The Power of Writing, 5-Year-Old Style

Posted by Catherine | April 10, 2010 | 18 Comments

[Sorry for the lateness of this post! We're currently traveling, away from home, so I'm posting an old post from my personal blog for discussion.]

My children were spending some quality time in their room last week for writing on my computer screen. Yes, that’s right. Ages 5 and 3 and they wrote on the computer screen. In return, they lost computer privileges, pen privileges for 2 weeks, and they spent some time in their rooms thinking about it (thereby allowing me to cool off a bit).

After around 15 min of quality room time, I see that a note had been slid out from under the door of my son’s room, his first note ever to me, written with a little stub of black crayon he’d found in his drawer:

“Mom please (ples) lt (let) me get at (out) d d d [he couldn't write "dear" he said] mom, to mom”

Did you know that most Americans have a negative connotation of writing? Deborah Brandt conducted an extensive study about people’s experiences with reading and writing (in her fabulous book _Literacy in American Lives_). She found that most people grew up with reading being a positive thing–mom and dad reading books at bedtime, getting books for presents, etc. But for most, writing was a negative thing–they’d been punished for writing on a wall or in a book, they’d gotten judged and graded on their writing from an early age. A lot of literacy scholars say this is because writing has great potential for changing power relations in an individual’s life and in society. When you write, you speak out, you have a voice, you can effect change. Many literacy scholars argue that the powers that be know this and try to control writing (oftentimes through schooling).

So here’s my son, playing this all out for me. I’d punished him (rightly so) for his writing. And now he uses writing to try to change his situation.

I don’t know what a good mom would do in this situation, but I did what any good literacy scholar would do. I let the boy out. Go, son! Keep on writing! (Just don’t do it on my computer screen again!!)

Does writing carry positive or negative connotations for you? Why do you think this is? How have others affected your perception of writing? Have you done anything in particular to influence your children’s perception of writing?

Category: Daily Special

Comments

18 Responses to “The Power of Writing, 5-Year-Old Style”

Rose
April 10th, 2010 @ 1:31 pm

I had never thought about writing like that! I have never felt negative thoughts about writing either. Now I will pay closer attention to how I influence my children and their writing.
Joe Edwin
April 10th, 2010 @ 2:14 pm

If Sigmund Freud saw the letter your kid wrote, he would have said he asked mom for permission to get at you. (Subconsciously)

Mom! Please let me get at dad! (Dear Mom, let me fight dad in peace.)

Something to think about. You’re child might be an angel from a past life time sir.
Joe Edwin
April 10th, 2010 @ 2:16 pm

Oh wait, ok I read the blog wrnog. srory.
jendoop
April 10th, 2010 @ 2:27 pm

I think there are many more things that contribute to our collective dislike for writing and love of reading (those who leisure read -not those who read the newspaper to get news, or read documents at work- real leisure readers are a small segment of society, which is why publishing a book is so difficult).

When I read it is a passive activity, going with the flow, little effort exerted, other than moving my eyes to read the words on the page. On the other hand, writing is a deeply introspective task- among other things it takes forethought, planning, knowledge, and courage. If you show someone your writing they’re going to have an opinion about it that will strike you to the core. While if you read people may or may not have an opinion about what you read, and if they don’t like it that’s OK because you’ll read something else next week.

I think I’ve been able to overcome some of the negative connections with writing because I have been a visual artist. There is a mental barricade to participating in the arts, an awe factor- “You painted that?”, “You had an article published?” Many people feel you must be gifted by the Muses from birth to write, paint, dance, sing, act, or draw. Early on I didn’t have that belief, I drew and painted because I needed to express myself. Now that I’m writing I don’t have that hang up over writing either. Muse or not, I’m writing.

Something that I do get hung up on – how those I love feel about what I write. My parents and my in-laws just visited for a week. As you can imagine there is a lot of fodder for writing in those 7-10 days, but I’ve barely posted on my blog because my in-laws and parents read my blog. I don’t want them to think anything I write is about them, for good or ill. I want to write to sort out my feelings, to have a discussion, to contribute to the worldwide discussion, not to ruin my family relations. I also rarely write about my marriage on my blog – that’s journal only material. That leaves little else to write about so I’m considering starting a new blog that is completely anonymous.
Nancy R.
April 10th, 2010 @ 5:14 pm

I teach college classes and so many of my students really hate writing, are really bad at it and totally unwilling to improve. To them, writing is scary. I try to encourage them and to tell them that writing is tremendously important, that many good jobs require writing skills and that they can improve.

I kept a journal as a teenage and have almost a complete daily record for five years. During that time, I learned to love writing. It was my emotional outlet. I wish that my students could have fallen in love with writing as teenagers.
Giggles
April 10th, 2010 @ 7:18 pm

If I didn’t write I’d be crazy by now. I look at writing for me as a type of Harry Potter pensieve. I’m able to get all my thoughts out of my head and on to paper where I can explore them further. It’s almost like I write to hear myself think, or speak, some times.
Natasha
April 10th, 2010 @ 9:36 pm

Growing up I really disliked the physical act of writing- I am a left handed person in a right handed world. During high school, (I home schooled) my mom tried to encourage my sister and I to write. I would always complain that I didn’t have anything to write about. But, we would write for 15 or 20 minutes about anything that came into our minds. It was very freeing and allowed us the freedom to learn how to write.

Now, even though I still don’t care too much for the physical act of writing, I’m grateful that I know how to write. It allows me to get a handle on my thoughts and sort them out.

Interesting post. Thanks!
traci
April 10th, 2010 @ 10:03 pm

All sorts of thoughts go through my mind, not only with the post, but the comments. How powerful!

The 1st thing I remember about writing is that I was a lefty made a righty. For good reasons, I only had one eye, the right. But I have been eternally confused by it. The good side is I can eat and write at the same time. Scenario tho: The teacher said – you write, with your right hand. I said – Dave writes with his left hand. Answer – he’s a boy. Forever I thot, girl’s wrote with their right and boys with their left.

I’ve been betrayed by my writing. But not enought to stop me. I don’t think I felt my voice was heard often – but my writing, made it real, made me real.

When I was a kid, my grandma had us practice out cursive and printing each day of the summer. Penmanship was a big thing.

I started a writer’s group 7 years ago, still going, but without me now. I write because I love to. It is an inexpensive hobby and life long venture you can give almost any child. It’s important.

Thank you!
MelissaPete
April 10th, 2010 @ 10:46 pm

My mom used to write “notes” to us. It was usually when she wanted to get the last word in. She was so manipulative and could get her barbs in that way without any back talk. As a result, I don’t write at others. I do a lot of writing to process, which is the heatlhy way to do it.

I do like when my kids write to me to work through feelings. They have stopped now that they can talk, but when they were the age of your little ones, I would get pictures of broken hearts and sad faces with a few words. I loved that they were trying to communicate.

I did an exercise as an adult where I wrote a letter to my mom with my non-dominant had. It very much connected me with that “child within” and I realized how much I’d had to say as a child that I had to stuff because it was unacceptable to speak my mind. It is absolutely necessary to help our little ones work through their feelings in acceptable ways, and writing is excellent.

It’s pretty normal for kids to experiment with WHERE they write, but I’ve never heard about anyone using the computer screen. I’m so sorry that happened to you. Hopefully they won’t try that again.
MelissaPete
April 10th, 2010 @ 10:47 pm

That was “non-dominant hand”. I’m not sure how to edit these posts. ??
Leah Killian
April 11th, 2010 @ 12:48 am

I was verbally shut down a lot as a child/adolescent. Writing was one was for me to achieve verbal dominance, as well as a way to communicate and express myself when other outlets fail. To this day I hate speaking under pressure, but if I can have a little time to arrange my thoughts in print, I find my voice

I don’t ever remember being in trouble for writing, however, my mother was an artist, so using crayons and pens expressively was always very encouraged. Perhaps, subconsciously, that gave me the encouragement to find my coherency through the written word.

About reading being passive- it isn’t always thus. Reading engages much more imagination, empathy, creativity and sheer mental effort than almost all other forms of entertainment. It increases imagination, which increases empathy. An un-imaginative person cannot fathom sympathy, and becomes sociopathic. Reading makes you work, unlike TV which truly makes you a vegetable.

Additionally, reading demands acquisition of language skills necessary for writing. Written turn of speech is as learned in most cases as verbal turn of speech. One indicator to me of something being well written is that it moves me to write. It engages me well enough for me to want to enter the conversation, and is well-spoken enough for me to want to respond.

I love your child’s note- those first few written notes are too precious.
Stacey
April 11th, 2010 @ 2:19 pm

Interesting post! I remember very distinctly writing on the walls at my Grandma’s house and then cleaning it up.

As far as feeling negative about writing, I’ve had mixed feelings about it pretty much my whole life. In grade school we were required to participate in a state-wide creative writing contest. I hated it with a passion. I could never think of a story. Ever. I dreaded that assignment every year.

Then, in High School, I began to learn that if given an essay test, I could easily earn an A, whereas multiple choice always gave me fits. I never considered myself an artistic, or creative writer though.

A couple of years ago, my Grandfather started a blog and encourage me to do so. All of a sudden I found my voice. I discovered that I could make people laugh and that many women ‘got me’. It’s been a wonderful adventure and I’ve been striving to better my writing skills.

My perception of writing has definitely evolved for me.
FoxyJ
April 11th, 2010 @ 2:24 pm

My mom has always been a writer and has even had articles and stories published in various magazines. She also teaches writing in elementary schools, so I grew up in a pro-writing house. My husband has an MA in creative writing and he’s more of a ‘writer’ than I am. I can see some of your points, as well as others’ points about the difficulty and negativity towards writing. I also feel self-conscious about my writing; it is a way to expose the self and my inner feelings. As an art form, there is pressure to produce something fabulous and monumental. Writing also does require quite a bit of mental energy.

I teach foreign lanugages, and in a pedagogy class I took we talked about how writing is the fourth major skill to develop (after hearing, speaking, and reading). Kids usually develop writing last of all (not just the physical act, but the creating of content). It is not only a productive act, not just receptive, but unlike speech it is visible and more open to critique.

My kids are only 6 and 3 and we have done a few things to encourage writing. They both have fallen in love with letters early and started writing words. My three-year-old (almost 4) loves to write his name and has started wanting to write notes to people. I admit that I don’t always like to help them write things because it takes so long to spell everything out and I get frustrated. One small thing to help kids develop creativity without stressing about handwriting is to have them dictate stories or notes to you. We actually set up an email address for my daughter when she was 4 and would have her dictate emails to us to mail to her grandparents and other relatives. I think handwriting is important and neccesary, but teaching kids some computer skills is good too. I’ve been much more willing to write in my journal now that I keep it on my computer.
Tay
April 11th, 2010 @ 3:03 pm

What put me off to writing were the unclear expectations that teachers had for our papers. We were explained what a thesis was in seventh grade and why it was necessary, and then it was never reviewed again. It took until my senior year of college before the light finally turned on for me and I actually got A’s on my papers, for the first time since junior high. All that time I was convinced that I was a B student, when all that was wrong is that supporting the thesis was never made clear to me!

Now, I know that there just isn’t enough teacher to go around, but man my life would have been easier if I had just known that ALL OF MY SENTENCES needed to somehow be supporting my main idea. It is a miracle I still got my degree in English without failing any classes. My poor professors would try to help me know what I was doing wrong – if only I had known that I just needed to better learn the absolute basics of it.
jendoop
April 11th, 2010 @ 3:24 pm

Leah, You’re right, reading does take some effort (I downplayed it). Maybe I see it as effortless because I enjoy it so much and get plenty of practice For me, in comparison writing is truly work, although work that can be enjoyable and productive.
Kim
April 11th, 2010 @ 6:29 pm

I think that if you write a lot on your own (not for school assignments or because someone made you), then you will probably see writing as a positive thing. I know that’s how it worked for me and I still love to write.

This makes me want to be very careful with what I’m unconsciously teaching my kids. And I do think you have to be careful. My husband’s stepdad always implied that they were being lazy if they sat around reading rather than working and he has never totally overcome that. Luckily, he recognizes how important reading is and helps me to teach our kids that that is a valuable way to spend their time by reading to them, he just doesn’t read much for himself.
Jannet
April 12th, 2010 @ 8:42 am

I love the little notes. My most treasured keepsakes from my children (so far, they are still young) feature their first attempts at writing. I would have wrote back under the door and then let him out.

I struggled with pretty severe shyness and social anxiety disorder as a child and teen. I hardly ever spoke aloud anywhere outside of home. Writing was a very neccessary means of communication for me both at school and as an emotional outlet. I still write when I have big issues to sort through. I always have more to write than to say.

I try hard to make words in general very important and plentiful. Books outnumber toys and Easter baskets and Christmas stockings are filled with journals, notebooks in fun shapes, markers, crayons, pencils, and just about anything else I can pick up in the stationary aisle. So far, it is working.

My daughter loves to write and has won contests at the state level. She is a compulsive doodler, so I have to make sure she has paper handy all the time or I find scribbles and notes on walls, counters, or just about any flat surface. We have come to love the magic erasers around here.
Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury
April 13th, 2010 @ 9:12 pm

As soon as I could read, my father and I would write notes back and forth in church. I would ask him questions about something a song lyric said, or about something a speaker said, and he would teach me the gospel in his answers. I really wish I still had those notes.

I have done the same with my children as we have sat in church together. I have some of those notes, thank goodness.

My children have also seen me take notes in church and other meetings, and I think that has set an example of writing for them just as my reading for enjoyment has set an example of reading.

I have also helped them with their writing homework by being an editor for them. The editing I have done with them has dealt with things like structure and syntax, and not the subject matter, so I have been able to be positive about the content and to help them feel confident about the expression.

All of these things, I believe, have helped them to be willing to write, and one of them has found that her being able to write has helped with her career (she’s a lawyer).