Figuring Out Kids

This past Saturday, I had the great luck to run into a sweet little girl at a birthday party. She was three or four, shy, and just as cute as a button. She was obviously completely out of her element, understanding that she and her sister were just their Dad's tag-alongs for the evening. There were no other kids to play with, and though there were three well-mannered dogs, these girls weren't used to dogs. It was just them.

(Bill Frazzetto, http://www.flickr.com/photos/bfraz/11768748/)

At one point, I did my best to talk to her. And that best lasted, um, two minutes. It was just terrible. I'm not sure if I don't know how to connect to children or she was perhaps particularly shy, but I wasn't getting anywhere with her. She had a little action figure of Daphne from Scooby Doo that she handed me. And she had some Disney princess that I couldn't name and wasn't permitted to know. Now that I think on it, perhaps it was Belle? The point is this: at what time do you learn how to converse with little girls to where they'll talk back to you?

While you ponder that gem, let me share this one as well: A great story on how to talk to little girls, after you've learned to talk with them at all. This is a great perspective on how to teach a little girl that she matters, that her opinion matters, that what she does matters as opposed to who she is, how her hair looks or what she's wearing . . . which all little girls carry with them through adolescence into adulthood.

While we're on the subject of raising children the correct way, this is most certainly not the right way to do it. The cheating scandal from Atlanta has just taught a generation of children (who were in those classes at that time) that if it's too hard, just look for the easy way out.

A lot of conversation has been had about what will happen to the teachers and administrators who willfully or complicity participated in the scandal. But what about the conversation about what happens to the children who really didn't pass those tests? What about the children who really should still be in the second grade, but are now in the eighth? What about the kids who have failed at basic educational skills for years, but were failed by those who needed to have their best interests at heart?

Of course, any conversation about student engagement and participation can't be had without thinking of the other participants: the parents. Where are the parents who knew their kid shouldn't be doing that well? Are they that naive? Were they all so hopeful that one day their kid would suddenly become brilliant, that when it happened, they didn't question it at all? Or are all of the parents of the cheated kids just out of touch and don't care?

I'm sure I don't know the answers to those questions and I'm sure each circumstance is different and unique, but I'd like to think that even mildly-engaged parents of under-performing students would have seen something was wrong.

What are your thoughts? Your suggestions on how to talk to little girls? Or the best questions to help them understand their self-worth? Or your thoughts on the Atlanta cheating scandal?