Yesterday, my son, who is 6-years-old, finished his first chapter book by himself. In fact, my partner woke up to find him sitting in his room reading quietly. The book was 11 chapters long and written for a child at least 3 years older than him. He is described by his teachers as a model student. His 1st Grade teacher has gone so far as to seat children with less-than-desirable behavior next to him; hoping that he’ll rub off on the kid. With Parent/Teacher conferences just around the corner, his teacher told us that there is no need to meet unless we had issues we needed to discuss with her. He can add together 6-digit numbers, and actually ASKED me a few nights ago if we could pretend the “plus” signs were “times” signs on his flash cards in order to work on multiplication.

No, I’m not just in the mood to brag this morning (although it’d be easy if I were). I’m just in the mood to make a point about parental involvement. After reading a great post on the importance of father’s in their children’s lives, I couldn’t help but affirm it with my own experience. More importantly, I get tired of the attitude that “broken families” ruin all hope for children to succeed in life or be emotionally stable. That’s just a bunch of bunk. Divorced children are just as capable of leading healthy, happy lives as the next child. I had many friends growing up that were from two parent households, and I could quickly rattle off the names of several that have had severe problems adjusting to this world. It is more about the parents’ involvement in their children’s lives than whether or not they live under the same roof.