On His Own Terms

I remember when Little Bro learned to walk. He took two steps away from his push-car in the driveway, and nervously scrambled back to the safety of its handles. Two hours later, he was running around our kitchen chasing his older brother.

When he was a toddler, I took him to mommy and me swim classes. We practiced in the neighborhood pool and he swam comfortably in the safety of his puddle jumper until he was in preschool. One summer, we went to the pool and I was ready to put on his floats when he said “I don’t need that anymore. I can swim now.” I stood near him in the water while he swam on the stairs and soon he was swimming the length of the pool independently.

When he was four years old, he got a bike with training wheels. At five, we encouraged him to try learning to ride his bike without them, and each time I offered to remove his training wheels he said he wasn’t ready. Until one night, after bedtime, wearing a Stormtrooper costume, he told us he wanted them off. He giggled as he took off down the sidewalk, and he’s been riding around ever since.

Little Bro takes in everything. He waits until he can execute a new skill perfectly. And he does so on his own terms.

So why did I think reading would be any different?

I started teaching him when he was in preschool and he picked it up so quickly I was shocked. Even sight words and compound words came easily to him, but there was one catch- he didn’t want to do it. When Big Bro was that age, he’d persevere through beginner books and earn a sticker upon completion. He’d read them again and again. Little Bro had to be coaxed into one book at a time. He breezed through and never picked it back up. When he started kindergarten, he only brought home picture books from the library.

“You can ask the librarian to show you some more challenging books,” I said. He’d shrug and reassure me that he liked the pictures.

Kindergarten reading homework turned into arguments and stalling tactics and frustration. I knew he could do it. He just didn’t want to. I almost came to terms with having one reader, and one child who preferred anything else.

Then came a trip to the used bookstore in Tucson with his older cousins. As we browsed the kids section, he laid his eyes on the Captain Underpants series. Full of potty humor and wacky illustrations, it was just the right combination to spark his interest and he asked for not one- but two of the books to take home. He finished them both within the next 48 hours.

It wasn’t that he disliked reading. He just hadn’t found the right book.