Every other month, I spend a Saturday with my 7-year-old daughter, just the two of us, and we do whatever she wants. My wife and I do this with all of our kids, actually. This month, Aspen insisted that we get candy and watch Brainchild on Netflix. Recently, she’s been watching that show on repeat. She absolutely loves it, which was unexpected because Aspen isn’t the kind of kid to get jazzed about educational programming.
She’s often struggled in school. Reading has always been a challenge, and keeping her focused on assignments often takes a lot of redirecting. Naturally, this has all resulted in her not being all that confident while completing homework assignments, and definitely not confident in the classroom. And like many children during the pandemic, attending first grade online only set her further behind. All of that has made second grade a heavy lift for my young daughter.
This isn’t to say she isn’t bright. I think she absolutely is. She speaks well, and she has this dorky yet hilarious sense of humor. Sometimes I overhear her in her room telling jokes, her stuffed animals lined up along her bed like an audience, almost like she’s preparing for a future as a stand-up comic. It’s easily one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen. Her jokes are absolutely hilarious, and I’ve heard it said that a sense of humor is a sign of intelligence. But when it comes to school work, she hesitates. She gets easily frustrated, and despite Aspen having two doting parents who are bursting with encouragement, I can still see behind her blue eyes that she feels insecure about learning, and so she avoids it.
The morning before Aspen insisted I watch Brainchild with her, my wife, Mel, and I were discussing ways to get her caught up over the summer before she goes into third grade. We talked about summer workbooks, reading with her a couple times a day, maybe even enrolling her in summer school. But we never discussed watching educational shows on Netflix.
But as Aspen and I watched Brainchild together, just the two of us sitting on the sofa, wolfing down candy, I couldn’t help but notice that she knew all the answers to every question posed on the show. She schooled me on germs, ocean creatures and even what dreams mean. I’d never seen her so engaged with learning, and science, but more importantly, I’d never seen her so confident in what she was talking about and so engaged with her learning. And as a father of a daughter who isn’t always self-assured in her learning, this felt like an amazing gift.
We snuggled on the sofa, and we learned together, just father and daughter. At one point, I dropped one of my gummy worms, and as I picked it up, I said “five-second rule,” only to have Aspen actually grab my wrist and say, “Daddy, germs don’t wait five seconds. That’s an urban myth.” Only she didn’t say “urban myth,” she said “auburn myth,” but the sincerity in her raised eyebrows and serious expression told me what she was really trying to say. And then, a few minutes later, there was a whole episode on germs, and I realized she was using applied knowledge to school her own father on the five-second rule. And yes, as hard as it is for me to say this, I put the gummy worm in the garbage.
That Saturday, Aspen and I watched four episodes of Brainchild, and with each episode, I felt more impressed and more optimistic about my daughter’s learning. I was honestly floored by how much she learned and retained from the show, and by how willing she was to flex her new knowledge. And I really enjoyed watching the episodes too! I’ve watched a lot of educational shows with my three kids over the years, and not all of them are created equally. But with Brainchild, I not only learned new information, I was also surprised and, dare I say, entertained by the presentation. And I couldn’t help but feel grateful to be sharing time with my daughter, enjoying the show, learning a few new things myself and seeing Aspen’s blue-green eyes light up with new knowledge.
Once we finished our time together, Aspen asked if she could keep watching Brainchild. She must have seen the show at least a dozen times by that point. It was Saturday, and she needed to finish her chores before getting more screen time, but as I looked at my young daughter, eyes bright, gears turning in her head, and I couldn’t help but think about the conversation Mel and I had earlier in the morning about getting her caught up before going into third grade. We had a long summer of workbooks and reading ahead of us. Then I thought about all the applied knowledge she’d been showing as we watched the show, and I ended up making a decision I didn’t expect. “Yes. You can watch TV for one more hour, as long as you watch Brainchild.” She put out her little hand, and we shook on it. Then she turned on the next episode.
