Same kanji, same wrong stroke, third time this week. I already hit that exact wall 30 years ago, and I keep handing him the workaround. He keeps not taking it. The dev-psych books say his brain isn't there yet. Tonight's homework is still tonight's, though. Be the wise one, kid ── trust me, it's easier that way.
"Look, you write it like this."
"I've said this three times already, right?"
"Just staring at it isn't gonna make it stick, buddy."
Homework time, every week, some version of this conversation.
He's listening. He is. He probably nods.
Then on the next problem, same mistake. Same character, same wrong place. Third time.
Looking at the red marks on his page, something quiet leaks out in my head.
"C'mon, man. Please."
The 19th-century German chancellor Otto von Bismarck has this line that gets quoted everywhere:
"Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others."
Wise people learn from history (= other people's mistakes); foolish people only learn from their own. That's the gist.
Bismarck, you're killing me. You were right ── thought to myself, sitting next to the homework page.
I already went through this. Kanji, math, the exact spots my kid is stuck on, I was stuck on those 30 years ago. I know why people stall there. I know where to be careful.
I keep handing him the history. "This one's tricky, watch out here." "Stroke order goes like this."
He doesn't take it.
Every single time, he stops at the same place. Same mistake. Same dramatic "augh!"
He's stubbornly choosing the fool's side of Bismarck's quote.
I looked it up, because I'm that kind of dad. Turns out there's an academic defense for him.
Jean Piaget says kids 7 to 11 are in the "concrete operational stage"1, where abstract explanations basically don't land.
The abstract-reasoning hardware (prefrontal cortex) doesn't fully cook until the mid-to-late 20s2.
Apparently. Apparently. Apparently.
But tonight's homework is tonight, y'know?
If I wait until his mid-20s, homework is over. School is over. The "use it now" window has closed.
I get it, the brain isn't wired for abstract delivery yet. Honestly, when we design the Todo stuff over at Lyco App, the dev-stage research is exactly why we lean on visuals over walls of text and small steps over big leaps.
And still, sitting next to the same wrong character three Tuesdays in a row, what bubbles up is:
"Please. Just listen."
One more time, the Bismarck quote.
"Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others."
I want my kid to be the wise one. Instead of running into the same mistake 30 times, I want him to take the parent's experience (= history) and shortcut past it.
His life isn't short, but childhood is. If he can get it in 3 tries instead of 30, that frees up time for the other stuff he's actually into.
There are plenty of parenting books that say "let them fail, let them learn." I read those. I get it.
But tonight, looking at the same mistake on the same page, what I'm thinking is:
Be the wise one, kid, please ── it's easier that way, trust me.