COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
1621 Eagle Trace Drive
Mount Juliet, Tennessee 37122-7428
(615) 758-7568
Website: http://DrBlansett.com
Email: DrBlansett@DrBlansett.com
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Neighbors Helping Neighbors in Parenting
by
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
There is a psychological dysfunction known as work/study avoidance. Can you imagine that? We talk about work and we talk about school studies as if we all want to avoid them all of the time. It would appear that we consider the eager embrace of work or study as the real dysfunction, and avoidance is "normal" and to be embraced. Children hear their parents exclaim "Well, I don't work for the fun of it, you know." Don't you want to ask: "Why not?" There ought to be a job out there, somewhere, that fits everybody's needs. But if you found it, and then admitted you loved it, you would be considered "square" or a "geek" and a traitor to society. Try it. Go to work one day and exclaim loudly, where all can hear: "I love my job!!". Gosh, I feel strange even typing the suggestion. The reality is, though, that I DO love my job. If I didn't, I'd get busy trying to find one I did love. It doesn't make sense to spend 50 years doing what you hate to do, or can just tolerate doing. In the same way, it makes even less sense to like what you do, while spending 50 years claiming you don't, just so you can appear "cool". But, as we've already determined, it isn't cool to admit in public that you like to work, or that you like where you work, or with whom you work. So, how do you convey to your children ways that they can make peace with the reality that they are in school, and that finding peace in doing what is required of them while in school is up to them? How do you turn the "I want to skip school!" into an inner drive to get as much out of your child's exposure to education as possible? Is it up to the teacher to entertain and bribe children into learning? While no doubt there are teachers who have a gift for making learning more fun and more enjoyable that other teachers can do, isn't it up to the child to learn, at as early an age as possible, how to make the most out of the requirements of life? I know it is up to me to either make peace with the job I have, or find one that I am qualified for, which is available for me, and which I really, really desire. It is no different for my children. But someone needs to help them discover that. That someone is most realistically the parent. The child who is failing a grade because of study avoidance deserves not to be rescued through social promotion, but to be convinced that if he disliked the class the first time through, he'll dislike it even more the second time.
Next week we'll continue to examine how neighbors can help neighbors in parenting.
Dr. Phillip Blansett is a psychotherapist in private practice in Nashville and West Wilson County.
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