On Driving Nails and Hitting The Mark with Attitudes

On Driving Nails and Hitting The Mark with Attitudes

Future Reflections March/ April 1983, Vol. 2 No. 2
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ON DRIVING NAILS AND HITTING
THE MARK WITH "ATTITUDES"
By John Cheadle
Our expectations of our children have a lot to do
with the way they, and we, grow up. Generally we
expect our child to be superb in all endeavors.
While they are still infants we are confident that
they'll learn to walk sooner than most babies, to
talk sooner and to master their numbers sooner.
We envision them as King or Queen of their High
School Homecoming. They're bound to be the star
quarterback or make the Dean's list in college.
And of course, they will make profound contributions
to their vocational field. We also expect
(sprite naturally^ that our grandchildren will outshine
our children. This provides us the opportmir
ty to correct out eariier imstadiies, Yfros raaranag
that our children's failure to meet our expectations
will not be repeated with our grandchildren.
Fortunately, we're allowed some glimpses at our
vanity as we raise our children. We come to
realize through passing experiences that most of
our expectations will not be met. Even so we still
enjoy those fantasies. As we gain experience and
come to know our children better we modify our
expectations of them. It is a process of adjustment
that ebbs and flows between us and our children
as our experiences together proceed. So long as
these "adjustments" are within what we consider
to be "normal" standards our reactions will probably
also be within normal standards; the process
will stay in balance and we'll still be pleased as
punch with our progeny. Somewhere along the
line we'll realize that our child probably will not become President of the United States--maybe a
senator, though. When we realize that our child is
not going to meet an expectation of ours we have
usually already adjusted to it! That is, since no
single factor makes up the entirety of success, we
adjust over a relatively ling period of discovery.
This process also works conversely -- and this is
perhaps the most exciting and rewarding aspect
of being a parent. As we discover skills, abilities,
and interests our children possess, we begin to
define and establish expectations based on these
discoveries. When these two processes combine,
our vanity (ever so slight though it is) loses ground
to reality--our pride, however, need not waver. I
have said all of this to provide a foundation by
which we can explore our expectations of our
blind children. The process of discovery and
growth is no different for us or for them.
We err grieviously when we do not allow the process
of discovery to occur because we impose
limitations on our child. We are all guilty alfflH score vxteisV, -w&h a& v>i \>\a «.Y&dr«a. Hv^^fl
because of the erroneous beliefs we've li^| regarding blindness, we often short dfl ourselves and our blind children. We muifl ever-vigilant against allowing false beliaifl modify our expectations.
I have always been quite handy around the
home --at east in terms of my ability to build and
repair things. A couple of years ago I was beginning
to teach John Earl, our oldest son who is
sighted, how to pound nails. Our son, Chaz, who is
ten months younger and has very little vision, also
wanted to learn. I set up some pine boards, gave
each of them a handful of nails and a hammer and
showed them how to start and drive the nail. Then
I went back to what I was working on and left
them to practice. I found myself checking frequently
on Chaz, and far less often on John Earl.
Why? Because I believed his vision would not
allow him to learn as efficiently! To further compound
things, I looked for problems based on this
erroneous assumption. Shortly after the boys got
started I checked on Chaz. He was just starting to
pound another nail. His head was down close to
the work so that his eye was about two inches
from the nail. He was gripping the hammer handle
just behind the head of the hammer, and not having
much success at getting the nail to go into the
wood. My immediate analysis was that he was
having problems because of his vision. I went over
to him and spent a good deal of time "resolving"
the problem by showing him how to hold the hammer
at the end of the handle, how to locate the
head of the nail by touch, how to tap the nail to get
it started, and, finally, how to drive the nail. I felt
quite proud of myself for being patient with him
and not allowing his blindness to prevent him from
learning to pound nails.
A few minutes later I checked on him again. There
he was, just like the last time, his eye close to the
nail, his grip just behind the hammer's head, and
not having much success. I reminded him of the instructional
benefit he had just received and suggested
that he take advantage of it. Then I checked
on John Earl's progress. There he was, head
close to the nail, gripping the hammer handle just behind the head and not having much success. I
felt some foolish for having dealt with Chaz the
way I had, though I wasn't quite sure what the
real problem was. I went to John Earl and worked
with him for awhile. Both boys made some progress
that day, but I believe that dad made the
most as a result of the experience.
I spent a considerable amount of time reviewing
that experience over the next few days. The experience
humbled me some and, therefore, gave
me the opportunity to learn a great deal about
myself and my children. Like most people, I had
believed that loss of vision would make even the
simplest of tasks more difficult. Therefore, I
zeroed in on that factor as soon as I discovered
that Chaz wasn't pounding nails with the proficiency
of a journeyman carpenter. The fact was
that pounding nails required a combination of
skills -- skills that for the most part he hadn't had
the opportunity to learn. Accuracy at a distance,
leverage, force, alignment and the ability to integrate
all of these were required. But, in my own
prideful way I had overlooked these and believed
lack of vision was responsible. The biggest error,
however, was what I inadvertently taught Chaz
about blindness. The approach that I took taught
him that the problems he was having were due to
his vision and, therefore prevented his attention
to the development of the real skills involved.
Expectations go far beyond particular learning
events. We, as fathers, want our children to excell
in certain areas. Usually these are areas in which
we have a high interest; mechanics, academic
achievement, music, hunting or fishing and sports
are but a few examples. Here, too, we must be
vigilant so that neither our misconceptions nor
our pride endanger our child's full development.
As I said earlier, I take pride in my abilities as a
handyman and I would like my children to excell in
this area. Earlier on in raising our boys I came to
realize that they might not meet my expectations.
I wanted to be able to teach them all I could, to
have them become reflections of me. Both of the
boys have offered me fine opportunities to teach
them what I can, but disappoitment has also surfaced
because of their disinterest in certain activities.
It became evident quite early that John
Earl wasn't going to take an interest in home
repair. He would spend some time with me in the
workshop or when I was working on the car, but
very shortly after we'd get started on a project,
something else would attract his interest and
before I knew it he was gone. Chaz, on the other
hand, was always there -- whether invited or not.
He was curious about the repair projects, the tools
being used, and the reasons I was doing what I
was doing. His curiosity and interest often got in
my way. His "assistance" sometimes required that
I spend extra time to complete the task, but it was
time from which we mutually benefited. Gardening
was the other way around. Chaz could see no
purpose whatsoever in doing anything in the dirt
except getting dirty. John Earl, however, wanted
to know everything. Here, too, tasks often required
extra time -- on more than one occasion the
little gardner would prepare the soil after I had
planted the seeds.
I have also been delighted with learning about
areas that they are interested in -- areas that I had
not pursued actively and probably wouldn't have
if the boys hadn't shown an interest. John Earl, at
the age of six, has become quite a zoologist and has
piqued my interest in nature. Chaz, at the age of
five, had become a railroad enthusiast and we
spend many hours learning all about trains. It is
evident to me that we will have precious little time to fulfill all of our expectations. While Chaz
may never acquire the knowledge and skills of
gardening that I would have liked, I doubt that I
will meet his expectations in railroading. And,
while John Earl may never become a master of
home repair, I will probably not fulfill his expectations
in the area of zoology. But we will --all of
us --have a great time teaching each other.
Blindness is a physical characteristic, and, like any
other physical characteristic it may have some effect
on what interests a person develops. It will
not, however, be the predominate factor in determining
interests or in achieving or failing to
achieve expectations. The real villian of expectations
is our attitude and the attitude we teach our
children.
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