If the writing your child does isn’t going to be read by others, you don’t have to require your child to edit it.
Just stop.
- Stop editing every piece of writing your kids do.
- Stop pointing out each spelling mistake.
- Stop shaming your child for leaving out capitals.
- Stop calling your child lazy or defiant.
- Stop picking apart their handwriting.
- Stop showing shock or dismay that your child made that mistake again.
- Stop wondering where you’ve gone wrong as a parent-educator.
- Stop believing that the mechanics of writing are more important than the content.
Just stop.
If the writing is not going to be read by anyone but you, leave it alone. Enjoy it for the content, the liveliness, the quirky sense of humor, the flights of imagination, the joy of expression.
If the writing will be read by someone else, would you please clean it up? Pretty please?
Don’t let grandma read your child’s spelling mistakes. Don’t show your credentialed teacher that your child doesn’t know how to use end marks. FIX IT. Spare your kids from ridicule and condescension. The grammar police are ruthless with children. Be not like them.
TRULY: Unless you understand how to teach editing to your child without damaging their sweet self-expressive hearts, it’s better to work on writing mechanics using SOMEONE ELSE’S writing. We recommend copywork and dictation. Do not use their original writing to teach spelling and punctuation.
If you take our online classes or use our products, we’ll give you thorough instruction about how to help your child edit their own writing (they can!) without doing emotional harm to their fragile sense of self. So important! But most parents and teachers have no idea how to do that so…
…just stop.
Clean up their mistakes when you share their work with others.
Leave all the errors alone when no one else is ever going to read their work.
Enjoy your children. Enjoy their writing. Guilt free.
