Just over seven weeks into my Master’s program (I’m pursuing an M.Ed. and Parent Educator license), I’ve realized one of the most important lessons of parenting: reflecting on your childhood is essential if you don’t want to repeat unhealthy, or unhelpful, patterns with your children. “We can’t change what happened to us as children but we can change the way we think about those events.”
This quote comes from the excellent book Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel, M.D. and Mary Hartzell, M.Ed. (2014), and reading through each chapter has led to some helpful introspection. There is one specific question I’ve tried to make sense of recently: why wasn’t I a reader as a child?
I did read sometimes, of course. I read at school, did my homework (most of it…I’ll come back to this), and got good grades. I received both a B.A. and an M.A. from good colleges. But, all the while, I wouldn’t have called myself a reader. Sure, I read what was assigned and I occasionally pulled out a book for pleasure. But, compared to friends who always had a book in rotation, I didn’t.
Why was this, especially given that my nightstand is now usually overflowing with books? Using the encouragement of Siegel and Hartzell, I’ve reflected and have some ideas. Because I want to create an environment which fosters a love of reading for my son, I want to understand what may have stood in my way of developing that habit.
Before I begin, let me say that by talking about this aspect of my childhood, I’m by no means trying to point fingers at myself or my parents. Siegel and Hartzell write “start with the assumption that you, and your parents, have done the best that you can under the circumstances of your life.” Thus, starting from the foundation that I’m not trying to criticize but to understand, here are some observations:
1. Outside of a few books at bedtime when we were young, my parents really didn’t read to us much. Thus, books and stories were not a major part of our daily experience. And, we weren’t a family that frequented the library much.
2. Reading was not something I saw modeled by my parents. Whereas my childhood best friend saw her mother read daily, I almost never saw my parents with a book.
3. I wasn’t a very fast reader.
4. My mom enrolled in a full-time college-level Dental Hygiene program when I was in 3rd grade. The saying goes “prior to 3rd grade, you learn to read. After 3rd grade, you read to learn.” Given that my mom became very busy with her program meant that starting in 3rd grade, I had a good bit of unsupervised time after school. As reading was clearly not a hobby, or even a habit, for me by this point, I chose to spend my unstructured time in other ways: watching tv, playing Nintendo, playing outside, or visiting friends. None of these were inherently bad choices, they just didn’t involve any reading.
5. Perhaps reflective of not being a fast reader, I remember feeling somewhat demotivated, and even rushed, by programs that challenged us to read a certain number of books or pages during a set period of time. I know that programs like Book It tried to inspire reading, but for someone like me to whom reading didn’t come quickly, my motivation for participating felt squelched instead of encouraged.
6. My few enjoyable reading memories involved a record player which played stories. I listened while following along in the various books and remember listening to those stories over and over again.
7. CliffsNotes became my method of surviving high school English. Given that reading novels was slow-going for me, it meant that the books assigned fell to the bottom of my priority list while I focused my energy on the homework I enjoyed.
So, these are my early reading memories which basically shaped my lackluster attitude toward reading until my-mid 20s. Fortunately, I had an experience which slowly started to change my relationship with reading. In early 2008, I was involved in a bad car accident in which I broke my back and ankle and had to have surgery. While recovering over the next several months, I found myself with copious amounts of free time.
I picked up a copy of A Tale of Two Cities which I had somehow acquired. I had all the time in the world to read it (i.e. I didn’t feel rushed) and I absolutely loved the book. Shortly after finishing it, I visited the library and picked up a few novels. The first one I read made a reference to Cities by saying “she was waiting for her Charles Darnay.” It was just a quick reference. But, because I had read Cities, I understood the author’s point. As elementary as it may sound, a lightbulb went off for me that reading could help me understand references I might otherwise miss. The fire in me to want to read had finally been stoked.
Here’s what I’ve subsequently learned by reflecting on my own journey to reading:
1. Each elementary school is different, but by a certain grade, most require a certain number of minutes of reading per child. For some kids, especially slow readers like me, this might feel daunting or competitive. If your child doesn’t seem excited about reading, talk to them about it. Do they feel rushed or overwhelmed? Talk to their teacher about reading strategies or an engaging book series to try. Because I always did relatively well in school, my parents never probed why I didn’t read more and I definitely didn’t bring it up.
2. Audiobooks are amazing. I am not kidding when I say that I’ve listened to over 100 books over the past three or four years. I drive A LOT and have listened to books on just about every topic imaginable. I’ve recognized that I’m an auditory learner and do best listening to books. So, yes, my nightstand is full of books, most of which I chip away at a few pages at a time before bed, but when given the choice, I always choose audiobooks. I so wish I would have tracked down David Copperfield and other assigned novels on cd (if they existed?!) back when I was in high school. I also get books with CDs from the library for my son. So, when he’s in the car with me, he’s listening and following along with his books. If you haven’t tried an audiobook before, I highly encourage you to track one down! Check out books on cd at the library or get an app like Audible.
3. Reading is a life-long skill that should be nurtured and modeled. Most people read every day, but many of them are not readers…similar to how everyone talks every day, but not everyone is an orator. Reading for enjoyment, I believe, is a hobby that needs encouragement, both in school and at home. This requires time and effort from parents, which, it may feel like you don’t often have.
To put it in perspective, though, as positive as extracurriculars such as team sports were to me, and are to many kids today, the reality is that most of our kids won’t become professional athletes one day. But, they will all hopefully be readers 2o years from now. So, let’s find the time to encourage reading in addition to other activities, especially over the summer and during school breaks. By building in reading time at home (and requiring the turning off of devices) we can foster a new generation of readers, thinkers and learners. Perhaps you could set a family reading time once a week where you either read aloud to your family (children are NEVER too old to be read to), or everyone reads their own books in the same general vicinity. Given that the average child (and parent, let’s be honest) spends multiple hours on their devices each day, requiring a 30-minute family reading break once a week isn’t unrealistic.
My 4-year-old son knows that my feet don’t reach the floor in the morning until he’s brought me two stories to read to him. At night, I read him stories during bath time and in bed. His love of books delights me to no end and it is fun to dream about the reader and learner he is becoming.
For my part, I can’t get back those 20+ years of non-reading. But, now that I’ve made sense of it, I have no plans of going back. There’s still so much to learn.
