Fresh off maternity leave, life with now two children has inspired many points of reflection and analysis for me! As I’m sure is true with all second-time parents, child #2 has me examining my own parenting style, debating the importance of nature vs. nurture, and wondering about personality and temperament formation. Though my son is only a few months old, I can’t help but compare him to my now 4.5-year-old daughter. While their baby pictures are nearly indistinguishable apart from the gendered onesies, it’s incredible to witness their apparent differences, and to speculate about what these will mean as they grow up.
My daughter is an academic, oftentimes stating random facts (“Mom. Arctic foxes are white in the winter and brown in the summer.”) and peppering us with questions (“Mom, how do you spell ‘goat’?” and “How does electricity get into our house?”). She has been talking nonstop ever since she learned how, and she also has some perfectionist tendencies, severe FOMO, incredible creativity. She will one day be either a nurse, a teacher, a horsey rider, or a CEO of an international corporation, depending on who and when you ask. As a baby, she wanted to be in the center of the action and took quite a bit of convincing otherwise. Nothing gets by her, and she is definitely the ringleader of our little family.
At a mere 3-months old, my son is much different. He seems to have inherited his father’s “Cali-cool” personality, which I hope sticks! An easy baby thus far, he is generally content hanging out and watching the day unfold. He can’t be bothered by my attempts to do the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” hand motions with him, but he starts smiling as soon as he wakes up and is eager to do so throughout the day. Not to brag, but he has also mastered putting his hands into his mouth much earlier than is developmentally typical. We enjoy making unfounded predictions about his future. Perhaps his extreme wiggly-ness is an indication of his future athleticism! Perhaps his abundant smiles will lead to him being class president (or class clown)! Perhaps his lack of interest in “Itsy Bitsy” means he will hate piano lessons! One thing is for sure: he will need to lean on his easygoing nature to balance out that of his sister. They will be good for each other, I think.
At Bennett, we recognize that education is not a “one size fits all” approach. In our school placement work, what might be a good fit for one child might be a poor fit for another. This is why we always begin our work by understanding the child – who they are and what they need.
As I’m already seeing, even within a family, siblings can be vastly different. My daughter started attending “school” at age 1 and has loved every minute. Her current school is a great fit for her innate love of learning and Type A personality. The day follows a predictable structure including circle time, show-and-tell, stations, table time, and outdoor play. The variety keeps her engaged and active. Her teachers encourage her both academically and socially, and they gently temper her more domineering traits. She absorbs everything (and then tells us about it when she gets home).
It is a bit too soon to make any guesses about my son. Will he be ready for school as young as his sister? Will he also be an engaged learner, or will he need a bit more of a push? Will he be receptive to direct instruction, or will a different method be more effective? How will his social interactions with classmates impact his learning? What if he needs more specialized support?
My children’s education is important to me, and it’s important that they get what they need, even if that might look different for each of them. Time will tell! Stay tuned for an update in about 4-5 years.
And, for families like mine who may be grappling with finding the “best fits” for their unique children, this is what we do at Bennett, and we welcome your contact!
Warmly,
Hannah
Hannah Buzzelli joined the Bennett Operations team in 2019 where she helped manage the company’s daily workflow and provided natural expertise in process refinement. In 2022, Hannah took on a new role at Bennett as Scholarship Programs Manager, and in this capacity she has led the building out of all aspects of Bennett’s Scholarship Management Program: the IT platform for the receipt of scholarship applications, the processes whereby scholarship students are selected, the communications related to all stages of the application process, the onboarding of new scholarship recipients, and the student tracking and reporting required by the corporate scholarship provider. She has also helped to develop the mentoring program that supports scholarship recipients as they transition from secondary school their native countries to universities around the world.
Over the years, Bennett International Education Consultancyhas worked with hundreds of corporations across the globe, many of them Fortune 500 companies, providing domestic and international school advisement & placement services - preschool through university - to the dependents of relocating employees. In addition to education placement, our team provides customized consulting for corporations with a range of education issues: education policy writing & benchmarking, tuition studies, group move advisement & planning, and remote education solutions.