For years now friends of mine with children older than my own have been telling me, with considerable dismay, how much more demanding high school is than when I went to my neighborhood public school in Brooklyn. Couple that with my readings of psychologist Dr. Madeline Levine, who writes knowledgeably about disaffected older kids and how got that way, and I find myself looking my 13-year-old daughter’s experience at one of the city’s elite public schools with as much concern as pride.
The topic is probably worthy of a book, but today I’d like to share one thought stream I’ve been taking comfort in lately. In the middle of my college years, I dropped out for a year because I was unhappy and thought I could use a change of setting and routine to help me make more sense of my life. For years, my sense of pride and accomplishment—really, my primary identity—was deeply connected to my academic success, and even though my grades were still pretty good, I was increasingly uneasy about the whole enterprise and didn’t have a vision of where it might be headed.
So, my goodness, here I am with a talented and lovely 8th grader who loves to learn and has nice friends but is already starting to talk about her day-to-day school grind with a certain amount of wariness. That’s not good news, of course, but it also provides an opening—and it’s already part of an ongoing family conversation—to talk about school and adolescence in a way that’s not just about grades and success but also about discovery, satisfaction, fun, meaning, and balance.
She’s trying. She likes chatting with younger kids, and recently signed up for a volunteer program to help 2nd graders with math and reading at an afterschool program in East Harlem. Yesterday was her first day and she loved it, but she also learned that there was a misunderstanding of the rules and she’s too young to participate in the program.
When my daughter was 3, I’d marvel at the chats we’d have about her future and how she hoped to one day become a combination astronaut/ballerina, or possibly teacher/swimmer. As she makes her way in the world of the real, our chats are more complicated—and often I feel like I’m learning a new parenting playbook—but I still prize them and I still marvel at her.
Eric Messinger is the editor of New York Family. He can be reached at emessinger@manhattanmedia.com.
