It takes a Village

This was Henry's freshman year of high school. It's been a year of firsts for both of us; his first year of high school, and my first year parenting a high schooler. Suffice it to say, we have both learned a lot.

Historically, I have struggled with how to best help Henry with academics. He is really smart, and not just text book smart, but a really cool and creative kind of smart. The kind of smart that has the ability to be book smart, but easily gets bored with a list of facts on a piece of paper, especially if he fails to see the relevancy to his life.

So he has all this potential, but not a lot of drive to get the best grades. On one hand, I love that he doesn't place a lot of value on grades. And I agree with him, there are so many other under utilized and under valued ways to measure understanding and growth than by looking at a number at the bottom of a transcript. However, philosophical discussions aside, the fact remains that opportunities await or are limited depending on that GPA. And I just want the best for him. But sometimes that wish for Henry comes out sideways, as all good intentions can.

This last quarter, English has been the bane of Henry's freshman existence. Literally. About halfway through the quarter I realized that he hadn't completed or turned in a single assignment. His dad and I sat down and talked with him - we talked about responsibility, work ethic, consequences, honesty - all that good stuff. But as the days went on I kept seeing these orange circles on Schoology (an app that allows you to see your students' grades and assignments - an orange circle indicates a missing assignment), and I was getting so frustrated.

We just kept having the same discussion with no change in behavior. Finally, I reached a point of throwing my hands up at "intentional parenting" and resorted to just taking away privileges; no TV, no phone, no going to friends' houses to play Dungeons and Dragons - just school and then come straight home and do more school.

Didn't work. Not one bit. Shocker.

Henry can't be painted in a corner and forced to do anything. He needs to be internally motivated. Relevance, desire, interest... if you can tap into any of these things, he can be hyper focused and surprise you with some really cool outcomes. But stripping away privileges along with all the pressure and disappointment he was feeling from us only served to push him more towards defeat thinly disguised as apathy - the exact opposite of what I was trying to achieve. We were developing such a tension around academics and the harder I pushed, the more callous and disheartened Henry became.

It's really heartbreaking to watch your kids struggle and not know how to help them. It's a helpless feeling. And it's a feeling that's hard to sit with, especially for me as a mother. I mean isn't world problem solver inherent in the definition of the role "Mother"? But I could not find a way to reach Henry on this one.

Henry spent the last weekend at his dad's house. Steve's been dating a really wonderful woman. I've only met her a handful of times, but each time she has been kind, warm and genuine; a beautiful soul. She has come to some of the kids' important events this spring and it's pretty cool to add another person to their circle of supporters that celebrates them. When I picked the kids up from Steve's the other day, he mentioned that he and Ava had sat down with Henry and worked out a schedule for him to help him study for his finals - and that they had been able to stick to it - and that he had worked really hard all weekend and made some good progress.

Total transparency here, my first reflexive internal response: What? I've been working at this for months and it all gets "fixed" in one weekend - and not by me??

Honestly, I was in that space for about 10 minutes, licking the wounds of my bruised ego. But it did not take long for me to focus on the fact that Henry was studying for his finals and had a workable plan that he was actively participating in to finish the year out strong. And the best part was that when I asked him about it, he was laid back easy going Henry. I could tell that he felt good about it and good about himself. He didn't have that defeated, overwhelmed, nothing I do is good enough look about him, he wasn't burdened by feeling a lot of external pressure. He was just relaxed Henry, going about life again.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Peace and so much gratitude. This is the outcome I was hoping to achieve. Who cares how he got there or if I was the one to create this plan for him? Did any of that really matter when I had my happy go lucky son back? No. Not one bit.

One of the truths about being a single mom I discovered long ago is that I can't do it all. I might run myself ragged trying, but eventually I will surrender to and respect my limits. I can not do it on my own. That is a reality of being a single parent. We need help. We need a village. Our kids need a village. One that is filled with friends and family that will love us, have our backs, and walk beside us.

When Henry and I got home, we had yet another talk. But this time I opened up with an apology. I wanted to apologize for putting so much pressure on him and only focusing on what he wasn't doing. Because when I look at his grades, aside from the E in English, his next lowest grade is a B - he has all A's and B's in all the rest of his courses. It's safe to say that I had lost perspective. We came to the understanding that we had both made mistakes this past quarter and that there were a lot of opportunities for both of us to learn from this. I just wanted to make sure that he knew, no matter what the outcome of this years' grades, I was and always will be proud of him. I will always be in his section cheering for him.

And I don't know that Henry and I would have had that conversation without Ava's help. Maybe eventually? I'd like to think so, but definitely not by the end of this school year. And what a gift it is for both Henry and I to be able to end his inaugural year of high school celebrating all his hard work without that bitter taste of disappointment.

It takes a village. Thank you, Ava, for coming to our village.

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