The Exhausted Dad: Taking the eraser away from my first grader
Cut. Backspace. Delete.
On a computer, erasure requires little effort. I can correct mistakes instantly, and if I feel lazy, I can tell the computer to autocorrect the mistakes before I even notice them.
Young kids, still learning the basics of reading and writing, don’t always get this luxury at school. They learn letters, words and sentence structure with a pencil and paper. Writing the wrong letter or missing a word in a sentence means using a physical, time-consuming intervention: An eraser. Even after rigorously erasing something, the shadow of the mistake might still be visible.
It’s stressful to think about, right? Don’t get me started on pens and white-out.
My youngest son, 6, can burn through one eraser in a single worksheet. He hates making mistakes in his work. I’m not sure how this happened with him, as my wife and I aren’t sticklers for perfection, and teachers correctly prioritize skill-building and practice before ever mentioning concepts of “right and wrong” spelling and sentence structure.
Despite never needing to be “correct” when he practices writing sentences, my son feverishly erases even the smallest mistake. It often brings him to tears.
“I forgot a finger space after the period! Now I have to start over!”
He’s even more critical of his drawings. If a picture doesn’t look like how he envisioned, he will erase the entire thing. He also avoids drawing new things out of a fear of doing it wrong.
He recently brought home a school assignment that asked him to write two sentences summarizing a story about a whale and to draw a picture of the whale.
He wrote two accurate sentences about the story, but I also noticed the remnants of the two sentences he wrote before he feverishly erased everything he wrote on the page.
“I started over because I forgot the period!”
The picture space was blank, minus more erased lines of “failed” whale pictures.
“It didn’t look right so I erased it!”
With some persuasion, my son attempted the drawing again. After building the basic shape of the whale, he huffed in frustration and started to erase it, again with tears in his eyes.
“It doesn’t look like a whale!” Then he cried.
It took some time for him to calm down. We asked him to try again. Even with his mom, dad and three siblings encouraging him and telling him how much we liked his picture so far, he kept wanting to erase it and give up.
I’m always a little surprised by the issues that arise from each of our kids. I feel like we’ve ALWAYS fostered an attitude of embracing mistakes and celebrating Happy Little Accidents (all four of my kids love Bob Ross reruns).
I know the school curriculum encourages the same, so how did my son become so sensitive to his academic pursuits? The craziest part is I think his handwriting is more legible than my own. Museum-worthy finger spaces! And every version of the whale he drew looked 10 times better than any sea creature I ever drew.
I reach the end of this column without an obvious solution. His teacher understands the challenge, and my wife and I are doubling our efforts to encourage his flexibility and willingness to make mistakes and accept imperfections. We keep fewer erasers around him, because, ultimately, we can all tolerate a few more little mistakes. His struggle is a good reminder for me to be less critical of myself with school, work and adult responsibilities.
It’s also a good reminder that it’s hard being a kid! Imagine re-learning the basic skills we all now take for granted.
Humans are built to fail, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to keep trying. Embracing a mistake is how we build resilience in life, which is why I’m not correcting the typios in this sentence ..
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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student, and parent to four kids, ages 6-12. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.
The Exhausted Dad