The Nine of Mine

My last entry was pretty heavy, and I wanted this one to be lighter. Funny even. I rely on humor to often cope with everything from trauma to daily work stressors. When I decided to make this post, I had no idea what I would write about to bring myself a little recovery after writing about the loss of my son and to make things a little lighter for anyone who read “The Unimaginable.” A nurse whom I work with and I used to joke about writing a book titled about the responses we really had in our heads to different situations and things people would say to us. See? I told you it is a messy mustard seed. I do have faith. I try every day to be better than I was. However, I am still a mess and sometimes have messy thoughts. The good thing is those messy thoughts usually stay chained to my thoughts and rarely escape my mouth anymore. As I was starting to prepare my mind for that post, “What I Really Wanted to Say,” I was gifted a story to tell. Funny how some things you need come gift-wrapped in perfect timing.

As writing about one of my boys took its toll on my heart and mood for a couple of days, my youngest unintentionally shocked me back into the current world. He went big, but I suppose it had to be something big in order to bring me back to reality. Before I write about what happened, I will give a little background on my second son. He is very smart. I mean, extremely smart. Before he started school, we had been working on basic Spanish words, such as colors, numbers, greetings, and so on. When he started school and was asked to identify the color of a colored card, he asked if he needed to respond in English or Spanish. He was in kindergarten when he started learning his sister’s second grade math and then helping her with it. He was put on the advanced placement path in the 6th grade. This means he completed 6th grade coursework in language arts, science, and math in a approximately two months during the summer before 6th grade. Once in school, he was completing coursework one grade ahead. Not only is he smart, but he actually loves school and learning. He is a rule-follower, so teachers love him, too.

He was always naturally athletic, even at a young age. His sport of choice for many years was baseball. However, we took the kids to a family night with a tennis coach when he was about five years old. The tennis coach taught him how to hold the racket and then practiced with him for about 10 minutes. Then, he put him against a 16-year-old, and my son held his own against the older boy. At the end, people were asking him how old he was, and they were shocked to find out that he had never played before that night. He had decided in junior high that he only wanted to focus on academics and stopped participating in sports because his goal is to pursue a career as a neurosurgeon. He was disappointed to find out at the end of last school year that he is ranked fourth in his class of a little more than 550 students. He wants that number one spot.

Naturally, with many things being easy for him, he has pretty high expectations for himself. He is his own worst critic when he does not do as well as he wants. Often, what is not great in his eyes is still pretty good to the rest of us. Because of his high standards for himself and having some serious goals for his future, he has some moments of anxiety. On occasion, it does get bad, but it usually does not remain at a high level for long. An upcoming test will cause some anxiety for a longer period because he knows about it in advance. When things do not come naturally to him, it causes a little anxiety until he can see some improvement.

Well, he turned 15 a couple of weeks ago. It was a Saturday, so we went to the DMV the following week to get his learner license. For the first few days, he drove around the parking lot at one of the schools to become comfortable with steering, turning, and the accelerator/brake pedals. He did pick it up pretty fast, but he was not satisfied since it did not come easy immediately. However, he kept working. He gained some confidence, and he drove to another nearby school from the school where we had been practicing. I took him outside of the city limits to a quiet neighborhood that is basically a circle and not many people are aware of it. He was doing very well by the 6th day, and he decided he would make the drive back to our house.

I live in a quiet neighborhood in town, and it is a dead end street. The main street has four streets that are all cul-de-sacs evenly spaced along one side. We do not have much traffic – mostly people who live in the neighborhood or guests of a resident. Our house in on the main road, almost to the dead end, between the 3rd and 4th cul-de-sac. My son made it to our driveway and made the turn just fine. I noticed he was not slowing down as we continued up the driveway. Just as I started to say, “You need to be on the bra…”, he pressed down on the pedal.

You have probably guessed he did not press on the brake. In his panic, he pressed the accelerator instead. We shot into the garage door, cratering it and pushing some items that were near the door further into the garage. The impact tore the door off the track, and the rollers rained down on either side of us. He had quickly figured out he was not on the brake and found it after the crash to stop the pushing against the door. I put the car in park. I looked at him, and he was panicking. While he was not crying, his eyes were red and watery, and he began apologizing profusely. His entire body was trembling with fear and adrenaline. I asked him if he was okay, and he kept apologizing. My child was quickly falling apart.

I tried to tell him it was okay, to which he replied, “No, it isn’t! I drove through the garage door!” I sat in the car staring at him for a moment, and then I began laughing. He stared at me wide-eyed for a moment, almost as if he was waiting for something else. Most likely, because he was angry with himself, he was waiting for me to have an angry reaction. After a few minutes of laughing, he finally relaxed a little and also laughed about it some. He even managed to tell some of his friends and his older sister. He kept apologizing to me, and I kept reminding him that we were fine. I tried to tell him that I hated the previous garage door and this would spur me into getting a new one that I liked better. I think we are finally at a place where he does not think about it as much as he did the first few days.

I have had a little time to reflect on it, too. How often do we yell at our kids for accidents and possibly even punish them? When I was trying to calm him down, I told him there was no reason to be angry because there was no malice or intent in what he did. He did not intend to drive through the garage door. He did not do it in anger, and he was not distracted. He simply pressed the wrong pedal.

If I choose to react angrily, it does not fix the garage door. We still have the same issue, only now I also have a 15-year-old who has his fears validated. I confirm he is terrible because he made a mistake. I also reinforce his expectation to be perfect all the time. Finally, his anxiety will worsen. On the other hand, we can laugh about it. I can have the garage door fixed. Now what he takes from it is mistakes happen. He will have accidents, and no one else expects him to be perfect. I hope that he will also see the choice – be angry and dwell on it with no change in the situation or we can laugh about it and move on.

I am as messy a parent as I am a messy Christian. I stumble through my parenting most days, but I do try to learn from my mistakes. One of the big takeaways I have learned is that parenting is not one size fits all. Instead of trying to force my kids into being parented in the way that works for me or based on the recommendations of the next famous expert, I tailor my parenting to my each of my children. They get customized nurturing and love in a form each needs. They get discipline and correction in a form that achieves the outcomes we are aiming for and will have the most impact on their learning. And when they have accidents, I will show them grace and compassion. We might even just laugh about it so we can move on from it.

Seems pretty clear how the most effective parenting is actually modeled after how my Father parents me. He loves me as I am. He comes for me when I stumble and rescues me from the holes I sometimes seem to dive into. He disciplines me in such a way that I learn. Some lessons have to be repeated, but He still shows up to teach me every time. I suspect sometimes he is laughing over some of my situations, too, when I do something equivalent to barreling through a garage door.

When I laughed at the cratered garage door and joked with my son about the situation, I watched his whole body relax and mood stabilize. I will always, always, always aim for peace over panic. Because of that, I hope that every time one of my children messes up, they won’t be afraid to come to their mom about it.