Parents, move away from kid’s science project

Karina Bland is on assignment. This column ran Feb. 2, 2006.

When my son was in kindergarten, he emptied the sand from his shoes into a clay flowerpot by the front door every night. When the flier came home announcing the science fair, we had a ready-made project.

Just how much sand was he siphoning from the playground?

Sawyer, 5, liked the idea. Little did I know that this science project would teach me an important lesson.

Every night, Sawyer carefully poured the day’s sand collection into the flowerpot. He refused all offers at school to empty out his shoes. Some nights he limped home.

I suggested a sample week, and he put the sand into Ziplocs labeled “Monday” through “Friday.”

As the due date approached, we poured the rest of the sand into a big Ziploc and weighed it on the bathroom scale. In 113 days, minus one absence and two rainy days, Sawyer had collected 41⁄2 pounds of sand.

“You know what we should do?” I said, pulling out a calculator. “We should divide the amount of sand by the number of days and figure out your average daily intake.”

Sawyer asked, “What’s divide?”

I had gone too far. This was his project. The higher math would have to wait, along with my scalloped-edged scrapbook paper and computer-generated labels. Sawyer insisted on writing out his own labels.

For me, the science fair was a chance for my kid to show off what he could do and maybe win a ribbon. Sawyer thought it was fun to ask a question and figure out the answer.

We all want our children to succeed, even if it sometimes means pushing them out of the way and doing the work for them. What I learned was Sawyer was capable of doing fine without me.

And, in the end, we, I mean, he earned a purple ribbon, the highest distinction, all by himself.