by Terri Combs-Orme Ph.D.

Created on: June 07, 2008

If there is one thing that parents experience no shortage of, it's advice. Family, neighbors, strangers in line at the grocery store: all know just what you should do about your child's temper tantrum, toilet training, or trouble getting to sleep at night. From the time they are barely showing, pregnant mothers receive the parenting wisdom of the ages in all kinds of settings.

Moreover, if, like me, you log on or make a trip to the library or book shelves at the drop of a hat (I wonder how hard it is to teach babies sign language. What are the odds that a child will never get chicken pox if he isn't immunized? When should you talk to your children about fiscal responsibility?), you have discovered that every question you have about parenting produces at least 18,405 hits on your favorite search engine.

Thus, in 21 years of parenting, I've received lots of parenting advice, and I have appreciated every single piece. I figure everyone is an expert about something, and that stranger or second cousin or obscure web site might have answers I don't. They usually do, even if those answers do not turn out to be relevant to my situation.

But in 21 years the best single piece of advice I have received (and gone back to frequently in times of stress and confusion and even joy), is this: You have to parent the child you have.

It came from a second-grade teacher with whom we were working on problems our son was having in school. Not one of the 11 years he spent in grade and high school (he skipped one year of middle school) was your average, routine school year, and many of the problems we had during that time were because we lost that mantra: Parent the child you have.

School systems, like all social systems, are constructed to deal with many children who are unique combinations of skills and talents, weaknesses and problems, environment, and experiences. Most of the time, teachers, parents, and children are able to negotiate and work out a fit that enables children to learn and thrive.

Every now and then, though, the school system is not prepared to provide a child needs. Such a challenge has been our son. He began reading well before his third birthday, read car manuals for fun in pre-school, and, in fact, read at the tenth grade level when he was tested in the first grade. He can do anything on a Macintosh computer, seems to learn languages by osmosis, and has knowledge of music theory that embarrasses his mother (and her piano teacher). He can spell anything.

He did not do

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>