Monday, December 17, 2018

The Kids Are All Right, II


The first present under our tree? Made by Little A in July, all by himself. He's all right.
So, if you've read Part I, you know what has worked for us in terms of teaching our kids independence, confidence, and resilience. It’s getting a little trickier for me these days with a new teenager dipping her toe in the world of dating and setting her own class schedule, but I see signs that the kids are all right.

When August came, the kids could not wait to get their class and teacher assignments from school. They’d been anticipating this moment for at least a month—yes, they love school. They just do! In any case, we stopped by the mailboxes on the way home. The kids tore open their envelopes in the backseat and S found out that, once again, she will not have any of her close friends in any of her classes this year. Even as she said, “It’s okay. I’m used to it,” I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

We all separated to unpack from our weekend away; I figured she needed time to process alone anyway. Next time I saw S, she had cleaning supplies and was headed upstairs to clean the bathroom, her weekly chore. Then, when I went over to the sofa to fold the four loads of laundry sitting there, it took me a minute to figure out what I was seeing. All the laundry had been folded. I’m super picky about my laundry, so I usually hog that chore, yet here it was, done. I knew it hadn’t been either of the boys, so it must have been S.

I thanked her for doing it and she shrugged me off, so I called in her dad for reinforcement. At bedtime, he casually said, “Thank you for folding my laundry.” And our daughter’s reply blew us both away. “I felt sad. When I feel sad, helping makes me feel better.”

When my brain caught up to her amazingly insightful comment, I let her know that she’d spoken a deep truth and that a lot of people have to grow up a lot more before they find that way of coping. Internally, my mom-brain kept asking, “HOW did she learn that? What did it?” I still don’t have an answer. Somehow, somewhere, enough adversity crept into her life—without my planning or arranging it—to teach her that altruism is one of the most effective ways to improve our quality of life. Damn. That’s amazing.

On a lighter note, both our kids are enjoying the freedom of our new neighborhood. With great sidewalks, walking paths, and a few dirt roads and without the traffic of our old neighborhood, they’ve ridden their bikes constantly. Toward the end of summer, Little A’s bike bought it—the back end of the chain assembly warped so that it was sticking through the spokes. (We found out later it had been assembled with the wrong tension.) Anyway, the bike couldn’t be ridden or walked. So S told her brother to walk her bike, while she picked up his bike and carried it a quarter mile home.

That beautiful, precious, and—let’s face it—unnecessarily difficult solution touched the heart of this ‘80s child. That moment could have happened to any of us who grew up with long summer days of being “neglected”—at least by today’s standards. And maybe our kids didn’t take the easiest option, so maybe we did mention that S could have left her brother with his bike, ridden home, and gotten an adult with a car to come get both brother and bike, but what we said over and over—what I hope stuck—was, “You made it work. You did it. You took care of each other and got it done.”

And I still don’t know what experience gave S that internal gear. Was it all her attempts, failures, and ultimate successes in circus? Spending time at an outdoor, overnight summer camp in the woods? Seeing the fruits of her faithful piano practice? Doing “adult” chores alongside her parents? Living with parents who stumble and screw up all the time but never give up? Some peer drama I don’t even know about?

If I’m honest, I think it comes down to attitude. Whatever we parents seek in our children, we will find. Maybe it’s because her dad and I look, ever and always, for strength, empathy, responsibility, and perseverance in our children. Maybe it’s not so much the quality or quantity of the challenges that fall into their lives, but how we ask them to respond. Maybe it’s the confidence we have in them, the confidence they borrow until they have enough of their own.

S voluntarily spent hours at Halloween using her circus skills to spot other kids on the rings. She's all right.

1 comment:

  1. You are such a fantastic parent! And this is one example of the results!

    ReplyDelete