Do you have a child who won’t embrace reading or the importance of academic achievement despite all your best efforts? Write and tell us your story. Sign your letter by your first name and last initial only (make up either if you wish). Each month, we select one letter that will be answered here by a teen literacy or teen parenting expert.
My 9-year-old says she wants to be a writer when she grows up. She loves reading, and her reading level is well above others in her age group. How can we help her find books that will encourage her—so far, she’s mostly been working her way through books that her older sister has picked out for herself, and some of those books may be a little grown up for her.
—Proud (but watchful) Parent
Dear Proud Parent
This one’s simple. If I have a kid who wants to write I tell her to read anything she wants and write down everything that’s interesting to her. You could try to help her all day long and only get in her way. Kids usually read at their own interest, left to their own devices, and they also write at their own interest. If I have a kid who wants to be an artist I turn him or her loose with all the artist’s tools I can find and let them find their way.
Our 12-year-old son used to be an avid reader, but we think some of his friends have been teasing him and now the reading has dropped off. To make it worse, he wears glasses, so the teasing is non-stop. What can we do to encourage him to ignore the other kids and start reading again?
—Concerned Parent
Dear Concerned,
I never tell a kid to ignore his peers and go on. Developmentally it’s impossible to do. After 12 (or more likely 10) kids measure themselves to a great degree by their peers’ reactions. Nothing we can do about that. I would give him some choices about ways to react. “Screw you guys, if you want to be ignorant, be ignorant. There’s stuff in these books I want to know.” Play it up big. There are all kinds of possibilities and if you give your kid some of them, he’ll likely come up with some better ones; ones that work for him.
A lot of navigating adolescence is about managing; problem solving. I don’t know how to tell a kid to navigate it, but most of the time if I come up with some ideas, even if they’re lame, I can get him coming up with real ones.
Remember also, that any reading he does—graphic novels, cereal boxes, magazines—is reading. If he likes it now, you don’t want to add a lot of pressure about it. He’ll come back to it when he’s ready. When I was 14 I got my teeth knocked out by a girl with a baseball bat. I was horribly humiliated that I was the only kid in my school with false teeth. It was killing me and I took some teasing. Then I decided to beat them to the punch. I gave a speech in my speech class wherein I put my teeth in a hamburger bun and did a ventriloquist act with a talking bun. I freaked girls out by taking them out right when they were going to say something serious to me. All of a sudden I made it cool enough to have false teeth so I could survive. Help him get out ahead of his peers.
Born on July 17, 1946 in Dayton Ohio to a WWII bomber pilot and a homeaker, Chris Crutcher (http://www.chriscrutcher.com) grew up in Cascade, Idaho, a logging town north of Boise. He graduated from Eastern Washington State College—now Eastern Washington University—with a BA in psychology and sociology. He later earned his teaching credential and taught primary and secondary school in Washington State and California.
He admits he was a popular teacher, but not a good one. However, once offered the chance to direct a “last chance” alternative school in Oakland, CA, he thoughtfully served at-risk K-12 students for almost a decade before returning to the Pacific Northwest to write his first book.
Running Loose was his debut novel for Greenwillow, published in the early 1980′s. Nine other novels—Stotan!, Chinese Handcuffs, The Crazy Horse Electric Game, The Deep End, Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes, Ironman, Whale Talk, The Sledding Hill and Deadline—as well as two short story collections—Athletic Shorts and Angry Management—and his autobiography, King of the Mild Frontier—followed. Other books, including more short stories and nonfiction, as well as several motion picture projects are also in development.
Crutcher’s fast-paced fiction—heavily influenced by his vast experience as a child and family therapist and child protection advocate—is known for its expert balance of comedy and tragedy, as well as its unflinching honesty and authentic voice.
