Last May I wrote a post for Mother’s Day and talked about my mom. I didn’t have time in June to do the same for Father’s Day, even though I would have liked to do so. But Sunday, October 2nd was my dad’s birthday. So I started this post for him, although I knew time would not allow me to finish it that day.
The lessons I learned from dad are numerous. I decided to try and pick the “top three”. A difficult task, I assure you, as I thought more than three definitely qualified to be in that category. So, I just picked three. Maybe another time I can share the others. Here are those three, in no specific order, and maybe a few notes on how I have used those lessons:
1) Ask kids questions about why they have done something before assuming they were just being naughty. Often you’ll be surprised and pleased with what their intent was! And how to handle the situation will be so much more easily determined. Want to guess how often this advice helped me out? I’ll give you a couple of the best examples I can think of. At some point in time, during my teaching years, a kid, who was usually such a pleasure, must have been having a bad day. I don’t remember the circumstances, but I chastised him, which he didn’t take so well. After a few minutes he was really angry and told me to just send him to the office. I refused to do so; said we were going to set the issue aside and talk about it later. After class, I asked. “Glenn what were you thinking? You know very well I don’t send people to the office as a general rule. Why would you want me to make the situation any worse and get you in more trouble by sending you to the office? Explain that to me first and then we’ll discuss the original issue.” His response? “Mrs. N, you were just making me SO mad I didn’t want to stay and maybe be disrespectful to you. I really didn’t want to do that!” Of course, I had to tell Glenn that actually, then, he had been thinking ahead and handling the situation better than I. Since we had never had any trouble I suggested I just thank him for wanting to be respectful to me and we start with a clean slate the following day; that I expected we really would be able to let it go. And I repeated that I was glad he had been in better control than I.
Another quick example. Another student, a girl, this time, was SO good for me, but she came to class extremely unprepared one day. When I asked why she didn’t have her homework, she just repeated several times that she didn’t; that was all. I went on with class. Later, I asked her why she wouldn’t give me a reason. She went on to say that she didn’t want to give me a hard time, but, okay, her younger brother, who was suffering from a degenerative disease had been really sick the night before and she didn’t get any homework done for any class. She was particularly close to him and he liked having her with him. In her case, I had to tell her, “Shame on me, Stacey! I evidently have not made it clear that I do believe in bad stuff happening. I should have made it more than clear to everyone they NEVER had to be afraid to ‘give me a hard time’ by telling me something. And, further, I had also not made it understood that nothing had to be said in front of the entire class. Any student could just ask if s/he could tell me later.” I was glad to have learned about the situation because I was able to frequently ask how he was doing and tell her I was thinking about her family. Not too many years later, Stacey’s brother did pass away. I was able to contact her and give my sympathy.
2) Don’t fret over trying to learn how to make decisions. Do the best you can. And when you find out it wasn’t such a good decision, mentally pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and keep going. You’ll know better next time. This was Dad’s response when, somewhere in my later teenaged years, I told him I didn’t know how to make some decisions. I think it might be my general nature that I don’t look backwards and fret about dumb things I’ve done. BUT, even if that is true, my dad helped develop that natural bend. When a totally dumb decision stares me in the face, I look at it, think about remembering that, and I do move on. I’m not so sure I would know to move on quickly if it weren’t for Dad’s advice.
3) Girls work hard to look good. Working on “looking good on the inside” should get at least equal time. (Dad mentioned this when I was 16 and getting ready to go to a dance. I DID actually pause and think about it at the time. But I’m sure it was years later before I really understood the wisdom he was sharing.)
In an upcoming post about words and the impact they can have, I’ll share one of my favorite lessons from Dad.
No parent is perfect, of course. But mine did the very, very best they knew how. I appreciate both of them and miss them.
I always appreciated how he slipped lessons in and I never knew he was lecturing me or trying to teach me something. One of my favorites was the lesson "just call them a sonofabitch and forget about it". He was reading the newspaper about a student who committed suicide at the University of Rochester by jumping from a fifth floor dorm window. He summarized the article and said to me "I wonder what was bothering him. It would have been better if he had just called them a sonofabitch and forgot about it".
ReplyDeleteYour dad was a smart cookie. You are too.
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