2002-10-29 - 8:56 p.m.
THANK YOU, MARY
Mary has helped pull off a miracle. She has been a large part of convincing Day-Hay that she can write well. All of a sudden, Day-Hay is writing school assignments in reasonable amounts of time and without any meltdowns. All of a sudden, Day-Hay is just letting the words flow and she is writing some lovely sentences and gorgeous paragraphs. The child is a walking advertisement for the notion that skills with confidence are far more potent than skills without confidence.
Several weeks ago, Day-Hay was writing an essay to try to get into a national girl scout program to be held this summer. (While Day-Hay�s application is in, she has not yet had her interview so we still don�t know whether she will make it.) She asked me to look over her web (which was a version of what I would call an outline.) She then asked me to look at her essay. Knowing that she lacked confidence in her writing, I was gentle although I was impressed with what she had written. She gave it to her father who was afraid to edit it at all and just told her (honestly) that it was very good. Her grandfather did the same.
Day-Hay was not satisfied. When she wants something as badly as she wants to get into this program focusing on web design and computer graphics, she can do things that I would never imagine her being able to do under other circumstances. She demanded to know the name of my friend whom we jokingly dub the English major. She wanted to know if Mary might be willing to look at her essay. I gave her Mary�s e-mail address and this child who is afraid her writing is not good enough took the risk of sending it off for editing.
And edit Mary did. Mary was wise enough to tell her what she liked and to make some suggestions about what might improve the essay. Mary also lectured her about why she should feel more confident about her writing than she does. Most of all, Mary took her very seriously as a writer. More amazing, Day-Hay accepted the suggestions without any defensiveness about her writing or without any comments about how she�d never learn to write well. Most amazing, Day-Hay accepted the compliments and took them to heart.
Sometimes a mother can only do so much. I�ve been telling Day-Hay how solid her writing has become. I�ve taken it seriously and edited it seriously. Depending on the day, I�ve either been suspect because I�m her mother and of course I think her writing is wonderful or I�ve been picking on her.
More so than other creatures, tweens and teens seem to hear some information from others much better than they do from their own parents. Ninety-five percent of the time, I do not take this trait personally. If I can�t be the most patient parent, at least I can be a non-jealous one and a grateful one. I�m ever so glad I have generous friends like Mary who will take the time to take a twelve-year-old writer very seriously.
And as I watched Day-Hay dash off three very good writing assignments tonight (which she left for the last minute), I was a grateful parent too. Thank you, Mary. You�ve done more for Day-Hay than you could have imagined.
LAST YEAR: Day-Hay�s Pumpkin
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
The View From the BottomA Cosmic Joke
I Can Only Take One Baby...
Old Friends in New Ways
Having Life
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
