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 Lansing's Advice Column


Dear IMO,

I am having trouble with my children. They seem completely against the idea of reading. When I was their age, I read everything that I could get: comic books, Hardy Boys’ Mysteries, even my parents’ Readers’ Digest. No matter how I try to convince my kids, they seem to have some excuse—too much reading in school, busy on the computer, watching their favorite show, etc. How do I go about changing their attitude?

Desperate in South Lansing

Dear DSL,

Reading is so essential that I cannot imagine how anyone can go through life without a good book on hand. Words are powerful. Within the pages of a book, readers discover ideas and thoughts that literally change lives. Think of Upton Sinclair’s, “The Jungle”, Aldous Huxley’s, “Brave New World,” Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer” Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” and many others that have changed both the individual consciousness as well as a nation’s. Books often serve as society’s moral compass guiding the citizenry at times when few dare to speak against the accepted norm.

Unfortunately, our society places more and more emphasis on computers, television, and other technological distractions at the expense of reading. Companies spend millions of dollars in advertising hoping your children, and mine, buy the newest game on the market. As a parent, you have the power, and moral obligation, to regulate how much time your children spend in front of the television, computer terminal, and with game boy/x-box type gadgetry. You have the ability to establish rules that balance all of your children’s recreational activities. Reading ought to be included in this list of activities.

Rather than taking the approach of malevolent overlord and ordering your children to read for 1 hour before bedtime, sit down with them and work out a schedule where you can find some balance among all of the leisure time activity. Find some common ground, and build upon a foundation of consensus. Some nights can be deemed “movie night” while others will be strictly reading and other quiet activities. You might even throw in one night of “Monopoly” or “Life” to remind them that even you still have a little kid inside your adult body. With this approach, your children just might find reading as enjoyable as you did.



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