As far as I can remember I have had an awesome relationship with my father. Of course there were times that I disliked him and times when I upset him but that's totally natural right? Again Raising Cain has "exposed" me to things that I guess I subconciously knew existed but never really paid attention to.
One thing that really got my memories going ws the discussion about "Control, Competition, and Criticism". My father used those "3 C's" all the time. The ever so popular "because I said so" is a prime example of control. I heard this all the time and as I got older I had conversations with my father exposing this statement as a means of power or control. He, as well as my mom, used this statement when they didn't have a response to my question that made sense. E.G. During the summer after my first year in college I stayed out pretty late (by their standards) and he began confronting me with the situation and telling me I was wrong for doing it and yada yada yada. Anyway, my response was "what is the difference of me staying out until 6 am in Columbia and staying out until 6 am here?" Because he couldn't give me a logical response he deferred to the use of parental control "because I said so."
I think that part of the reason that I'm not very much into sports is because anytime I tried to play something, my dad, much like the father of the golfer in the book, took all the fun out of it. So usually I just didn't try very hard and made it appear as though I would never be good at whatever the sport was so he would just give up on me.
Finally criticism. i was criticized for everything. If I had straight A's his response was "Next time it should be A+'s" Nothing I ever did was good enough, their was always room for improvement. While I'm sure that he truly wanted the best for me and thought that this was the most effective way of helping me reach my full potential, a little praise would have been nice.
While I hold very high expectations for my students, I tend to push my students to do their best all the time. However what I have made it a point to do is give praise. For example, one day I was teaching volume to the class. The previous day they had discovered on their own that to find the volume of something all they had to do was multiply the heighth by the width by the length. During a review for the upcoming common assessment I went over volume and one student couldn't remember how to find the volume of an object, even though I specifically remember this student telling me the equation the day before. After questioning her through the process she remembered the equation and for that I gave her genuine praise. This is not always an easy thing for me to do. A part of me wanted to just say to her "Ok. Good. Now make sure you don't forget it again!" The comment would have been well intentioned because I want her to do well, however the praise wouldn't have been there.
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If you had given the more typical “don’t let it happen again” talk, that may have shut down the student, created some guilt, but instead, you kept the experience positive, looking for what she was able to do.
I was thinking during a couple of sections in the reading (p. 128 and 134) that I have to be careful how I read and respond to my children, just as I do with my students. It is easy to assume they think/feel one way based on behavior. I may read my son’s anger as stemming from some conflict between us, but in fact it is often the result of frustrations with something at school. I don’t think he will show his emotions much at school, but he may at home (more as anger). For teachers and parents, it’s good to be aware of “misreading cues” (p. 128). I appreciate the example of the mother on p. 134 being able to directly talk with her son, effectively using humor, and getting to the source of her son’s anger.
This rings true for my growing up, as well. My father was a good teacher (not by profession), but he lacked the ability and/or awareness to give even occasional praise. He would also lose his temper if I handed him the wrong tool he requested. He was a kind person and a gentle soul, but those qualities too often remained isolated and cut off from me. He just did not have the experience and did not know the value of making these things visible, and I suspect he "learned" these things from his father, etc. However, certainly mass media played a far less important role in constructing male identities, so....?
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