This article appeared in the Boston Sunday GLOBE City Weekly, June 3, 2007, following the previous week's cover essay by a young man in Somerville, Mass., deeply troubled by his friends' self-destructive behaviors:

Mark McLaughlin's piece is excellent - heartbreaking and excellent ("The graduation speech you'll never hear," May 27, City Weekly).

But I wonder if we are asking school staff to take on parents' responsibilities. Teachers and others are certainly important in our children's lives, but if we, as parents, do not let our kids, especially our teens, know that we love them and that we have high expectations for them, they arrive at school with a serious disadvantage.

The following essay relates to the discussion, as McLaughlin writes, of 'what causes teens to throw their lives away.' I guess you could call it a graduation speech I have not yet been asked to give.

Eve Sullivan

The Aspiration Gap

The achievement gap gets a lot of ink for two reasons: It is important and it is fairly easily measured. Schoolchildren either do, or do not, know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, work with fractions, solve algebraic equations. They do, or do not, read for pleasure and learning, and write well.

Unlike achievement, aspiration is hard to measure, although it forms the foundation on which all achievement is built. Whether kids want to learn to read, do mathematics, and understand science and history, whether they pursue pastimes - or vocations - in music, art, or sports, whether they value good nutrition, physical fitness, and strong friendships - these depend in large measure on the goals we, as parents, set for them.

In focusing on parents, I do not mean to discount the essential contributions of teachers and others in our children's lives and our own. The influence of parents, however, both for good and ill, is paramount in children's lives.

At a summit on parenting education held at Wheelock College May 4 to 6, cosponsored by Families First, a participant told an interesting story. Her high school guidance counselor had advised her to get a job after graduation and discouraged her from continuing her education, even though her grades put her in the top 15 percent of her class in a top Boston-area public school. Her mother took the contrary view, making it clear that her daughter should apply to college.

Cheryl D. Vines, now the executive director of The Family Center in Somerville, recalled that the story was the reverse for her mother, the first in her family to attend college. Her mother's parents had not encouraged her to pursue her education, but her teachers had. The message? In the game of life, wherever they come from, high aspirations trump low aspirations!

The current public health crisis of violence, particularly but not exclusively among young men, and mental health problems in many populations makes it clear that we need to reexamine parenting in this country. A major part of parenting is setting clear, positive expectations and guiding, not forcing, our children to meet these expectations.

Violence takes root, I believe, in desire for control: "Do what I say or I'll whack you." Children who receive parental whacking are more likely, when they grow up, to do unto others what was done to them. Boys get punished physically more often than girls do, according to Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire, author of "Beating the Devil Out of Them" (2000, 2d ed.)

An equally significant pattern, as research by Jelani Mandara, a professor at Northeastern University shows, is that on average, boys receive less emotional support from parents than do girls. The problem is not only that parents' harshness toward their sons, both verbal and physical, has negative effects; it is that parents do not show their sons enough affection, through both word and deed, which would have positive effects.

Parents' lack of emotional awareness keeps us from effectively communicating our aspirations to our children. This aspiration gap gives rise to the achievement gap. Our young people suffer and so does society at large.

If we want to improve children's lives in our country - and the US is very near the bottom of the list of developed countries ranked on childhood well-being - we have to improve parenting. This is a huge challenge because parenting and family life are personal. Improving parenting in America will require greater recognition for the value and effectiveness of parenting education and support, along with wider availability and better funding for parenting services. As the running shoe ad says, let's just do it.

Eve Sullivan
Founder, PARENTS FORUM
 

Adventures of an accidental activist

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