smart, powerful and capable.
My biggest fear is that my kids grow up and be average. Just kind of floating through life, no direction or motivation. No internal force that drives them to be great. I hope they know that I expect greatness from them. I really do. Since they were young, I would pull them close and whisper in their little ears, “I see big things in your future, little one.” Ask my daughter wants to be when she grows up and she’ll tell you she wants to be a judge. I tell her she could be on the Supreme Court and she nods. “Yeah, that’s cool, too.”
Right now, I’m building a base for the rest of their lives. I’m trying to be even more purposeful about my parenting ““ being fully present when I’m in the same room as they are, being patient as we’re learning something new, planning more excursions that fit on my still-growing freelancing salary.
I do not want to let my children down. I do not want to look back and think of all the things I could do for them but didn’t. I don’t want my laziness (yeah, let’s call it that) to negatively impact their future.
Sometimes I feel like I’m putting undue pressure on myself. After all, like I said in the beginning, my kids are pretty smart. I don’t want to succumb to the pressure to make sure my kids are speaking 23 languages by the time they can wipe their own butts good. I don’ t necessarily want to be a so-called “tiger mom,” threatening to throw away all my daughter’s toys if she doesn’t master a complicated piano piece within a matter of days.
But I do want to push my kids. And I do want them to get all the opportunities they can. I want them to be confident in their abilities, love learning for the sake of learning, and be able to chart their own course as they grow up.
Is what I’m doing now enough? I don’t know. I have some thinking to do.
BMWK, how soon before you enrolled them in formal lessons of some sort – art, dance, music, sports?
Tara Pringle Jefferson is managing editor of BlackAndMarriedWithKids.com. She’s also the author of Make It Happen: The Young Mommy Guide To Creating The Career You Crave. Follow her on Twitter or check out her blog for her insights on what it means to be a mom, wife, student, writer, and about three other labels she’s too tired to remember.