Why You Should Be Teaching Your Students to Beg

Why You Should Be Teaching Your Students to Beg

by | May 12, 2014 | Blog

My wife and I have made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of interactions our 2 year old daughter has with technology.  We haven’t so much decreased her screen time as just avoided it all together.*  However, if you’re a parent like I am, then you know that your  child has an uncanny ability to chip away at your resolve.  Between ear twisting whines to sweet smiles our daughter has learned the art of begging, leaving shame in her wake to finagle her way into getting what she wants.  Lately, as her reasoning ability has begun to develop it’s been interesting to hear her try and use logic to get what she wants: “I can’t take a nap today because it’s cloudy,” or “I’m sad, can I have ice cream because it’ll make me feel better.”  Of course, when despite all her effort we still say no, she resorts to dramatic flails of her hands in the air with an exacerbated “please!” Truthfully, although I don’t want to give into my daughter’s iPad fix I’d like to see her sharpen her ability to beg, or said differently, sharpen her skills of persuasion.  I think we undervalue this skill in schools, and outside of schools we often relegate it to the used car salesman.  In doing so we miss an important skill-building opportunity with our students.  No not the art of car salesmanship, but the important skills of persuasion, argument, rhetoric, empathy, resilience, networking/community-building and many more. In fact, this is an area I continue to try and build in myself.  If you’ve been around me lately, you know...