Tag Archives: Learn

Exciting and a Little Bit Scary

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What experiences have excited and scared you throughout your life? Going to school? Graduating? Starting a new job? Marriage? Having a child?

My oldest works while going to school. The job is on the same campus and pays well (for a student position), but it’s not necessarily a job that he’s interested in holding long-term. He’s been more interested in getting an internship in the career field he’s interested in, but it’s been a harder go than he imagined. He’s attended countless career fairs over the past year, and meets with a mentor. In my opinion, taking all the right steps, yet he was unable to secure an internship this last summer.

He could have resided himself that this field wasn’t for him, or that he was somehow not employee material, but he buckled down, took the feedback he got along the way and persisted, recently attending another career fair and getting an internship offer extended on the spot. He was thrilled. He still has a few more career fairs to go before deciding on what he’ll do next summer, but his confidence has grown.

I wished I’d coined this phrase, but borrowing it from something Snoop Dogg (yes, Snoop Dogg) said on a blind audience episode of The Voice when a singer didn’t get a chair turn. In those situations you can feel like a failure, like something is wrong with you or you aren’t good enough, but Snoop summed it up best. “L isn’t for loser. It’s for lesson.” How right he is, we learn these lessons along the way, and need to silence our inner critic’s voice that tells us otherwise.

As I shared my joy with my son about his internship offer I also mentioned he might feel excited and a little bit scared. I know I’ve experienced those feelings in times of personal growth. We agreed that’s what growing up is all about.

What makes you excited and a little bit scared?

I will be away next week to spend time with family and back later in the month.

Sunburn Pain

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Having a sunburn is no fun, regardless of how it happens.

We traveled for Spring Break and our exchange student was excited about being in sunny weather. She asked if she could spend some time at the pool to get a tan. We gave her sunscreen, told her to put it on, and reiterated we were at the start of our trip, so if she did get sunburned it would make the remainder of the trip less enjoyable.

She laid out in the sun and proceeded to get a pretty bad sunburn. 😞 She powered through the next few days complaining about the pain (we understood), but when it still hadn’t stopped hurting once we returned home several days later, we realized it was worse than we imagined. She went to the doctor and learned she had a third degree burn in a small area and would likely have a scar (or discoloration for a while). She went from loving the sun and not being able to get enough of it, to wearing sunscreen and covering herself constantly. I hate that she had to learn this lesson, but don’t we have to learn from our own mistakes?

I know parenting teens has it challenges and getting your teen to listen to you, and/or take our advice can feel impossible. I remember hearing from MANY people how dangerous the sun can be growing up and have to admit I didn’t wear sunscreen constantly until I was much older. I see the dermatologist once a year now. 😉 It can be painful to see your child suffer, especially when it feels like the situation could be avoided.

Parenting and getting your kids to buy-in to your insights, advice, and recommendations is frustrating when they resist or out-right ignore you, but that’s how we grow (our kids and us). We can guide and do our best to protect, but in the end they are their own person who will have to learn for themselves.

How have you gotten your teen to listen to and take your advice when given?

Soar like an Eagle

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When last did you see your child soar?

My oldest, surprisingly to his father and I, decided to go for his Eagle Scout rank (Boys Scouts of America). My husband had earned his, and something about scouts appealed to my son. My husband took him to his first meeting years ago and thought our son would attend maybe one or two meetings and call it quits, but he didn’t. The skills and life lessons were what seemed to appeal to him.

I’d like to say my husband and I had a handle on how best to teach our boys all the life lessons we wanted to pass on, but we were wrong. Scouts gained our child’s interest in learning skills in a way that wouldn’t have occurred by mom and dad trying to educate (lecture?) them. I can see my son’s eyes rolling if we’d taken this approach. Instead, getting merit badges with counselors who held him accountable with what was needed and timelines to complete motivated our son. He was eager to learn and demonstrate proficiency. A favorite memory was talking to him and his brother in a car trip through Yellowstone National Park. There were long periods of time in the car. We talked about finances — saving for retirement, a house. Rent vs buying, the pros and cons, and what goes into each and more. He and his brother were very interested in learning and asked great questions. My husband and I were aware of how special that discussion was.

Scouting gave him leadership opportunities, a requirement to move up, that he took, learned and benefited from. His life skills continuing to grow. After completing the required merit badges and leadership position he needed to complete his Eagle Scout project which I previously blogged about. It was a steep learning curve for my son, but he completed the task.

The last requirement was going in front of a board to demonstrate proficiency and assess what had been learned and gained from the scout’s experience. My son prepared and wanted to do his best. Helping him get ready was another opportunity for my husband and I to teach him another valuable life skill — interviewing and being prepared (part of the Scout Motto) for unexpected questions he might get asked.

The review was done via video. My husband and I sat in another room anxiously awaiting to hear from our son and how the review went. He came out and was disappointed in how he did. You could see the stress in his face — did he just blow his chance for Eagle rank by how he’d answered the questions? While my son was stressed, my husband and I were not. The board review was more of a formality and unless he behaved out of character (being rude or disrespectful) the rank would be awarded. “They want to talk to you here in a few minutes.” We attempted to comfort him, but he convinced himself that bad news was coming. As we thought, the Scout leaders called us in and shared our son had earned his Eagle rank and we should be very proud. We were. I felt a combination of pride, relief, along with a smidge of sadness. Pride in our son seeing this through. Relief in that this was behind him and he no longer needed to worry about requirements and timelines. Sad in our son no longer having the prompt of earning a merit badge to engage with him and teach him a life skill.

He has the skills Scouts gave him to soar. I look forward to seeing him take flight.

What are skills you want to impart on your child? How are you helping them succeed (take flight)?

It’s Going to Be Okay

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‘It’s going to be okay’ is a phrase that has gotten me through many a difficult situation. Hearing from my parent, when I was young, or my husband now, has always given me comfort.

My oldest had a test that was stressing him out. He was struggling with some of the concepts being taught and was concerned he wouldn’t do well on the test. We talked about what he could do to prepare in advance. That helped ease his anxiety slightly but it was still there. He took the test, and the teacher had the students take pictures of their work which they emailed in. It was an additional step to handing in the test to a proctor. My son came home. He was relieved that the test had gone much better than expected, but stressed because he realized in his desire to leave the testing area as soon as possible after turning in the test, he realized he hadn’t gotten clear pictures of all of his work. “Mom, the pages that didn’t come through equal 20% of my grade.” He sat down, put his head in his hands and said, “how will I ever be able to live on my own?” That statement caught my attention. I can understand being stressed about a mistake you’ve made that might result in something negative happening to you (such as getting a poor grade), but thought him extrapolating this to not being able to go out on his own an extreme thought.

We talked about the situation at hand first. I asked him what he could do to rectify the situation. He shared he’d already emailed the teacher and we discussed him going back to the test site to see if the proctor would allow him to retake the pictures of his work (he went back, but the proctor wouldn’t allow him access to his test). I then shared my own experience and how sometimes in life I catch myself wanting to leave a situation (for discomfort, I want to get to the next thing, or a variety of other reasons) and I can make mistakes in those situations. I asked my son, “how am I able to keep going if I know I might do this? I’ve lived on my own for a while and I’ve never been concerned in my ability to successfully do that. Why is that?” I smiled and he did too. It didn’t take him long to come back with the correct answer, “you learned from your mistake.” I told him that he was right and shared that even though I still “do things fast” on occasion, I do them less frequently than when I was younger and I try to catch myself in the moment and tell myself to “slowdown”. I finished by telling him that no matter the outcome of the test everything was going to be okay. I told him, “it might not feel like it now, but I promise you everything will be okay.” A poor grade can be overcome with improved work and extra credit (assuming the teacher allows). Absolute worst case is he fails the class and has to take it over. While the scenarios might not seem fun, they were all something that could be addressed. Not long after we finished our conversation my son shared that he’d heard from his teacher who told him not to worry about it, he was more concerned with the work being shown on the test, than the actual pictures coming through and being clear. It had indeed ended up being okay.

How do you help your child work through a mistake they’ve made? How do you let them know things will work out or be okay?

Having a Me Moment

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My youngest is into transit — it doesn’t matter which kind — light rail, water taxi, metro/subway, train — he studies them (thanks to the internet) and enjoys learning all the ins and outs, including their layouts, how to navigate/makes transfers, payment accepted, hours of operation, etc. To most, that might seem boring. To him, it brings him to life.

We decided to go east for Spring Break. My youngest was the navigator as we used mass transit for most of our travel to get around. We took a light rail from the airport, then transferred to a metro line. We/He learned things as we went — what was running on time or delayed, payment challenges (for those who ride transit and have struggled with a ticket kiosk, you know what I’m referring to), poorly marked transfers (how in the world do we get to the green line, I only see an exit?), and entering the metro on the wrong side of the platform (oh no, is that the train we want to be on over there?).

My favorite was when we entered the DC metro for the first time. Clearly, this is what my son had been waiting for. He had the biggest smile on his face that expressed immense joy. “You look happy,” I said. “Mom,” my son replied with a smile even bigger, “This is one of the best transit systems in the US, even in the world. I’m having a me moment.” I just watched him as he took it all in. Side note: for those that aren’t familiar with kids on the autism spectrum like my son is, you may not know that one of their super powers is knowing what they like/are interested in/their passion. It is super inspiring to see.

While my son was loving our journey for the most part, he’d get upset with himself anytime a mistake happened. He prides himself of his knowledge and likes being thought of as ‘the guy that doesn’t need no stinking map’ (his grandfather coined that phrase for my son after my son told his grandparents he knew the full layout of an amusement park they’d taken he and his brother to and weren’t sure how to navigate without a map. He told them “we don’t need no stinking map. I know how to navigate this place!” And he did.😊).

I had to remind my son that mistakes happening is how we learn, and yes, it can be frustrating and doesn’t feel great, but we’re better for it, when we take something away we’ll do differently. He understood but didn’t like it.😊

My son having his ‘Me Moment’ stayed with me. How fortunate we are as parents when we see our child(ren) come to life —literally seeing their dream coming true before your eyes. It’s rare. Very rare. And, while at the time I don’t think I realized it, I (likely along with my husband) were having a ‘me moment’ too as parents witnessing this/experiencing this with our son.

What is your child passionate about? What ‘Me Moments’ have you witnessed/experienced?

How Am I Doing as a Mother?

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When you think about what kind of mother you are, what comes to mind?

I want my children to see me as someone who deeply loves and cares about their well-being, but am also tasked with teaching them things and keeping them safe. My job isn’t to give them what they want, when they want it, or remove all the obstacles life throws their way, or to always be pleasant. My job is to teach them to navigate these obstacles, appreciate hard work and the rewards of your labor, and how to treat others in a way you feel good about.

Being a parent is challenging. You learn as you go. You learn from the modeling of your own parents and others you respect. It’s ever changing with endless opportunities to learn something new.

When my children were younger and Mother’s Day rolled around, I simply wanted a break. I wanted time to myself, to relax and rest. As my children age, I view Mother’s Day as an opportunity for me to check-in with myself and see if I am being the mother I want to be. Am I teaching my children the things I want to? Am I modeling the behavior I want them to replicate?

I love that people honor their moms on Mother’s Day, and while I’m sure I’ll enjoy a good meal with my family, I’m more interested in how I navigate my role as a parent. How I improve. How I mother my boys in a way I’m proud of and satisfied with after my children are off on their own.

What does Mother’s Day mean to you? How do you celebrate the occasion?