I think I need a guy to figure this out...

[pluckyduck]

I am scratching my head at a dynamic that took place today in our house. (Remember, I'm the only woman in a house of two boys, a manly man and a manly French Poodle.)

I spent most of the day working with Adam, my seven year old, on a report on Cardinals. The report is an assignment for Project Challenge, the "gifted" (gag!) program that recently started for him. That's necessary to explain because this was the first assignment he's ever had that was a s-t-r-e-t-c-h for him. He had to work hard, and I was very proud of the way he worked on it. His father and I worry about him because, well, he has a habit of not applying much of himself to a lot of what he does, and I was thrilled to see him dig deep.

I was proudest of his sketch of the cardinal. The boy has my fine motor skills (read none) and has never turned out a drawing that didn't look like a big blobby mess with a stick figure or two and a lot of smudgy erasing. I broke the task down for him, drawing from a painting by John Audubon...helped him see the basic shapes in the drawing, left him with a stack of paper, crossed my fingers, and left the room. He went through about 20 sheets of paper (I'm not kidding), and eventually turned out something that was great. No, he's no artist, but it was 10,000 percent better than anything else he's ever done. He worked at it!

Here's the thing I don't understand. He was beaming with pride, busting at the seams about the report. I gave Don the heads up that Adam couldn't wait to show him the report, and clued him into the things that Adam had worked hardest at, so Don would give praise on the right stuff and not gloss over it.

As soon as Don asked Adam to see the report, Adam started pretending he didn't care at all about it! He got it, sort of shoved it at his father, and picked up a book to read. Dad praised the report appropriately, Adam shrugged his shoulders. Dad handed the report back to Adam, he carelessly tossed it on table, where it slid to the ground and Adam didn't make a move to pick it up.



He was embarrassed to care about it in front of his father!

Now, here's what makes me go Don is the day to day homework parent. He's more involved with the kids' schooling than I am. You could not get a father who was more supportive, or encouraging. We have never given the message that schooling or homework is women's work.

I said to Don, what is going on here? He's as clueless as I am.

Any ideas? Any feedback? Any perspective?

I thought we were doing everything right to make doing a good job on schoolwork macho.

Help!

Andrea
parent to two boys...help me!

[drmomentum[$]]

I don't know if this is a guy thing. My daughter does the same thing to me sometimes. My wife will tell me that she has won some award for reading, or that she is proud of some work she's done. When I ask her about it I can barely drag the details out of her.

It's not exactly the same situation, but it is similarly baffling to me.

-JP

[jenninca]

Thinking back to when I was the kid in this situation, I think I reacted similarly. It was okay for ME to be proud of what I did, but for anyone else to be proud of it was downright embarrassing.

Not too helpful, eh?

Cindy

[vonboob]

I never thought about it until you brought it up.
OK, we don’t have kids but with 4 siblings on my side and 12(!) on my wife’s (not counting the cousins we are close to), there is a small army of nephews to poll on. With my immature approach, it seems that I enjoy very unique relation. I play with them video games, Magic TG, etc; ride all kinds of rides and have a reputation for crazy things. In effect, I get the kind of respect a daredevil would, then talking about broken bones… Gives opportunity to observe.

In my opinion prizing of boys is a touchy subject because you need to know indeed when it is required and if it’s valid. (???) They will treasure a prize only from someone who in their eyes is the real expert. If the subject is not your forte, play your ignorance for all what’s worth without loosing credibility. Most of them prefer it mixed with constructive critique (a no-no for girls) in things they are good at. If it happens that your expertise coincides, you got something to milk forever. Now, the subjects they are not good at, is easy to turn this into character training in sense: I’m proud you managed to beat that thing…

I think though, in this particular case he might have noticed the "clue in" procedure... That is embarrassing.

[rich2003dm]

Andrea,

I have the perfect credentials for answering this one. I'm not only a Dad of two, but I've always been the homework helper in my house, and emotionally and intellectually I'm still about seven years old.

I think that Adam was just being considerate of Don's feelings.

Don is the regular homework helper, but Mom helped him with this masterpiece. Adam is probably both thrilled and proud of the outcome.

But Adam may feel that to show a great deal of enthusiasm in front of Don might be perceived as a betrayal of his regular helper. Like implying, "Look what a great job Mom and I did without you!"

Better for him to just appear it's no big deal than to risk insulting Don or hurting Don's feelings.

Rich

[Cynon]

Perhaps your child is intimidated by your husband, and feels that anything scholastically he does is not worth showing your husband because he feels that it will not be good enough or will always pail in comparison to your husbands work. I know I’ve felt that way before as a child when it came to school marks and projects with my father. This might be a personal question but does your husband tend to have the strongest opinion in your house or at the very least the strongest opinion (or is the head of the house hold) from your son’s perspective? If this is true he may feel that since your husband has the dominate opinion in the home, he may have to devalue his own work since he feels that it’s important for him to maintain that status of your husband because of either fear or admiration towards your husband. I dunno, I’m putting a lot of my own past feelings towards my father in this and have no real knowledge about your family situation, so all of this could be completely irrelevant to your situation. I hope I haven’t offended you at all with my speculation.

Rob

[vonboob]

Originally posted by rich2003dm
Andrea,
...Better for him to just appear it's no big deal than to risk insulting Don or hurting Don's feelings...

Rich

That's pretty good, I didn't think about this side: I've seen it too but I missed the regular helper part. Rich is probably the closest to the truth.

[pluckyduck]

Rich is probably the closest to the truth.

Rich is going to get my vote too.

I really appreciate Cynon's comments

Perhaps your child is intimidated by your husband, and feels that anything scholastically he does is not worth showing your husband because he feels that it will not be good enough

because that is what I was afraid of and the reason that I freaked. I was saying to myself , how did this happen?

I have observed the Father Approval dynamic in more father/son relationships than I care to count and it makes me sad. It puts up such a wall...Don had it with his own father, and we've worked very hard to not have it repeat. There is nothing that Don has ever done to foster that. He's kind and encouraging and involved and full of appropriate praise.

Such a delicate balance because you want the kids to want your approval! That's the one of the chief "weapons" in steering and guiding them, especially if you don't want to get into yelling or punishing. So you have to use approval and disapproval, but in way that is constructive and not toxic.

It was with great relief that I read Rich's post.

But Adam may feel that to show a great deal of enthusiasm in front of Don might be perceived as a betrayal of his regular helper. Like implying, "Look what a great job Mom and I did without you!"

Better for him to just appear it's no big deal than to risk insulting Don or hurting Don's feelings.

That sounds like Adam. He is very kind and cares about everybody's feelings. This was a Mom/son project...and if I think back carefully, I sort of can see how Don might have even been giving off "outsider" vibes. I think Don did feel a left-out kind of funny, since this is usually his bag.

Thank you all!

Andrea
who is greatly relieved and yes, thinks too much