Can’t Teach Your Children?

            I recently had a conversation with a man I’ve known for most of my life in which he said that you can’t teach your children anything. To prove his point, he told a story about his daughter and teaching her to play piano.

            He’d hired a piano teacher for her and told the teacher that he not only wanted her to teach his daughter how to play, but he wanted the teacher to show his daughter how musical chords are built. Well, the teacher taught his daughter how to play, but when it became clear that she wouldn’t teach how musical chords are built, he fired her.

            He told the next piano teacher the same thing. He not only wanted her to teach his daughter how to play piano, but he wanted her to teach her how chords are built. She too, failed at the task.  About the time he was going to fire her, she came to him and said that she was moving. He was so grateful, that he let her stay on till she left.

            One day while he was at work, he came up with a way to show his daughter how to build the music chords, so he wrote it down and took it home. That night, he walks in and sees his daughter at the dining room table. He put the piece of paper down next to her, she looked up and said, “Dad! I’m doing my math homework.”

            He then goes into the other room, puts on headphones, and tunes up his guitar. When he’s finished tuning his guitar, he takes off the headphones and starts playing so that his daughter will hear him. After a few minutes she comes out and he’s able to get his point across about how musical chords are built.

            He ended his story by reiterating that you can’t teach your children anything.

            If I’d been thinking well at the time, I could have asked him who potty trained his daughter or taught her manners.

            I also could have proved him wrong on the spot, but I know he wouldn’t have listened to me and it would have caused unnecessary drama for me to do so.

            Here’s what he did wrong. Instead of respecting what his daughter was doing, homework, he insisted she pay attention to what he wanted to teach her. Had he respected what she was doing in the moment, she probably would have come to him on her own when she was done with her math homework and discussed the music chords he’d put in front of her.

            What he taught her in addition to the music chords, was that what she was doing was not as important as what he wanted to teach her right that minute. I find this ironic given that in the discussions we’ve had about education over the years, he’s made it clear that education is a high priority where he’s concerned. He even tried to convince his son to go for a Master’s degree after this young man had earned an A.A. while attending high school and getting straight “A’s” then going on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in his chosen field.

            So, because he had to “grab” his daughter’s attention and he couldn’t convince his son to get a Master’s degree, he thinks you can’t teach your children anything. He’s wrong. The moment we become a parent, we become our child’s first teacher.

            Think not? Think about this. Who teaches your child to walk? To talk? To go potty? Unless you can afford to hire a nanny or nurse, you do.

            There’s also the fact that we teach our children about how to live, even if only by example. For instance, when we hold our children and comfort them, we’re teaching them how to love and that we love them. I also read recently that babies who are comforted and held when they cry will better learn how to deal with their emotions than those who are allowed to “cry it out.” So, in essence, from the time they’re babies, how we take care of them teaches them how to handle things or not.

            Our children learn how to do so many things simply by watching what we do. I remember learning how to hold my silverware by observing how my parents held theirs.

            I know my son learned how to weed a garden by working side by side with me.

            More importantly, though, we teach our children about what to expect in life and relationships by how we behave.

            Think about this for a moment. If our children see parents who love each other and them, they’ll seek those kinds of relationships for themselves as they get older.

            If they see their parent’s abusing each other, chances are good they’ll be abusers or become victims of abusers in their own relationships.

            We also teach them basic life skills. Things like respecting other people. Good manners, such as “don’t talk with your mouth full” or “don’t cut in front of others.”

            Hopefully we teach them compassion by showing compassion for others. By this, I mean how do we treat those less fortunate than ourselves? Do we look down on them? Or do we offer them a kind word or a smile?

            We can’t ever forget that as parents, our children are watching everything we do and learning from us. We are their first example of how to conduct themselves in this world.