When a child’s project shows a parental hand at work

I had been vaguely aware that a project was afoot, mainly because Finn had asked me to purchase the aforementioned trifold poster for him. I was also aware that he had left much of his preparation until the last minute, and while he kept his poster folded up and hidden away, I peeked. It was, […]

I had been vaguely aware that a project was afoot, mainly because Finn had asked me to purchase the aforementioned trifold poster for him. I was also aware that he had left much of his preparation until the last minute, and while he kept his poster folded up and hidden away, I peeked. It was, even viewed through my adoring parental eyes, a subpar effort. When I asked him how his poster had turned out, he deflected, and that is when I knew he was disappointed in himself, too.
The morning of the wax museum presentation, Finn came downstairs dressed up in a suit we had bought for his great-grandmother’s funeral. He presented me with a black Sharpie and asked me to draw a Walt Disney-style mustache on his upper lip. My older son, Ben, kept an eye on the proceedings, urging me to extend the ends out further, lest I send his little brother off to school looking like Hitler in a cheap suit.
The author’s son, Finn, as Walt Disney.Credit Jessica LaheyLater that day, I toured the wax museum, populated by childhood heroes – Charles Schulz, Enzo Ferrari, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Sacagawea. I visited with each child, listening to their rehearsed monologues as they pointed to the lopsided timelines and adorably potato-headed portraits oozing excess glue from their curling edges. Some posters were neater than others, but nearly all were the adorable, misshapen, appropriately flawed products of third-grade hands.
One presentation, however, stood apart from the others. As the child explained the historical significance of the subject, I noted the poster’s symmetric design, professionally matted and mounted portrait and precisely scaled biographical timeline. Its subject, less childhood hero than parental aspiration, along with the sheer perfection of the poster telegraphed what teachers and parents politely refer to as “a bit of help from parents,” but what children – particularly the ones who have slaved over their own posters – understand as cheating.
We’ve all been there, usually around 11 on the night before a child’s project is due, reluctantly stepping over the line between helping and taking over. It starts out innocently enough, as, “Here, let me help you cut those last pieces out so you can get to bed,” and quickly snowballs into a lie, a Ph.D. dissertation in third-grade handwriting.
Parents step over this line so often that tales of elementary-school science projects worthy of MacArthur genius grants have become a modern day cliché. I recently asked teachers for stories of the most egregious examples, and I heard about skits that became spectacles fit for Broadway; professionally wired, moving lightscapes of the solar system and museum-quality replicas of the Parthenon populated by a Greek citizenry created to scale on a 3D printer. When presented with these projects, teachers roll their eyes and feign enthusiasm for these “student” efforts while the other parents look on, wondering how their own child’s efforts can possibly measure up.
And all the while, our children know the real score. They know when they have not done their best, and the discomfort and embarrassment they feel when they have to put that subpar work on display for others often spurs them to do better next time. They also know when accolades for that awe-inspiring, award-winning project are not theirs to claim, and victory is hollow.
Finn’s Walt Disney poster was a last-minute flail, and we both knew it. I said nothing, because I knew that the experience of having to stand behind his work for two full hours as teachers, older students and parents filed past would speak louder, and more persuasively, than I ever could. Two years later, when faced with a similar project, this time on evolution and habitat, he gave it everything he had. That Walt Disney poster was used as kindling in our wood stove within a week, while the habitat poster hangs on the wall of his room, in a place of pride.  
At least once a month, a parent comes clean to me in an email or a conversation and admits that yes, they have once again meddled in their children’s work for the sake of appearances or a grade, and yes, they knew it was wrong when they did it. But they worry that teachers expect children’s projects to look like works of art, and to allow a child to hand in a child’s work has become a dereliction of parental duty.
It’s time to stop the madness, and I’m not just talking to parents, here. Yes, parents have to keep their itchy trigger fingers off the hot glue gun, but teachers also need to recognize their part in perpetuating this farce and hold parents accountable for their egregious acts of educational interference. So here is what I propose: How about we both commit to a cease-fire?
Parents and teachers are the grown-ups in this equation, and children depend on us to act like it. If parents will agree to stop mucking about in their children’s work, and teachers will agree to assess children’s work for what it is – the work of children – we can restore elementary-school science fairs, egg drops and wax museums to their former unadulterated, imperfect yet developmentally appropriate glory.
Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate