64). My son is also currently at a formative period that has special significance for single-parents families. For instance, Walker and Hennig also point out that, "Single-mother families are often affectively charged, with high instrumental affection combined with high negativity and conflict, particularly in the transition to adolescence" (1997, p. 64).
The "transition to adolescence" can be a rocky period in anyone's life, of course, and it is reasonable to expect my son to experience some problems in general and with me in particular during this transitional period. Fortunately, this challenging developmental period is eased somewhat as children grow into mid-adolescence. As Walker and Henning report, "In early adolescence, parent/child communication patterns are poorer in single-mother families than in two-parent families, although this improved by mid-adolescence" (1997, p. 64). Despite this trend towards improved communications, empirical observations of other mother-only families indicates that the next 8 years will be characterized by experimentation with drugs, premarital sex and other potentially self-destructive behaviors that many young people experience during their adolescent years.
To help my son overcome these challenges as well as those that go hand-in-hand with simply growing up in the 21st century, I have made extra efforts to explain our economic circumstances in ways that he can appreciate, and to maintain amicable relations with my former spouse as being in the best interests of our son. In this regard, Yingling (2006) emphasizes that, "In families without fathers, children tend to do less well on standardized intelligence tests. In general, fathers' involvement is related to better school performance for children; but, in particular, boys seem to do better with interactive fathers. Boys perform better in school when they have highly involved fathers" (p. 126). Furthermore, I have taken steps to improve our long-term economic circumstances through higher education and believe this has gone a long way in motivating my son to also achieve academically. We frequently do our homework together, for example, and we discuss each other's school assignments in order to keep abreast of what is going on in each other's academic pursuits. My son even likes to joke that, "He'll ground me if I don't finish my homework and do well on my tests." More importantly, though, by demonstrating the importance of higher education to my son now, he will likely be more enthusiastic about pursuing his own college career when the time comes.
This type of friendly banter is characteristic of our close relationship, but I have tried to fuel his interest in learning all of his life. For instance, I read to my son on a regular basis almost as soon as he was born, and he learned to read by the age of 3 years using commonly available resources such as Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. Indeed, I distinctly remember the spark of learning and recognition that took place when he was first able to follow along in the text of the book and went from rote memorization of phrases such as "Sam I am" (which he enthusiastically repeated every time) to actually recognizing the letters and the words they formed and being able to read on his own. This was such an exciting experience for both of us! In fact, by the time he was 5 years old, my son was reading to me instead of the other way around and he continues to enjoy print media despite the availability of online resources. Since that time, we like to frequent used book stores to locate age-appropriate reading materials and my son has accumulated a large library of books on a wide range of topics of interest to many young boys, including rocks and minerals, wood carving and drawing.
No one knows when this spark of learning and recognition will occur, of course, but it was an important event for both of us since it represented the beginning of my son's lifelong path to learning as well as convincing me that I had an important role to play in helping my son become a better learner and student -- and I have tried to take this role seriously. Likewise, although I no longer read to my son, I try to use his questions about life as learning opportunities that we can both build on to promote outside interests and to improve his understanding of the world in which we live. A good recent example of this occurred recently...
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