Community Corner

Not My Kid!

Columnist Brenda Kelley Kim talks about detention, disappointments and the gift of a D in Chemistry.

 

“The fate of a child is in the hands of his parents.” - Shinichi Suzuki

Oh, gee, no pressure there. Everyone knows that we take on a huge responsibility when we choose to be a parent. At least, that’s how it is before having a child. Everyone nods and agrees, yes, definitely, it’s the most important job ever, no question. But I think sometimes that realization doesn’t hit you until your kid passes one very important milestone. They screw up.

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It’s easy to think you have your act together when your child is toddling around smiling at fifty adoring relatives on Thanksgiving and singing “Little Bunny Foo-Foo." No one looks at that idyllic moment and thinks to themselves “I can’t wait until this darling cherub is sitting in the principal’s office because he decked someone on the playground." Been there, done that.

When the children are little we worry about all the bad things that could happen. We think that being ready for anything means college savings and well baby checkups. But there is so much more to it, the pressure is on parents to raise not just healthy and happy kids, but “good” kids.

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What happens when you get a call that your high school junior has skipped out on a mandatory panel discussion with college admissions advisors to take a joy ride with a friend? I’m sure the phrase “FML” was bouncing around in his under developed teen-age pea brain when he sauntered back into school (via the front office door, DOH!) and found me waiting for him.

It was perhaps not my best parenting moment when I stood in the principal’s office ripping my son’s head off and asking the guidance counselor for military school brochures. Hell hath no fury like a mother whose child has not only broken the rules, but has been caught because he was, quite simply, stupid.

Time to bring in the big guns. Amish Lockdown. Not for nothing, you take the cell phone, computer, television and video game console away from a teenager and you hit them where they live. Which is only fair, since that is what happens to parents when their children screw up. We define ourselves at times by the success of our children, and yes even by the success of other people’s children. We can be insufferable bores when our kids do well, but when they don’t? Nothing shuts a mother up faster than a child in detention.

It’s incredibly hard in today’s environment to be the parent of (gasp!) an average child, or the child that takes a different path. It starts when they are little, and you look around at the other kids. There is always some child that walked earlier, that talked earlier and was reading and writing Mandarin at age four.

Fast forward to high school and students are starting their own non-profit organizations to bring clean water to the Sahara, taking AP courses and playing three varsity sports while volunteering with emotionally disturbed cats. That’s a tough act to follow, for kids and their parents.

By today’s standards, I would not have gotten into the college that graduated me with honors. I would not have been considered for the scholarships I received, because I had a few Bs on my report card. Oh the horror. On what planet is a B in History the stumbling block to a successful life?

I got a D in high school chemistry and it was a gift. I should have flunked. But my teacher was a graduate of the school I desperately wanted to attend. I owe a great debt to Mr. MacQuade. He recommended me despite my grade because he knew I would succeed there, and I did, largely because he made the admissions office (and me) believe that I was more than a letter on a report card.

And that has made all the difference. Not the grades, but the belief in a student who, on paper, doesn’t make the cut. My parents didn’t freak out when I got a D, because they too knew I had other talents; they knew that one class, one experience was not the whole of who I was or who I could be.

That’s what we have to remember when our kids screw up. Maybe they did their best, maybe they didn’t. It could even be that they did something monumentally stupid for no explainable reason. I guarantee you every parent has been there. It will happen. What matters is what you do when it does.

I’m still figuring that out, I’m pretty much winging it. So far I’m going with a strong belief that my kids will turn out all right even if they are not frenzied little over achievers with perfect permanent records. If that doesn’t work, they can drop and give me twenty while I find the brochure for the military school.


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