About a week and a half ago, I reamed my oldest son. You know when you just feel the ultimate need to lecture them and let them have it, whatever the "it" happens to be at that moment. Sometimes it's deserved and sometimes it just happens to be the time of month where you are hormonally unbalanced. I think in this situation it was a little bit of both. Deserved and....well the other.
Our oldest son happens to be one of those people who doesn't always perform to his potential. He likes to do things that come easy to him and if something is going to take a lot of work and practice, he really isn't that interested. He has started different sports and activities and hasn't really stuck with anything for a long length of time. So on this particular day, I was having a "talk" with him about doing "hard things". I was explaaaaining to him that often things don't come easy and we have to practice and put in hard work in order to get better at them. And I was strongly insinuating that he didn't like to do things that were even a little bit hard. He probably just heard blah, blah, blah! I honestly didn't think he was listening to me at all. He was looking at me as if he couldn't wait for me to stop talking. And his silence seemed to say, "If I don't say anything she will stop talking and this will be over soon." Not my proudest mom moment ever although some of it needed to be said, could have been done a little better.
Anyways, I didn't think he was listening. But that night he went out to dinner with my husband and this is what he told him. " Mom told me I don't like to do hard things. She says I don't try things that are hard." Geez, that made me feel real good." OUCH! So then I felt horrible. Of course, I began replaying in my head what I had said to him and imagining all of the therapy he was going to need in order to undo the damage I'd caused to his self esteem. I made a mental note to myself to try and remedy this "situation", meaning I wanted to lessen the mom guilt that I was feeling. But it was late at night and the next day flew by with all the busyness of mom duties and I just never got around to it.
I do not know how much, if any of that "lecture" led to the following events. I only know that my son went on to do some very hard and very brave things over the next week. You see he had been wanting to run for the school elections. You have to pass a test in order to run. Last year, he didn't pass the test. Not because he wasn't capable but because he didn't study enough. Our "talk" happened to be the weekend that preceded this test he was supposed to pass. On Monday, he took the test. On Tuesday morning, he found out he passed the test. On Tuesday afternoon, he came home from school to tell me that he would be running in the school election........for President.
For President?
FOR PRESIDENT?
This is the same kid who last year wanted to run for the position the least amount of people wanted because it would give him a better chance of winning. The kid who didn't pass the test last year. The same kid who is frightened to speak in front of large groups of people. THE KID who wanted to throw his class spelling bee on purpose because it may require him to be in front of lots of people. Now don't get me wrong, he is not shy but he is not what you would consider outgoing either. He doesn't want anyone to catch him being too different and he likes to blend in.
So over the course of this week, he has spent a weekend creating a poster to hang. He gave up a lot of his weekend time to work on his poster, without any complaining (which is a big deal). He asked us if we would get him a shirt. For the first time....he wanted to stand out. He spent free time after doing homework working on a speech, again with no complaints. He thanked us countless times for helping him with his poster and his speech. And on Monday, he will give a speech to half of the school at an assembly. He is being brave.
Great! Right? My "talk" must have really hit home. Nope, I don't believe so. I believe that my child has always been brave, I just needed to take a different perspective. You see, he has tried many different things. He has tried the guitar and various sports. Maybe he needs a little work in the area of perseverance but brave is trying things that are new, things that are hard, and things that make us uncomfortable. Sometimes we find weakness in others that is not there because it is the weakness we we see in ourselves. It becomes the filter through which we see things.
Nathan doesn't expect to win, although he says, " It would be nice." There is a girl running and he is positive all of the girls will vote for her and the boy votes will be divided among the 3 boys. Not only is he brave, he is smart. He already understands girls and politics,,,,ha!ha! But he is brave because he is putting himself out there anyways.
Anyways, if the 10 year old can be brave then so can I. Once again, I tried to teach my child a lesson but instead he has taught me. What areas am I being brave? What things am I not doing because they may not work out the way I expect them to? What am I afraid to try because I may fail? What makes me uncomfortable? Well, I have some of those answers.....I'm just not quite brave enough to share them yet. But I do know last week, he inspired me to do something out of my comfort zone and I think it's going to work out quite nicely.
So here's to being brave.
And it's only Part 1 because there's got to be more lessons to learn......whether you win or lose.
And I think this says it all....
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