Success In Parenting

Throughout my growing up years, I've always been on the lookout for good role models. Two of my role models for successful parenting come from the comics section of the newspaper. As a teenager, I saw the genius behind the father in Calvin and Hobbes and now as an adult I find the wisdom in the grandfather in Pickles.

Both of these characters have a unique way of explaining how things work in the world or how they have come to be. Oftentimes they were faced with the questions that they did not know the correct answer to or that they didn't want to take the time of going into a detail explanation on a subject when they thought the child wasn't really paying attention; so they made up something that sounded plausible.

In my efforts to teach my children, I have tried to use this technique in order to help my children develop their reasoning skills. Tonight my efforts paid off.On the car ride home, I had a conversation with my daughters about the music that we were listening to. It was a playlist movie and musical scores and I was impressed that Cass and Lily could pick out the tunes and name the movie, play, show, etc. If they did not know the show belonging to the song, they were very good about asking for the details so that they will know the answer in the future. When the song Peter Gunn played, they asked what it was from. I told them about the TV show and that this song was also the theme song to a video game I played as a kid, Spy Hunter. Then Cass asked,

"Dad, was this in the days before color was invented?"

Success!!!! I think I reached the footstool of my comic strip role models. As I chuckeled to myself about this, Cass became a little discouraged and I knew it was time for the real explanation of technological progress over the past several decades to take place. Now I know why there are only a few window boxes of text in the comics. Calvin's father and the grandpa in Pickles have lucked out in not having to explain life in its entirety. But, at least I know that my kids are listening to me even when my answers to their questions are absurd.