June Cleaver and the NNAT, Part 2

In my last NNAT post, I said that today’s NNAT parents have a thing or two to learn from June Cleaver. Here’s what I meant by that:

Yes, “Leave it to Beaver” was just a TV show, but it was representative of an era when, as so often happened to Beaver, a child who got in trouble would face his parents for reprimand and correction. But the beauty of the show is that neither parent was portrayed as omnipotent.  On the contrary, the series often showed the parents debating their sometimes-divergent approaches to child rearing, and, in many cases, confronting their own mistakes. These were not perfect parents and, as a result, parents everywhere enjoyed watching Ward and June wrestle with what it meant to be a “good” parent.

For instance, in one episode, June exclaimed, “Wally, don’t they teach you any manners at school?” to which he replied, “You know, that’s funny, Mom. At school they’re always saying, ‘don’t they ever teach you any manners at home?’”

Admittedly, we NNAT parents are no longer living in a “Leave it to Beaver” world. To the contrary, parents today are raising their children in a society engulfed by a 24-hour news cycle, endless gossip about celebrities of questionable talent, and a Twitter stream that never shuts up!

The most important message for NNAT parents like you and me is this: UNPLUG!  And, I don’t mean completely unplug from the world and join a cult or go live in a cave or lock your family away from societal influences. What I mean is, the next time you feel like you “don’t have the right answer,” whether related to the NNAT or not, don’t compare yourself to some celebrity mother who always seems like she has her act together. Instead, ask yourself: what would June Cleaver do? And my guess is that she would ask for help. And that’s something that NNAT parents like you and me need to be willing to do as well.

What June Cleaver Can Teach Us About the NNAT Test

Like many NNAT parents, I watch the evening news to get myself caught up on all the things I missed during the week. Watching the broadcast a few weeks ago, I found myself shocked to learn that one of the top “news stories” was that “the Kardashians slid off the road in their SUV today.”  I’m sorry, but when did a single family’s lack of driving prowess become newsworthy? Why aren’t they telling us what we’re doing to combat ISIS or that we’ve found a vaccine for Ebola or why classroom overcrowding could soon become a thing of the past – something, anything, that matters or that’s life-changing for all of us.  Kim’s inability to keep it on the road does not concern me.

As a parent dealing with tough issues – like whether my child will make the cut on the NNAT test – I’m increasingly disgusted with our celebrity-crazed society and long for the bygone days when news and gossip were two decidedly distinct things …  when Dear Abby served as our “voice of reason” and June Cleaver epitomized, by most standards of that era, “Mother of the Year.”

The state of today’s media caused me to nostalgically ponder June’s idealized suburban family life of the mid-20th century, when it seemed like women everywhere lived a uniformly picture-perfect existence.  Life was so much easier; June’s only real worries were which Jell-O mold she should use, which cut of meat to prepare and what she might find in the Beave’s pockets!

Yes, I know, we NNAT parents live in a very different world today. But truth be told, parents still deal with most of the same issues that they wrestled with back then – even if they’re “packaged” a bit differently.

I have some thoughts on how NNAT moms and dads could stand to take a page from June Cleaver’s book. I’ll share more on that in the days ahead …

 

NYC Scores Strike Fear in NNAT Parents

Parents like you whose children are preparing for the NNAT test are parents who strive to provide the best for their children. And last week something happened that confirms how a single test can change your child’s lifelong trajectory.

What happened last week, you ask? Simple: NYC Gifted and Talented scores came out. As you know, Testing Mom caters to parents all over the country and indeed all over the world, so chances are you aren’t among the parents in NYC wringing their hands over their child’s recently-released score. But my hunch is that no matter where you live, you’ll be able to relate to what these parents are going through just by the fact that you are a parent who cares about your child’s educational well-being.

Indeed, if you’re preparing your child for the NNAT test the specter of waiting by the phone, as it were, for your child’s test scores to come through, is something both uniquely familiar and uniquely terrifying.

Of course, today many parents across NYC are feeling gratitude that their child scored in the 99th percentile, qualifying them for a seat in a citywide G&T program. To those parents, I say, “Congrats and good job!”

On the other side of the fence, I can tell you from experience that there are countless frantic, disheartened and upset parents who were shocked at their children’s low test scores. Without fail, once the scores come out there are two types of parent: those who are elated and those who are crushed.

The best way to avoid falling on the wrong side of this equation is to make sure that your child is well-prepared for the NNAT weeks if not months in advance of test day. I can tell you from experience that the parents whose children get crushingly low scores are those who failed to prepare.