Anyone who has tried to teach an unmotivated middle school boy deserves, like, 50 million gold stars. Especially when sitting next to this boy at 9:00 at night, trying to stuff math concepts into his brain for a test the next day. This exercise is like stuffing a frozen turkey. Or tunneling through the Alps with a pickaxe.
And the boy is like, “Why do I have to do it this way? Why can’t I just do it the way I want to do it?”
And you’re like, “Because you will get the ANSWER WRONG.” And your voice raises in pitch and volume with each word.
And the boy just sits and stares at the gecko on the wall.
So then you (very calmly) set the timer on your phone and tell him, “Well, for as long as you sit here doing nothing, that’s how much time you’ll lose on the Xbox this weekend.”
And then he sighs and says, “Fine. I’ll sit here all night.”
And then you become a raving lunatic who storms to the bedroom to demand that the boy’s father remove the Xbox from the premises immediately. So the boy’s father dutifully storms out and makes a big show of yanking out wires and heaving the Xbox onto his shoulder and taking it….I don’t know…somewhere else.
And then you win the Parent of the Year Award.
(This is all a hypothetical scenario, of course.)
After spending over a decade controlling everything about your child’s eating and sleeping and playing and learning, there’s this difficult transition in parenting when one day you are startled to discover that your child is becoming an actual person. This often means a whole lot of wonderful, as you see this child become someone who cares and cooks and sings and unexpectedly surprises you with what he is capable of. And suddenly you realize that you are talking to her in an adult sort of way about adult sort of things. This child is actually becoming your friend. This is delightful.
But along with the wonderful, you realize that this child who is becoming a person is capable of forming his own thinking and choosing what you value…or not. This person might holler, “Why do I have to study? It’s my life, why can’t I choose to fail?” And you can holler back at this person, “As long as you are under my roof, you don’t get the option of failing. Too bad for you!” But inside you start getting the sneaking suspicion that there’s only so much you can do. Because even though for a lot of years you’ve been the controlling presence in that person’s life, you don’t get to be in control forever. Or even much longer. This is terrifying.
And you look down the road and see that it won’t be long until this person will be independent of you and she will decide who to marry and who to worship and what to love. And there’s not much you will be able to do about it.
Suddenly you find yourself grabbing hold of every minute. You panic one day when you realize, “I haven’t taught her about eating disorders yet!” so you casually bring up the topic on the way to the grocery store and she looks at you like you might have lost your mind (which is possible). And you decide that maybe you’re not actually as tired as you thought you were when his bedtime conversation turns to why God doesn’t always answer our prayers. Because when will you get another chance to talk about it?
So you eventually bring back the Xbox. But you find a way to teach (again) about the importance of math homework, about the value of hard work, about what is worth treasuring in this universe, and about grace. Always about grace. Even for parents.
(That’s the most important part.)
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| She got picked for the varsity team as an 8th grader, played as a starter for every game, and they won the international school tournament! |
