In Which Little Things Make a Big Difference

When you have more than one kid, it's always difficult to balance their needs and juggle their schedules. This fall, Squirrelboy has gotten the short shrift schedule-wise, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Because of Kittygirl having an after school activity four days a week and Squirrelboy having one her one free day, it has been rare for me to have a free afternoon to bring Squirrelboy to the other side of town to go mountain biking.

This week there are no regular ballet classes because there's a show, which Kittygirl elected not to be in. I quite suddenly remembered that yesterday when the kids were at school. I didn't have to pick up Kittygirl until Girls on the Run ended at 4pm, so I calculated that I had enough time to run Squirrelboy to the trails and get back in time to get Kittygirl at 4pm if I brought his bike with me at pickup.

He threw a wrench into the works when he called and asked me if he could stay 20 minutes late to help make a video for the school news show. However, I got the reaction I was aiming for when he came out and saw his bike. His face lit up, and he eagerly agreed to go out to the trail. I needlessly stressed myself out thinking that I might be late picking up Kittygirl, but it all worked out. Despite getting a flat near the end of his ride, that chance to do his favorite activity made his week.

Taking Squirrelboy to the mountain bike trails was a little thing, but it made a big difference for him. It served as a reminder to me that little things can make a big difference in a lot of realms, especially when you and/or your kids have some kind of special need or challenge in your lives.

The other day Squirrelboy asked me, "How do some people make it to high school and still be so immature?" For a few years he lagged behind many of his peers in maturity, so it was simultaneously surprising and heartwarming to hear his question. I realized that he has reached this point as the result of a million little things Mr. Engineer and I have done as parents.

One thing we've done is to insist that he always put forth his best effort. Sometimes, because of his dyslexia and ADHD, it takes 3 times longer (or more) for him to be his best work than it would take one of his typical peers to do their best work. It would be so easy for him to throw in the towel and just not do the work at all or rush through it and put very little effort into it. We never put an emphasis on grades or praised A's over B's. We made it clear that his best effort was what mattered, whether that best effort earned an A, a B, or an even lower grade.

We also worked for many years, and are still working, on teaching him to think before he acts and to think about what effect his words and actions could have on other people. He's usually pretty good at this in public at this point. With his sister, not so much.

Finally, we taught him to respect authority. Even when he didn't like his teachers, even when we didn't like his teachers, we taught him to respect their authority and listen to them unless they were clearly doing something wrong. We taught him to respect our authority as his parents and worked to earn his respect.

All of this has added up to a kid who looks at a segment of his peers and asks, "How did they get this far in life and still be so immature?" I'm not saying that the parents of every single immature kid has done everything wrong. I can't see into these kids' brains. Maybe there's something going on that makes it more challenging for them to control their impulses. Maybe their parents worked just as hard as we did but the kids are currently in a deep rebellion.

What I do know is that Squirrelboy would not be the happy, well adjusted, polite high school freshman he is if we had not done a million little things to guide him in that direction over the past 14+ years.