Directions
I love my son! I like my son! I adore my son! (But there are times when I want to kill my son!)
And I'm happy to announce that I am a BRILLIANT mom! BRILLIANT!
I am brilliant because I have
just figured out the source of all ills when it comes my tween son. (Get
those nomination forms out for the Nobel Prize and I'll start writing my
acceptance speech as soon as I finish this blog post.)
It all comes down to following
directions. (Not just verbal and written directions, but implied
directions as well!)
Following directions...it would
make everyone's life so much easier. There would be no trust or safety issues
because he would be following directions. Hanging out with his friends
after dinner? No problem. He follow directions and by doing so lets
me know where he is and will be home at the time I specified.
No more anger or upset about
school work or grades. When he follows directions he does all his homework/schoolwork
and his grades reflect this. He went to Huntington Learning Center (a
whole other blog post for another day and time) where one of the things he
"learned" was how to study. If he follows the directions they
gave; studying for a test or quiz should be easy.
I've established (over the past
12+ years) that he's a relatively smart kid. (Not brilliant, but smart in
a multitude of ways.) I think back to when he was younger and a Lego
addict. By following the directions, he was able to build from kits that
were meant for adults. He started slowly, learned by following the
directions and eventually started building his own creations from his
imagination. By then he had the "building blocks" (Sigh...yes
the pun was intended) he needed and could move on. He'd learned the basic how
to from the directions and was able to branch out.
It's become clear to me over
the past year, that my child does NOT have a problem learning, but what he does
have a problem with is following directions. I'm not saying that the
directions are unclear or he is unable to follow them. The problem is
that he doesn't, or that he doesn't regularly. When he DOES, the results
are great. But then, for whatever tween boy reason he throws it out the
window (along with good judgement). As a result the downward spiral
starts spinning. Grades plummet. Parents start screaming and
yelling. Tears start flowing (on all fronts). Utter mess!
Total chaos! His self-esteem ends up in the toilet. (No one wants a
kid with low self-esteem!) Promises are made. And then are
forgotten. The cycle begins again.
I hate the cycle. (Who
wouldn't?)
We need to break the
cycle. As parents we need to emphasize the importance of ALWAYS following
directions. (Which we do, but clearly we do not do it enough. We
need to reinforce and reinforce. And then reinforce again!) We need
to celebrate his successes while focusing on the fact that the success was the
result of his following directions. We need to review the
"failures" (and I really do hate to use that word) and find the area
where directions were not followed. We need to emphasize the fact that
reading and following directions may take some time (and in the world we live
in there we all stress ourselves out with the "do it faster, do it
quicker, get it done, get it done NOW" mentality.) We need to show
him again and again, that following directions leads him to success. That
by following directions he will instill a level of trust in us. And the
results of all this will help reestablish his self-esteem.
This requires commitment from
all of us. It's so easy to let things slide. There is so much going
on in everyone's lives. But we need to change things for our family's
sake...for my son's sake. We need to change OUR direction and focus on
DIRECTION. We need to instill the importance of following directions to
our son AND we need to do so ourselves.
It's time for us as a family to make a commitment to following directions. And hopefully by doing so, we will find ourselves in a positive direction.
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