Amusement Is Not a Parent’s Highest Priority

Have you seen any dancing broccoli on television lately? Vegetables don’t have the same curb appeal as a bag of crunchy chips or a mouth-watering chocolate bar. As Erma Bombeck said, “In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television.” Broccoli may not be amusing in any way, but that’s not an excuse to dismiss its importance. Your kids need to be introduced to broccoli (or another green relative). What’s the good stuff your child is missing when amusement is pursued as the highest priority? Although this list could be quite extensive, let’s focus on two big ones: language development and self-control.

How to Foster a Love for Reading

Parents, educators, and researchers agree language development is fundamental for all areas of learning in your child’s life. Your child’s reading level will predict future school success. The larger your child’s vocabulary, the more he or she will be able to consider big ideas, understand the Bible, and enjoy a successful career.

So how can you help your child excel in language development? Thank goodness it’s not rocket science; it can be as simple as talking and listening to your children over dinner. Researchers found that dinnertime conversation boosts vocabulary for young children even more than reading aloud to them. Think of the word power of combining daily mealtime conversations with reading books. Make trips to the library a part of your family’s routine. Create a desire for learning by modeling reading yourself (you might even let your child catch you reading this book today).

When it comes to free time, think books first, TV second. One study found when readers are transported into the emotional lives of books’ characters, they grow more empathetic in real life. Reading requires intellectual and imaginative involvement and ability. Television requires only passive involvement. In order to read a book, your child has to focus and develop competency to understand the words on the page. To watch TV, all your child has to do is look at the screen and take a seat.

“Kids must first learn to put in the hard work, then the amusement can begin.”

Yet with all the proven advantages reading produces, children are spending far more time being entertained by a screen than by a book. Four out of ten families with infants and young children have a television on at least six hours each day. There is a correlation between increased screen time and a reported decline of reading books aloud to young children. Between the years 1993 and 2007, the percentage of preschoolers who were read to every day by a family member changed very little (53 percent in 1993 and 55 percent in 2007). But in 2012 (post iPad), the percentage dropped significantly to 44 percent. That means that 66 percent of children ages three to five were not listening to a grown-up read at least seven times per week. Between 2005 and 2012, the number of children with speech difficulties leapt 70 percent in the United Kingdom. The study blamed the growing use of screen-based gadgets as convenient “babysitters” and a trend for hardworking parents to spend less time with their children.

As you may guess, research shows young children whose parents read to them regularly experience multiple benefits such as a boost in literacy, social emotional growth, and a likelihood of later overall school success. I speak to several MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) groups, and the following scene has been repeated again and again. A well-meaning mom will come up to me with a preschooler, a toddler, and a confession. “I used to read at bedtime to my preschooler, but one night I was busy, and my preschooler just read the tablet then went to sleep. A few days later, it happened again. Slowly I got out of the habit of reading at nighttime because it was so much easier to have the tablet do it.”

So what if your child reads to himself on an electronic tablet? Will he still enjoy the multiple benefits of reading? Although reading on a Kindle is better for language development than playing a video game, it may not equal the benefits of reading on paper. A 2014 study found that readers who used Kindles were less competent in recalling the plot and events in the book than those who used paperbacks. Psychologist Erik Wastlund at Sweden’s Karlstad University found students learned better when reading on paper. Wastlund followed up that study by presenting students a choice of on-screen document formats. He discovered the most influential factor was whether they could see pages in their entirety. When they had to scroll, it distracted their attention away from the story and “took a lot of mental resources that could have been spent comprehending the text instead,” reported Wastlund.

Paper also provides the advantage of holding a physical book you can see, touch, write in, and even smell. That’s a richer sensory experience. You can tell how many pages you have left in the book, which gives you a sense of orientation and achievement. You can recall where in the book you saw a particular story or quote you liked. For shorter texts, reading from a book or an e-reader is more similar according to researchers. But if you want your child to be able to read long texts requiring sustained concentration, paper still reigns.

My thirteen-year-old son, Ethan, has devoured books like New York Times bestseller Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown and David McCullough’s 1776. He hasn’t asked me to read to him in years, but when he was younger, I read aloud to him every night. I don’t regret one minute I spent reading with my son. When you read with your young child, you strengthen your emotional bond and the love of reading in both of you.

Maybe you’re thinking, “My child is too old for bedtime stories or too accustomed to TV and video games to pick up a book. Is it too late?” If you will commit to make reading a priority in your home, you will find a way. You might imitate the program D.E.A.R., which stands for “Drop Everything and Read!” It’s a national month-long celebration of reading that libraries, schools, and bookstores share. You can create your own D.E.A.R. program at home complete with rewards at the end of the month for reading. What subjects do your kids like? Whether they like history, how to build stuff, friendships, humor, or animals, you’ll be able to find something interesting with the help of a librarian or an online review site.

In order for your child to succeed as a reader, he or she needs:

Competency
Positive expectations and experiences
An environment conducive to reading

Your child’s education isn’t the primary responsibility of a teacher or school. It’s yours as a parent. No one will care about your child’s progress more than you do. If you see your child lagging in reading and writing, take immediate action. Sit right next to your child and read together over the weekend. In my household, Saturday mornings aren’t reserved for cartoons as they were in my childhood. Saturdays are synonymous with one hour of family academy. Each child has a book to read and a set of index cards. When they get to a word they do not know, they look up the definition and write it on the index card. We pipe in classical music and for one hour each week, our home is magically transformed into a place of higher education. Afterward, we all turn silly again.

“Your child’s education isn’t the primary responsibility of a teacher or school. It’s yours as a parent.”

Even though we laugh a lot, our family’s priority is not amusement. We don’t make parenting decisions based on the fun factor. On the contrary, we welcome boredom (writing out definitions of words on index cards is, well, boring). If children must be entertained in order to be educated, they will enter the workforce at a disadvantage. Kids must first learn to put in the hard work, then the amusement can begin. This leads us to the next big thing your child needs in addition to reading well.

The Building Block of Self-Control

It’s our job as parents not to amuse, but sometimes to do just the opposite so our children can learn self-control. For example, when your child throws a tantrum in the store, that’s not the time to give in and buy the candy to stop the crying. It’s time to leave the store and serve vegetables for the rest of the day. Self-control doesn’t come naturally to kids (or adults). It must be taught and practiced over and over.

Believe me, I realize it takes a lot of parental self-control not to give in when you’re tired. In that moment, it feels so much easier just to stop the whining or crying! If the thought of standing firm seems very difficult to you right now, take heart. As you practice this discipline your-self, you strengthen your parenting “muscle,” and it will get easier with practice.

Your child needs to develop a similar muscle of self-control that says, “I’m going to do the right thing even if I don’t feel like it. If I don’t do the right thing, something will happen I don’t like.” Don’t get hung up because you feel bad when you reprimand your children. The truth is that life will punish the foolish child who lacks self-control, which is far more exacting than loving discipline in your home. Proverbs 25:28 says a person who lacks self-control is like a city breached, unprotected, without walls. There’s no protection from danger and enslavement to sin for your child when self-control is missing.

It takes self-control for your child to finish homework before playing. It takes self-control to get along with others at school, learn an instrument, eat properly at the table, or memorize times tables. Self-control, which is the ability to control one’s emotions and behavior, is a crucial building block to your child’s success.