Stawicki - Release Your Kids Dormant Genius In Just 10 Minutes a Day: Parenting Your Smart Underachiever With Consistency and Love

If you don't know yet, you will discover in Chapter Two that I'm a firm believer in the results of any sustained action. But this belief alone wouldn't be enough to make me share the intimacy of my family life. There was an event which I cannot erase from my memory, and I just need to share my experience, if I want to keep the peace of my soul.

During the past school year, my younger son, Nathaniel, at the age of 10, had some problems with his school education: mediocre grades, neglected homework, unprepared for lessons many times. The situation was new to me my elder son has never had any troubles learning. I decided to pay more attention to Nathaniel's education. I noticed his problems with proper spelling, reading and writing, and decided to pay a visit to the professionals at the Learning Disabilities Service Center.

The first step was our joint interview with an educationist. I remember me explaining my son's difficulties and the measures I took to help him overcome them. Simple things: doing homework together, giving reading assignments, learning words in a foreign language. And then the pedagogue said something which disturbed me very much:

"It's not common to see such a commitment from a parent."

At first, I felt admirable: what a good parent I am, ho, ho, ho! But in the same second, I realized I was doing nothing spectacular, just something every parent would do in my place, wouldn't they? I was perplexed. The educationist lady has been dealing with troubled children and their parents for years, that's her job. Did she really mean what she said? I looked her in the eyes. She was serious.

A shocking realization struck me: it is something exceptional to take care of your child. To support him, to help him, to be with him.

There are plenty of excuses for such a situation and I went through most of them: I don't have time; that's the teachers' job, they are paid for it; I have other responsibilities and family members to take care of; he is just a kid, it's just a primary school, he will deal with it when he grows up; I'm exhausted.

I used them until the circumstances got dramatic and I had to face the truth. Those excuses were meant to comfort me in my laziness, not to improve my son's situation.

And I found the truth. Regarding Nathaniel's education, I should be the most interested man in the universe. There is no one else who can replace me in that position. Who should be more interested? Maybe his teachers, a school pedagogue, a school psychologist? For them, he could be just a part of their job. And they can live with such an attitude. They have their problems, families and priorities, too. They may be more qualified, but as a father, I should be the man who cares most about my son's future.

And he is too young to understand the consequences of neglecting his education. I know what I'm talking about, I didn't start to be serious about my education until my university studies.

The interview with the educationist steeled my determination. No matter how busy I am, how tired, if I don't care about his progress, nobody else will. I decided to keep my commitment for as long as it takes. Before the interview, I was set more for a quick fix than a regular program. I thought I would get him out of the woods and go back to my activities.

And I strongly suppose that's the attitude of the majority of parents, and the reason for the pedagogue's remark.

I stuck to the simple things we were doing together with Nathaniel to help him. And the outcome was simply amazing. There was a moment when he more than doubled his reading speed (I let him off the hook; he walked out on reading training and his results worsened almost immediately). His command of English improved drastically; he even took part in a school English contest. But what is most important, he finished the school year with honors. I really didn't expect that.

It didn't take me much time daily to teach him, help him with homework, examine him. I just couldn't find more time - I work and commute almost 12 hours every working day. My son is important to me, but he is not the center of my world. His education is not the most important factor in raising him, there is also spirituality and health - more significant considerations for me. Besides, I have two more kids, a wife, bills to pay and so on, and so on. I can't recall supervising his education taking me more than one hour any given day sometimes, it has been literally just a couple of minutes.

And it worked, the results came. Why? Check out the second chapter.