Reflections: Professional and Mom
Dear Friend,
I wake up at 4AM to stretch and run. Running early morning on the road, plop, plop, plop, is my natural habitat, for my body and my mind. This morning I kept thinking about something a friend said about The Case Method Miracle, my recently published book.
My friend shared that The Case Method Miracle is different from the parenting books she had read. It is lacking the "expert" view. It is lacking the backup research and analytical comparison to the current, “hot” parenting approaches. It does not argue for its own benefit over other parenting approaches. All that is factual, I agreed. A wonderful conversation ensued. I have been thinking about what we discussed and wanted to share some thoughts here.
Several books and parenting points of view from Harvard people are out there about “professionalizing” parenting and using business tools to become more effective in running families. As if the mom is the COO, or something along those lines. All that is well, and I think a great way to perhaps improve managing our every-day lives.
I did not do that in my book. I am not sharing referenced research, nor comparing against other parenting methods along pre-defined criteria. None of that.
My book is upside down in that regard. I went the other way. I went away from all my career frameworks and structured strategies. I immersed myself in the life of my child. What does he like? What makes it fun for him? How can we make this play? I was so immersed in being a mom—no going to the office or home computer during naptimes—that it really helped me to push to see my child’s world. In my desire to simplify and train character, the idea about stripping the Harvard Business School Case Method into its very basic elements occurred. After that, it was to identify which elements I must keep and how, in order to make it fun for my child. What things matter to him? How does he see it? So I had the framework, but I stripped it so it was just only barely there, and then re-built with the child in mind. Then I tried it. I tried it again. I shared it, and shared it again. Then it was calibration and having fun with it. The book idea came later, and it was really just to share what I had done and witnessed with others. I never meant my book to be an expert account or to argue its pros and cons against other approaches.
The case method, as I describe it in its simplest form, is only one tool to use. Fortunately, it can cover a lot of things we try to do in other ways and it can keep things pretty simple. What it does require is that as a parent, I pay attention to my child, spend time one-on-one, and speak to him face-to-face. The approach is flexible—how to do, how often, where, when.
Perhaps the different way of looking at this issue is a strength. Perhaps it was necessary for me to become a full-time mom to see it this way. This is diversity of thought.
Today, as I calibrate the case method idea, I am still not thinking how to compare with other approaches or how to argue its benefits over other methods. I am now involving older children to help think how this could be age-graded, not upgraded, but age-graded to work with teens and beyond. They will help me. The barest bones simple with the youngest, some nuances added for older children, even more for teenagers. The extreme complex case method can be found at Harvard Business School!
As we move toward the complexity in the spectrum, the potency does not necessarily increase at the same rate. The two could even be inversely related. I do not have research to back that up. It is a hypothesis, perhaps to be explored later.
Appreciatively,
Anne
I wake up at 4AM to stretch and run. Running early morning on the road, plop, plop, plop, is my natural habitat, for my body and my mind. This morning I kept thinking about something a friend said about The Case Method Miracle, my recently published book.
My friend shared that The Case Method Miracle is different from the parenting books she had read. It is lacking the "expert" view. It is lacking the backup research and analytical comparison to the current, “hot” parenting approaches. It does not argue for its own benefit over other parenting approaches. All that is factual, I agreed. A wonderful conversation ensued. I have been thinking about what we discussed and wanted to share some thoughts here.
Several books and parenting points of view from Harvard people are out there about “professionalizing” parenting and using business tools to become more effective in running families. As if the mom is the COO, or something along those lines. All that is well, and I think a great way to perhaps improve managing our every-day lives.
I did not do that in my book. I am not sharing referenced research, nor comparing against other parenting methods along pre-defined criteria. None of that.
My book is upside down in that regard. I went the other way. I went away from all my career frameworks and structured strategies. I immersed myself in the life of my child. What does he like? What makes it fun for him? How can we make this play? I was so immersed in being a mom—no going to the office or home computer during naptimes—that it really helped me to push to see my child’s world. In my desire to simplify and train character, the idea about stripping the Harvard Business School Case Method into its very basic elements occurred. After that, it was to identify which elements I must keep and how, in order to make it fun for my child. What things matter to him? How does he see it? So I had the framework, but I stripped it so it was just only barely there, and then re-built with the child in mind. Then I tried it. I tried it again. I shared it, and shared it again. Then it was calibration and having fun with it. The book idea came later, and it was really just to share what I had done and witnessed with others. I never meant my book to be an expert account or to argue its pros and cons against other approaches.
The case method, as I describe it in its simplest form, is only one tool to use. Fortunately, it can cover a lot of things we try to do in other ways and it can keep things pretty simple. What it does require is that as a parent, I pay attention to my child, spend time one-on-one, and speak to him face-to-face. The approach is flexible—how to do, how often, where, when.
Perhaps the different way of looking at this issue is a strength. Perhaps it was necessary for me to become a full-time mom to see it this way. This is diversity of thought.
Today, as I calibrate the case method idea, I am still not thinking how to compare with other approaches or how to argue its benefits over other methods. I am now involving older children to help think how this could be age-graded, not upgraded, but age-graded to work with teens and beyond. They will help me. The barest bones simple with the youngest, some nuances added for older children, even more for teenagers. The extreme complex case method can be found at Harvard Business School!
As we move toward the complexity in the spectrum, the potency does not necessarily increase at the same rate. The two could even be inversely related. I do not have research to back that up. It is a hypothesis, perhaps to be explored later.
Appreciatively,
Anne
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