Parenting and Teaching: The days are long but the years are short

My youngest child left a few days ago for University abroad; he is the last of three to leave home. The trip to the airport was a wonderful, happy, excited, slightly nervous one; the drive back was a much quieter and different one. And it’s been quiet and different at home since.

Nothing remarkable there of course; most kids leave home at some point; families adjust; the world goes on. Indeed, that’s a big part of what we mean when we say ‘the world goes on’. But after 24 years of children at home, there is an adjustment to make and we’ll see how things settle. Last week I seemed to be waiting for them to come home at the end of the evening – not consciously, but old habits die hard.

At a very lovely recent school reunion I met up with many former students, several of whom had very young infants – in most cases their first child. We had conversations about how things were changing, and the different seasons of life, and I looked on at their beautiful babies rather wistfully, wondering if I had appreciated the intense days of new parenthood. It was a reminder to appreciate each moment, and not to live in the past or indeed the future. As families change, new ways of being emerge. Our last (extremely extroverted and energetic) child leaving completely alters the dynamic at home – not just an empty place at the dinner table, but actually a whole change for Ellie and me to grow into.

A similar, though less profound, thing happens at the start of each school year. The familiar old classes have dissolved into new ones, usually with a few new faces, and without some much-loved familiar ones who have moved away. Students and teachers do the little dance of unfamiliarity that quickly settles into comfortable routine. Some find the transition exciting and energising, others long for the predictability of the settled arrangements and relationships. Writer Susan Cain, looking through the extraversion / introversion lens reminds teachers that kids react so differently; that nothing is a given at the start of the year and that we need to look for active, not just loud participation in class (they really are two different things). We can be sensitive to the fact new dynamics come more easily for some students than for others – just as it does for adults.

Meeting new classmates offers new energy and opportunities; not just socially but also academically. Adam Grant cites research explaining that a major reason firstborn siblings tend to outperform younger brothers and sisters is that they take on role of teacher, and ‘the teacher gains more than the learner in the process of teaching’. So introversion/extraversion aside, having lots of people talking and learning from each other is, educationally, a good thing. In classes, good teachers can deftly manage things so that group work is not intrusive, and this still leave room for quiet students. At home it’s a different story, and for families with several children the load on the eldest should not be underestimated. Thomas Newkirk writes ‘A friend of mine who has two boys, one in kindergarten and one in middle school, was discussing with her husband the possibility of a third child. The older boy, overhearing the conversation sighed and said ‘Guys, I don’t think I can do this again!’

Of course, none of this alters the different feel that come with changes in family or group membership, and there’s a good reminder there I think. Some time ago, I was talking to a rather frazzled colleague with young kids while my memories of my lovely and now-distant hyperactive toddlers were particularly acute. I think the thought of grown-up kids seemed as appealing to him as the thought of an infant to cherish did to me; and I remembered Gretchen Rubin’s wonderful summary of being a parent, which I think applies equally to teaching: ‘the days are long but the years are short’.

The short drive home from the airport was also long.