Schooling

Back in September, my 12-year-old, a seventh grader, came home after a rough evening with a friend—an evening during which his friend’s mother criticized him for cheering too loudly at an event and for covering his head with his hoodie because he was cold, and during which his friend literally pointed and laughed at him while her mother’s head was turned. 

Taken alone, the evening might not have been such a bad experience for him. But if followed on the heels of a not so great first two weeks of school during which time some older boys had been targeting my son in the locker room. (I’ll save my post on middle-school gym classes for another time.) He hadn’t mentioned any of the school troubles to me because he wanted to handle the situation himself . . . or simply hope each day it would go away. Lunch wasn’t much better for him. Kids he’d been friends with for the past few years couldn’t gather up the nerve to defend him against another crew of eighth graders intent on hassling him. So he found himself more or less on his own at a new school, trying to navigate his way around all the social mazes that simply left him, well, a little lost.

And even these issues might have been more bearable if they, too, hadn’t followed on the heels of a tough few months at the end of sixth grade. During those months, the pack of popular boys—and several girls desperate for their approval— had turned against him. But he remained strong through that time, and at the end of the year, when each sixth grader was asked to write what they’d learned in elementary school, he wrote, “I learned that I like who I am, and nothing anyone else says or does can change that.”

But come September, his first month of junior high, everything had just piled on him to the point where he, as we euphemistically put it when other parents ask about our decision to pull him from school, “needed a break.”  

So we gave it to him. He’s been taking math and French at school, coming home afterward, learning a bit of science, social studies, and English with me, and then going back for afterschool activities: theater and chorus. He’s also been going three early mornings a week for concert band and jazz band. It’s been a busy few months, not without their own set of challenges as we’ve worked together to figure out this homeschooling thing, and it’s been immensely rewarding for me personally. I’ve loved our time together. I’ve loved the bond we’ve forged. I’ve loved learning with him. I’ve loved his company. I’ve loved seeing him in new lights and gaining a whole new appreciation for the person he is and the person I know he’s going to be one day.

But we’ve also—my husband, son, and I—decided it’s time for him to go back to school full time. He’s made some really great friends through his extracurricular activities. They love him. They “get” him. They let him be the goofy, nerdy, hyper, random, loud kid he is. He has a girlfriend. He has the support system he lacked just a few months ago. And, I have to add, he has two principals who really do care about their students. They’ll be paying attention.

Sending him back, however, has been in many ways a harder decision than pulling him in the first place. I’ve straddled this line between wanting to protect him from the world and wanting him to be strong enough to face it. And he is strong enough. But if I don’t “let” him go back, how is he going to believe that himself? He’s faced a lot of challenges—physical and social—in his 12 years, and he’s gotten through them more or less intact. He does like who he is. He knows his family loves him. More important, he knows we like him. I don’t for a minute think it’s going to be all smooth sailing for him when he shows up at school full time after the Christmas holiday, but I do think this break has done him a lot of good. It’s done us both a lot of good. I’ve learned about a lot more than the U.S. Constitution and Isaac Newton and manatees and Napoleon. 

When I started writing this post, I wanted to talk about bullying in general. I wanted to talk about the accountability of parents, not just of kids. And I will next time.

But my focus has strayed to the reminder that we need to believe in our children so they can believe in themselves. We need to, yes, nudge them from the nest so they can try their wings. But that doesn’t mean we can’t now and then spread our own wings just a bit so we can wrap them around our kids, even if only for a little while, before we let them go again. I’ll miss having him at home much more than he’ll miss being here. 

Fear or discernment

I got an email today from the principal of my kids' elementary school. Actually, the email went out to all the parents. It was a "stranger danger" email--advising (aka warning) parents about an "incident" after school today that involved a man who looked "like Santa Claus" giving a coin to a child and then getting in the passenger seat of a car and driving away. The parents and child were alarmed, and the administration felt we should all be aware of what had happened.

My reaction wasn't alarm. It was sadness that this is where we are: suspecting every kindness that comes our way, suspecting every kindness that comes our children's way, and having to base our every action on the assumption that people have ulterior motives for every good deed they do.

My mom has a picture of me eating ice cream while sitting on our kitchen counter. I'm two, and I'm looking straight at the camera, my face covered in chocolate. Standing next to me is a large man, and he's looking down at me, smiling, proud, as if I were his own child. His name was John, and he was a good friend of my father's. And my mother tells me John adored me and would spoil me with candy and ice cream and whatever else it took to keep my attention for a moment or two. I don't have any memories at all of this man, but judging by his expression in that photo, I'm sure he did adore me.


When I wasn't much older than I was in that photo, my mother headed out to do laundry with my grandmother, leaving me in my father's care. When she got home, I was gone. Panicked, she and my father began running around the house and yard to look for me, when there I appeared, walking hand in hand with a young man as we headed toward them. A pick-up truck followed close behind, crawling along slowly as I led the way home. I'd apparently wandered off and had ended up on a rickety old bridge, much like the bridge in the well-known painting of two children with an angel watching over them.




The young man explained to my parents that he and his father had tried to get me to climb into the cab of the truck so they could take me back to wherever I'd come from, but I'd refused. So the young man had no choice but to get out, take my hand, and help me find my way back.

When I was about seven, my family lived next to an elderly couple, the Harveys. I'd often go over to their house, and they'd give me ribbon candy and let me play with their yellow lab, Ginger. Mrs. Harvey died before Mr. Harvey did, and still I'd go visit, and still he'd have that bowl of ribbon candy ready for me.

I do my best to teach my kids about "stranger danger." But I don't want to teach them to be afraid. I want to teach them to be discerning, to follow their gut instinct, their heart, the Spirit--whatever you want to label that little voice telling you, "This is a bad one" or "This is a good one." I want them to be discerning in all things and in all relationships. My nine-year-old daughter trusts everyone. She loves all of her teachers. She loves all of the kids in her class. She doesn't see the bad in anyone, and sometimes she really, really should. But this is how she's always been; it's how she was born. I've had a lot of talks with her lately about the importance of understanding that just because someone likes you doesn't mean they're likable. I certainly don't want to teach her to hate or to go through life with a wall up around her, but I do want her to learn to make good choices in her friendships and to gain better judgment . . . and then use it well.

A customer used to come into my parents' bookstore years ago who took a liking to me that made my mother very uncomfortable. He was a minister--an older man though by no means elderly--and he'd wait to talk to me until my parents weren't around. He offered "private counseling sessions" if I ever felt I needed them, and he brought me lunch on occasion. I was quite happy at the time, doing just fine, and every time we spoke, he tried to make me believe I wasn't as happy as I thought I was. This wasn't about religion. He never brought up God or faith once. I was polite. I turned down all of those offers for private counseling sessions. And then he abruptly stopped coming in. I found out much later that my mother had told him to stay away from me and to stay out of their store. She told him she didn't trust him, and that if he ever came near me again, she'd sic my father after him.

I was 22.

As a mother of four and as a daughter of a very protective mother, I get wanting to protect your kids from all the baddies out there. And there are a lot of them. But we should no sooner be teaching our children to fear every stranger than we should be teaching them to trust every man with a gentle voice who offers private counseling.

Discernment. Everything else is just fear. A gift in its own right, but not what should guide us or them.

I got a follow-up email not too long after the initial one, by the way. The matter was resolved after the police department determined this wasn't a "stranger danger" situation after all. There are bad people out there, and I ache for every parent whose child has ever been a victim of one. But there are good people out there too, and maybe our kids need to be aware of them as well.