Printed in San Diego Union Tribune
September 19, 1996

Written by Charles J. Sykes

Unfortunately, there are some things that children should be learning in school, but don’t. Not all of them have to do with academics. As a modest back-to-school offering, here are some basic rules that may not have found their way into the standard curriculum.

Rule No. 1:
Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase, “It’s not fair” 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2:

The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3:
Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait ’til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5:
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand-parents had a different word of burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6:

It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of “It’s my life,” and “You’re not the boss of me,” and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it’s on your dime. Don’t whine about it, or you’ll sound like a
baby boomer.

Rule No. 7:

Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8:

Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn’t. In some schools, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4)

Rule No. 9:

Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we’re at it, very few jobs are interesting in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10:

Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule No. 11:

Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them.

Rule No. 12:

Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you’re out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That’s what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for “expressing yourself” with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

Rule No. 13:

You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven’t seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Rule No. 14:

Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now.

You’re welcome.

Research shows that whether a child has been read aloud to on a regular basis is the single biggest predictor of a child’s success in learning to read, says University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Associate Professor of education Kathleen Martin, Ph.D.

Martin and UAB Assistant Professor Kay Emfinger, Ph.D., are authors of the new book “Sharing Books Together: Promoting Emergent Literacy Through Reading Aloud and Home-School Partnerships.”

“Reading aloud to children helps them develop oral language,” says Martin. “It teaches them how to listen and how narrative is structured. They also learn vocabulary and how print works and that it is read from left to right.”

Children who are not read aloud to often enter kindergarten and first grade lacking these skills, which Martin says are important for learning how to read.

“A lot of parents know that reading aloud to their children is important,” says Martin, “but often they don’t realize that it continues to be of value as the child ages. Also, many parents probably have less time to read aloud to their children these days.

“It is never too early to begin reading aloud to children,” Martin said. Even infants can enjoy looking at illustrations in a book as their parents read to them. When children are past kindergarten, they still need to be read aloud to in order to learn about more complicated subjects and how to listen to and comprehend more sophisticated text, Martin said.

It’s important for parents to be animated when they are reading to children, says Martin. Using different voices for the various characters in a story makes the experience more fun for young children.

For older children, it’s important to look for quality literature that offers a
satisfying story. Parents can select books that have a particular theme or that are written by the child’s favorite author, she said.

Besides reading aloud narrative fiction, poetry, which has rhyme, rhythm and repetition, can also be enjoyable for children, Martin said. Reading aloud nonfiction also has benefits.

“Some children enjoy facts more than stories,” says Martin, “and reading nonfiction can build up a child’s background knowledge.”

However, parents should never force children to listen to a text if the child is bored by the material. Reading should always be presented as a fun activity, Martin said.

It’s important for parents to be animated when they are reading to children, says Martin. Using different voices for the various characters in a story makes the experience more fun for young children.

For older children, it’s important to look for quality literature that offers a
satisfying story. Parents can select books that have a particular theme or that are written by the child’s favorite author, she said.

Besides reading aloud narrative fiction, poetry, which has rhyme, rhythm and repetition, can also be enjoyable for children, Martin said. Reading aloud nonfiction also has benefits.

“Some children enjoy facts more than stories,” says Martin, “and reading nonfiction can build up a child’s background knowledge.”

However, parents should never force children to listen to a text if the child is bored by the material. Reading should always be presented as a fun activity, Martin said.

It’s important for parents to be animated when they are reading to children, says Martin. Using different voices for the various characters in a story makes the experience more fun for young children.

For older children, it’s important to look for quality literature that offers a
satisfying story. Parents can select books that have a particular theme or that are written by the child’s favorite author, she said.

Besides reading aloud narrative fiction, poetry, which has rhyme, rhythm and repetition, can also be enjoyable for children, Martin said. Reading aloud nonfiction also has benefits.

“Some children enjoy facts more than stories,” says Martin, “and reading nonfiction can build up a child’s background knowledge.”

However, parents should never force children to listen to a text if the child is bored by the material. Reading should always be presented as a fun activity, Martin said.