My 9 year old son has been extremely interested in Dog Man since last year. We have all the released titles of Dog Man and we preorder the unreleased ones. Yes, it’s a serious relationship!
The author of Dog Man is Dav Pilkey, you would know him better for ‘Captain Underpants’. This man absolutely understands what 6-10 year old boys want and he does a great job at serving them just that!
If you are parents to young 6-10 year old boys, you know that all they want to read and enjoy talking about is poop humor and fart jokes. Well if you have an intellectually gifted child, he might like space and celestial stuff. But I have a regular son who just like me is not very intellectually stimulated and is more of a creative breed.
My son loves reading so it wasn’t surprising to see him choosing to read these books always. But what intrigued me was that he got so attached to his Dog Man books which kind of started making him feel more confident. I was very happy to see him feel that it’s okay to talk and laugh about poop and farts and it’s not weird to voice out his overactive imagination! I was overjoyed to see him almost open up because of these books.
My son is diagnosed with mild ADHD (Attention Deficiency Hyperactivity syndrome). In all his parent teacher conferences something I hear the most is his lack of focus and attention. But we have never reprimanded him for that because we know he doesn’t mean to do it intentionally. So with this background I was definitely surprised seeing him hooked to these books all day. When he’s not reading, he’s just looking at the pictures in these books. The pictures in these books are cartoons and he loves them. Boys at this age usually love comics. I have seen my older brother enjoy superhero comics while I stuck to fairy tales.
I have a bad habit of researching everything for hours. It started when my son was born premature and later diagnosed with cerebral palsy. I always keep reading about medical stuff in a serious FMO (Fear of Missing Out). So, now that habit has moved on to anything and everything under the Sun!
You might have guessed by now, yes, I researched about Dav Pilkey too! It’s not right to say this, but I was absolutely overjoyed to learn that Dav Pilkey was also diagnosed with Dyslexia and ADHD in his childhood. One of his teachers told him he can’t be living all his life drawing cartoons! Fortunately, Dav wasn’t a good listener and the rest is history!
Dav Pilkey is an example of how every child when encouraged to do what he/she likes best eventually shines through.
My boy shuts down completely when we try to teach him Math. I was just like that! I still am! So if I scold him and force him to learn Math, will that do any good? He wants to be a DJ when he grows up. So shouldn’t we as parents foster his interest in music and steer him to the right direction to at least give him a chance to learn and excel in what he loves and not what we think is ideal for him.
I always say this, it’s not our job to tell our child what he/she is supposed to paint. We should only get them an easel and it’s up to them to choose what to paint and fill it with the colors they want.
Today, if I help my son with his interests, tomorrow he might grow up to be like his idols DJ Khaled and Dav Pilkey!
Cheers to the thought that every child gets the freedom and the luck to do whatever he/she wants to do when they grow up!