History Lessons of the Priceless Kind

When I was young, history bored the life out of me. Sitting through a history class or reading a dry, fact-pact account of some event that happened way before my time on this planet was, for me, worse than getting my teeth pulled without Novocaine. Why did we need to dwell on the past? Shouldn't we be focused on the present and future instead? What value is this information going to add to my life? Yes, I was like most youngsters, naive. But, I never had a teacher who taught it from the correct perspective, who bridged the gap from the event to present day and beyond. I never had a history teacher who knew how to make it relevant to me, to our community or to our future.

Now, in my forties, I am enthralled by history. But my interest in history was inspired by more tangible experiences, not from some thick, overly complicated book. I was inspired by the places I have traveled to and the incredible people I have met in my life. I have been extremely fortunate to have traveled the globe. Even more fortunate, my children have shared these journeys with me. We have walked the ruins in Rome, placing our feet on the same stones as Ceasar. We have climbed up and down the stunning and sometimes treacherous Great Wall in China, climbed through the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam and explored ancient temples in Cambodia. To touch history is more powerful than any book ever written. Just the feel of stepping back in time inspires us to learn more and to better understand its impact on our lives today.

But, you don't need to travel across the world to be one with history. You may have a history lesson living just down the street from you; a real, living, breathing piece of history to draw inspiration from. Your community is full of resources and stories that I encourage you to seek before it's too late.

Yesterday, I delivered meals to the seniors in my community with two of my children. One senior, in particular, who I had delivered meals to on a few other occasions, had a small piece of cloth with a swastika on it, prominently displayed on his wall. It was the first thing you saw when you entered his home. I couldn't understand the display, considering he was a black man, other than being a reminder of a past we wish we could forget. But yesterday, he wanted to talk and I wanted to know what the significance of the swastika was. His history lesson was one I will never forget.

He was a soldier in WWII and ran the communication lines in the trenches. The swastika on his wall came off of a dead nazi soldier whose body lain next to him while he sat and ate his dinner. He reached over and cut the fabric off the soldier's coat and stuffed it into his pocket. He didn't know why he took the piece of fabric, but he reasoned that the soldier didn't need it since he was dead. He went on to express the difficulty he experienced being a black soldier in a discriminatory world. Even though black and white soldiers fought in the same trenches, they could not eat together. And when they came home after the war, they were not given the heroes welcome that was poured on the white soldiers. He spoke of the black soldiers being referred to as the "monkeys in the trees," almost indicating they weren't humans, but rather, animals. The hurt in his voice made my heart ache. In 2015, seventy years after his return from Germany, he was invited to Washington D.C. to finally get recognized for his service. At the age of 96, he took the trip to find some closure from the past. But as he sat at lunch, with both whites and blacks at his table, he found it to be bittersweet. "It should have happened much earlier. It came too late," he said shaking his head.

He gave my daughter a hug and told her: "Always work hard and never give up." His story will probably never be found in a history book and yet his story, along with so many others, are what brings the past to life and allows those who didn't live it, to connect with it emotionally. Feeling the emotion pulls us in and allows us to view history more intimately. He's not the only senior I have met with an incredible war story. Red, whom I met a couple of years ago, told me of being on a ship in the South Pacific, taking in Japanese prisoners and surviving harrowing gun battles at sea. He has since passed at the age of 94, and sadly, his stories will soon be forgotten. Yet, these stories are an invaluable tool in inspiring the uninspired to care about the past and learn to not repeat the same mistakes in the future.

I hope this inspires you to seek out such stories in your own communities. If you can't travel across the globe, you can at least travel down the street and find living history lessons that far exceed anything pulled from a book. That being said, if you love to read about history or even if you don't, pick up the book UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand. It's a true story that reads like a suspense novel with a protagonist who is thrown into a journey of insurmountable odds. You will be shaking your head and be wondering how any one person could endure so much.

Hello, My Name Is: Mean Mom

My now three year old went through a lovely (fortunately passing) phase of telling me, "You're mean" every five minutes or so. I would tell him that hurt my feelings because I didn't want him going around calling people mean (although it seemed reserved for his parents and brother). Really, it didn't hurt my feelings at all. Nope, not in the least

Every time my child said, "Your mean" with his mouth turned down in a disapproving frown and his little index finger pointed in accusation, sure I corrected him. I also thought,

"You're damn right, kid."

My transgressions were predictable; my meanness ordinary. I made him turn off the TV. I brushed his teeth. I didn't let him run out of the house in only a t-shirt. (Well, okay, not intentionally.) I told him to clean up his toys, I asked him to please not poop in his pants, I put him in the bathtub, I took him out of the bath tube. You get the idea.

I'm not offended because in this world of permissive fragile snowflake parenting, I am mean. I'm downright MommyfuckingDearest. When my kids tell me I'm being mean that tells me I'm doing it right. Now that my oldest is seven, my meanness needs to be a little more creative, and also more public. Often random children witness my meanness and don't hesitate to inform me that their mom is way nicer but doesn't have as good of snacks and by the way they're hungry. What world do we live in where a kid has the balls to question someone else's parenting? Don't get me wrong my kid has done it too. Maybe a good chunk of the current problems with violence have to do with a loss of respect for authority, but I was taught by nuns so I may be biased.

So what is a mean mom to do? I'll tell you. I wear my mean mom badge with pride. In fact it has become a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts; the ultimate argument ender. My seven year old argues so much I think he may have a future as a lawyer. I remember trying to argue with my dad. It went like this:

"Dad, can I do X?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I said so."

"But Sally's parents said yes."

"Well, I'm not Sally's parents. If Sally jumped off a bridge would you jump, too?"

"Da-ad! That's not fair!"

"Well, life's not fair, peanut."

I mean, how do you argue with that? As you can tell, I learned from the best, but these days kids want a damn explanation for everything. Nevermind all of the parenting propaganda. Don't yell, it will cause self esteem issues! Don't put your kid in the corner, it will cause abandonment issues! Don't spank unless you want to go to jail. Don't say, "Because I said so." This threatens kids' autonomy. Take the time to explain to Sammy why you don't feel it is a good idea for him to pour water on the carpet. Don't get me wrong, why can be a valid question and I have no proble giving my kids reasons behind my rules. But it is not a negotiation. Whether or not they agree with my reasons or think they are dumbstupid is completely irrelevant to me. Do I care about my kids' feelings? Yes, yes I do. Do I care about their feeling toward my rules? Nope. Sometimes a well placed "Because I said so" or "Because I'm the parent" is a valid answer. My house is not a democracy. I have had some recent conversations with my seven year old about the fairness (or lack or fairness) of rules. I think my dad would be proud.


Me: "A, time to come inside now, it's getting dark."

A: "What?! That is so unfair Mom! All of the other kids in the neighborhood are still out riding their bikes."

Me: "Well, their moms are nicer than me."

or

A: "Mom, can I get an iPhone?"

Me: "No."

A: "Why not?"

Me: "Because you're seven and you have no way to pay for it."

A: "But Sammy is nine and he has one."

Me: "Well, I was eighteen when I got my first phone."

A: "You're parents were mean."

Me: "Yes, yes they were."

I'll be honest, it takes confidence to parent this way and confidence doesn't always come naturally to me. Truth be told, becoming a parent challenged me and continues to challenge me to be confident in my parenting decisions. When I'm not, I sure as hell better look like I am. My parents were, or at least seemed to be. They didn't give wto shits about what the Jones were doing. My parents were MEAN. They were much meaner than my friend with the cool parents. They didn't let us smoke cigarettes on the back porch, they didn't sneak us bottles of Smirnoff Ice, and they didn't even let us go to "that one guy's" house. We wanted to go to that one guy's house because his parents were nice and left him the hell alone. Last I heard he was in jail. So, yes my parents were mean. Thank God.

Next time your child asks "Why" or "Why not" have the confidence to play the mean card.

Friend: "How come your Mom won't let you ride your bike without a helmet, play with me in your room with the door closed, or post YouTube videos?

A: "Humph, I don't know."

Me: "Oh I couldn't help over hearing your question and I am all for answering why. I wouldn't want to make you feel like your questions aren't valid. It's because I'm mean.

The Bittersweet Sound Of Silence: Sleep-away Camp

Ahhh, the kids are at camp, for two whole, glorious weeks! There is no morning breakfast mess lingering in the kitchen, no shoes to trip over on the tile floor, no television blaring or the onslaught of, "Can we go to the beach? Can my friend come over to play all day and then sleep over? Can you take me to Starbucks?" or, "What's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?" Instead, I hear the occasional sigh from my dog, the chime of my phone or the clunk of the house as it expands during the heat of the day. But mostly, it's silence.

It's most parent's dream--to have a summer sabbatical from their job. Especially if that job entails the full-time daily rearing of their children. Even planning a family summer vacation can have you questioning if the money spent is worth it considering stay-at-home parents take their work with them.We love them, we really do. But if you spend the majority of your time with your children, they can become like a grater on your nerves; the constant back and forth motion peels away your tough skin and leaves you a little raw, a little less tolerant and a little less of the mother (or father) you want to be.

It's hard to send your kids away. Some parents struggle more than others and for many different reasons. I, on the other hand, don't struggle at all. Am I heartless? Do I not love my kids as much as other parents? Am I selfish? No, of course not! I think I'm the opposite and here's why:

1. You may not think so, but kids need time apart from their parents. Yep, they really do! And the more positive the experience they have while apart from their parents, the more likely they are to become successful, independent adults. Kicking a child out of the nest and forcing them to expand their wings will only allow them to fly more confidently when they need to leave.

Too often, I have seen children coddled to the point where the child never learns to do things on their own. Kids go off to college only to come home after the first semester because they don't know how to live on their own. They have never been taught how to forge their own friendships, sleep in new places (without anyone to tuck them in), make their own food choices, or explore who they are as their own, individual person. One can't expect their child to be socially successful away from home if they were never given the tools and opportunities before they start their new journey. Think about it: you wouldn't go on a long, grueling hike without a backpack of supplies. Not only would you bring a backpack of supplies, but you would also make sure you knew how to use the supplies within it. What use are they to you if you don't know how they work? Dying of thirst but don't know how to use the water filter? Hungry, but don't know how to light the stove? Survival is not just about food and water. Survival is about being resourceful, building on past experiences, pushing through the tough stuff, embracing the victories, and knowing you can do it all on your own.

Away camp does this for my kids, as it does for many others. They learn invaluable life skills while they are away from the comforts of home. I am not breathing down their necks, telling them what their next move should be--they are doing it on their own and learning that they are capable of more than they imagined.

2. I love my kids. I have dedicated the last 19 years of my life to them and am proud of who they are becoming. But I don't want to be the only reason they are who they are. In addition to their awesome dad, we have given them unique opportunities to allow them to grow on their own. They were expat children for four years and lived in Seoul, South Korea and Beijing, China. They have learned tough lessons in friendship, what it's like to be a minority, how to communicate when you don't know the language, how to say goodbye, and how to embrace change. In addition, they were given opportunities through their schools to travel without Mom and Dad. They camped by the Great Wall, walked the 6660 steps of Tai'an and watched the sunrise, flew to Shanghai for a sports competition, and flew to Hong Kong to play in the school band at Disneyland. All of these were done without their parents and each time they came home, they beamed with delight as they told us about their adventures. Simply put, I love my kids so much that I want them to learn to be explorers without me holding their hands. I want them to want to leave home--not because they can't stand being with us, but because they are not afraid to take the next step because they already have the tools to go out into the world without crippling fear or a lack of confidence.

3. I'm not selfish, I'm realistic. Every now and then, I need to recharge and spend a little time focusing on myself and those things I neglect while I'm busy with the kids. Writing, reading, sleeping and spending uninterrupted time with my husband and friends often gets put on the back burner more often than it should. It's hard to balance it all, so time apart from the kids gives me the opportunity to just be ME. It also gives me time to miss my kids so when they come home, I can give them more of me for the little time I have left until they leave the nest for good.

There are so many away camps out there today that it would be surprising if you didn't find one to fit your child's interests. The camp my children go to offers dance, watersports, culinary, music, fashion, stunts, acting and more. There are camps specifically designed for kids with disabilities, kids with cancer or kids who have suffered a tragedy such as a death of a parent. There is something for everyone. The earlier you send your kids, the easier separation will be as they get older.

If you're not ready to send your child off to camp, but you want to start nudging them off the ledge, start with sleepovers with friends (make sure you know the parents well to lessen your anxiety as well as your child's) or go away for a weekend and have a grandparent or friend watch them. Separation, no matter how small, will foster your child's independence.

Yes, it's bittersweet with my kids gone because I love them and miss them, but I am also enjoying the silence. Not only can I hear the sigh of the dog or the shift of the house, I can also hear the beating of my heart that beats for my children--to want only the best for them.

The Psychology Behind the Blame Game

If you're a parent or simply someone old enough to be inundated with news, you know the details of the recent tragedies. With the TV, Internet, updates on our phones, social media, etc.twelve year old, it's impossible not to know. Ignorance is not an option. It's not as simple as not picking up a newspaper. You remember those thick bundles of black and white paper wrapped in cellophane and thrown on your twelve-year-old boy? Yeah, those things. If you didn't want to read it you could simply toss it, unopened into the recycling bin and move on with your life because let's face it, no news is good news.

Now I'm not saying we should be ignorant or uninformed. But we can't escape the news. It becomes interwoven in our conversations. Certain tragedies are so far beyond our comprehension, we become almost obsessed with them. The underlying current is consistent. "Can you imagine?" and of course as parents the one thought we can not think when we hear about a tragedy involving a child: "What if that had been my child?"

If we can't escape the news reports, we also can't escape the opinions. Fingers start pointing in all directions. We want justice! We want a scapegoat! We want a reason! What if there is no reason? What if it's no one's fault?

Now obviously in the mass shootings, someone pulled the trigger. It was someone's fault. Of course, that doesn't stop the political posturing. Gun control, government, and human rights come into play. This is as it should be, to some extent. If questions are not asked, issues not debated, we can't learn from tragedy and nothing changes. But that's another blog post for another day. I have neither the time nor the energy to get political. Psychology, though, that I can do.

Let's focus for a moment on the horrific tragedy of two-year-old Lane Graves, who was snatched by an alligator and drowned while splashing in a foot of water on the beach of Disney's Grand Floridian Resort. I won't rehash the details because I'm sure you know them. However, in the aftermath of this story on the heels of that of the little boy falling into a gorilla pit, the judgement has been flying. I have seen many articles, message boards, and blog posts asking, "But why the judgement? Why the pitchforks? Why blame instead of compassion?" Is is because we are at our core an evil, judgmental society? Do we truly live in a world of parent against parent? Let's face it, if we can't escape the news, we also can't escape the "mom wars". If parents can condemn each other for breastfeeding/not breastfeeding, public/private/home school, cloth or disposable, is the backlash so surprising when a child is injured or killed in a tragic accident?

I don't think it's surprising, but I also don't think the blame game is evil. It's salt in an open wound for sure, but it's human, and every one of us is guilty of playing it at one point or another. Why are people so quick to blame each other, and more specifically, why are parents so quick to condemn each other? I think I have an idea.

Let's go back to the terrifying question that bolts through the mind of a parent when the unthinkable happens: the loss of a child through a freak accident. "What if that had been my child?" Do me a favor; read that sentence again for me while thinking about the alligator dragging away a two-year-old boy.

"What if that had been my child?"

How did you feel? Pretty uncomfortable, right? Perhaps even terrified. This thought fills a parent with the worst kind of dread, because what is every parent's worst fear? We are human. We shy away from uncomfortable thoughts. On the heels of this thought, it is comforting to shake our heads and think, "No. No way. It couldn't have been my child. I would never let that happen to my child." Is this a selfish thought? A little narcissistic? Maybe. I would argue that it's also incredibly human.

Let's deconstruct this sentence. "It couldn't have been my child." This won't happen to me. I am safe. I would never survive what those parents are going through. Don't worry, it couldn't happen to me, to my child. "I would never let that happen to my child." I have control over my children's safety. If those parents could have prevented their child from dying in a freak accident, then I could prevent it too. I can prevent it. As long as I am a vigilant parent, no freak accident will take my child at a moment's notice while I watch helplessly.

"Where were the parents?" We know in this situation, they were right there. The father was within grabbing distance. But you see, as human beings, (especially once we become responsible for and completely in love with another human life) we don't like to be reminded how little control we really have. We can't imagine the horror of losing a child in the blink of an eye, so we don't. We tell ourselves it couldn't happen, not to us. We would prevent it, stop it, save our child. We know different, and that's what keeps us up at night. We know that those parents would have saved their child if they could have. We know they took their children to the most magical place on earth, gave them a special treat of staying up late and watching a movie on the beach and let their toddler get his hot, sandy feet wet, never once thinking they'd leave the beach without him, just like any of us might have done.

My friend and her family were in Orlando at the time at a different Disney resort. Like many families, they visited the Floridian, but when they got there, the pools were closed. I asked her about the beach, and she said they had a small sign that said No Swimming. She also said that that they had a play area on the shore. She said she would have easily taken her girls on the beach and let them cool their feet in the water. She's a good mom; a responsible mom. She would have easily taken her girls to put their feet in the water. The truth is, it could have been her child.

Not to beat the dead horse of the gorilla story, but my first thought was, "Not again! Haven't we learned anything from Brookfield Zoo? I would make sure my kids weren't climbing in there." Because I have control. Two days later, my self-righteous ignorance was knocked right out of my brain when I lost my three-year-old in Party City in the 2.5 seconds it took me to turn and put green paper plates into my cart. I turned back and he wasn't standing next to the cart. He wasn't in the next aisle or the next or the next. I panicked. I called, I searched. I promised that I would never think, "not my child" again. By the grace of God, he wasn't kidnapped, and he didn't run out the door into the parking lot. He was standing in the middle of an aisle, staring up at a turnstile display of party favors, mesmerized by the twenty-five cent wind up cars.  My child.

We've been to Florida many times. My kids have collected sea shells on the beach in Estero. We've walked along the shore after a long day of traveling and a fried dinner. It could have been my child. It could have been your child.

So who can we blame? Disney for not foreseeing the event and giving more specific warnings? The alligator for mistaking the boy for prey or for now knowing that it was in a man made lagoon meant for travelers?  What if we don't blame anyone? What if it were a freak act of nature no one would have reasonably predicted? That's uncomfortable, though. When something despairing happens, we want a chain of events. We want a reason to help us make sense of it.

If I've learned one thing after pregnancy loss it's this: sometimes there is no reason. Sometimes no one did anything to cause it and no one could have reasonably done anything to prevent it (at least not without being able to see into the future). You know that phrase, "everything happens for a reason?" I call bullshit. Sometimes things just happen. Accepting that may be uncomfortable at first, but we have to give up the "it would never happen to me" mentality. Trust me on this, it is ultimately comforting to learn that we can't control everything. Sometimes things just happen. Good things. Mundane things. Terrible things.

It could have been my child.

It could have been your child.

It was someone's child. Someone not much different from you or me.

So let's swallow that and move on with our hearts a little heavier. We know the parents can't possibly recover. But maybe they can slowly accept that there's no one to blame. Maybe they can slowly learn to live through the "what ifs" and "if onlys." Let's keep all victims of tragedy in our thoughts and (if you're a person of faith) prayers. To blame is human. To accept the randomness of some events, to sit with our lack of control, well that's a journey. A journey that hopefully leads to faith, acceptance, and compassion.

What I Learned From My Foreign Exchange Student

It was that email, the one I tried to avoid, but it came anyway. "Dear Mrs. Steele, please consider hosting another exchange student (we are desperate!!)." It was followed by an email from my daughter, "Mommy, they are getting more students, can we have one?!" Of course, my initial response was NO! We had already hosted a student in November and December (one of the busiest times of the year) and now I had a full plate of events coming up - how could I possibly have time to host another student?

I had to do some soul searching. Having an exchange student means more than just supplying a bed and meals. It means showing them the sites, paying for the majority of their experiences, cooking more than usual and not being able to be a slug and telling my kids to eat cereal for dinner because I'm tired of cooking. I mean, I wouldn't want the student to see how I actually run the household, that would be embarrassing! But, I didn't want the student to be sent to a family who wouldn't go the extra mile, who wouldn't show them our wonderful city,  and who wouldn't look at the experience as something they could learn from as well. So, I said YES.

Our exchange program is unique in the sense that there are no guidelines and no expectations. These students come from my daughter's sister school in France, and their primary goal is to be immersed in the English language. Of course, they are coming to one of the best cities to visit, San Diego. We have a multitude of things to see and experience here, and I can't imagine sending them home without experiencing a good majority of it. Before our student arrived, I was already trying to figure out how we were going to fit everything in. My youngest was in a musical with tech week and two weekends of shows, I was flying up to move my son home from college, my middle child was preparing for the ACT and focusing on the last two months of her junior year, my husband and I had weekend plans for two of those weekends she would be with us. How in the world would I make it work?

Somehow, even with our crazy schedule, we did make it work. But what was more eye-opening to me was how much I enjoyed having this student during this crazy time. I can get caught up in the whirlwind of our busy life, never coming up for air, never taking in what I am actually doing because I keep thinking that I just need to get through it and survive. But this time, our student had me seeing things through different eyes.

Our student comes from a small city three hours from Paris. They don't have Starbucks (what place doesn't have Starbucks?), malls, large grocery stores, grand sized cinemas or a never-ending supply of restaurants offering cuisine from all over the world. Just seeing our student's excitement over the smallest things was, at first, amusing and then caused me to reflect on how lucky we truly are. The first day, when I picked her up from school, I asked her how her day was and she said, with wide eyes and an animated smile, "So fun! School here is so fun!" I think you could have picked my kid's jaws up off the floor because they would never describe school as fun. Every time we took her to something we thought as standard and ordinary, she would think it was extraordinary. After a while, her excitement became infectious, and I found myself looking at all those things I took for granted as marvels, pure blessings.

It has been five years since we moved back from living in Asia. When we first moved home, I loved to visit the grocery store and enjoy the multitude of choices down each aisle. I enjoyed the ease of getting what I needed whenever I needed it, being able to order food or drinks in my native language and not worrying about the water I drank or the food I ate. I appreciated the palm trees, the roar of the waves, the painted sunsets and the clean air. But, like all things, after a while it's just expected, and we often forget how wonderful all those things truly are.

Our student has taught me to appreciate these simple pleasures again. Even in the busiest of schedules, I realized how lucky I am to have what I have. Too often I find myself saying, "I just can't wait until this is over with," instead of embracing each moment and learning something from it. Granted, there are those things that we endure and really just want to get over with like colonoscopies or mammograms, but there are also those events that seem invasive and exhausting yet hold invaluable lessons and hidden appreciation.

As we embark on summer vacation, I encourage you to take in the things you have often taken for granted and see how remarkable they truly are. Try to see things from a different perspective; put yourself in someone else's shoes and experience it. I guarantee, you will start to see the ordinary become extraordinary, and you will cherish it more. Whether it's struggling to stay sane while your children are home from school or getting yourself through another menial week of work, know that the childless and the jobless envy you. We have a lot to learn from the simplest of blessings.

You Told My Child What?!

It's amazing how hard parents work to build self-esteem in their children. For every time they boost their child's self-esteem there is at least someone or something that pulls it down - as though they are on a see-saw, going up and down, up and down on a ride deemed as dangerous. Ever been on a see-saw when the person on the other end jumps off and causes you to plummet to the ground? My sister broke her collar bone when someone did that to her, she was lucky. On the self-esteem see-saw, the damage could be far greater; its damage permanent.

We have been dealing with a lot of crap in our household lately, mostly school related, which seems to create all kinds of emotional baggage. The cyber-bullying incident ranked up there with the amount of shit it created in its wake. But as we worked to clean up that mess, another one appeared that had me furious and frustrated.

My oldest daughter is a junior in high school and is actively researching colleges, taking ACT and SAT exams and beginning to fill out college applications. Unlike my son, who didn't bother to do any of this until the last semester of his senior year, my daughter has been very proactive in her search for the right school for her. She has already visited four universities, one of which is her top school. Unfortunately for her, her top school is what they call a "reach" school which means, it is going to be really hard to get into due to GPA/test requirements. She knows this is a reach school and because of this, she has made sure she checks out and applies to other schools that she would not have trouble being accepted to. She knows what she wants and what she doesn't want in a university and she knows she doesn't want to go to a junior college. Compared to many juniors out there, she is much further ahead in this process.

That being said, a few weeks ago, she went in to talk to a guidance counselor about college planning. I can only imagine how excited she was to have this opportunity to discuss what she has spent countless hours working on. But the excitement was short-lived as the guidance counselor told her flat out, she would not get into her top school. He didn't say "it's highly unlikely" or "it's a stretch". What he said was, "you're not going to get in and here's why," followed by a list of stats on the last three years of admissions for that particular school. Not only did he slam the door in her face, he also locked it.

Now, I am a realistic parent. I don't sell my kids shit they will never be able to buy. I don't tell them they are great at something if, in fact, they suck at it. I tell them the truth. When they do something well, they know my compliment it genuine - that's just how I roll. Watching American Idol auditions had me cringing when parents would say what an amazing singer their child was when the child couldn't even carry a tune. I'm not one of those. So, I'm not going to build my daughter up and tell her she's going to get into a college that requires a higher GPA/testing scores, but I am not going to close the door and lock it either. Why not shut the door and lock it and tell her to move on? First of all, in a case like this, there is room for hope. Not all schools today are so cut and dry with their admissions, especially if a student exhibits other qualities that set them apart from those with higher scores. Second, squashing any hope of getting into their top school could have them giving up on the process and giving in rather than fighting to the end to increase his/her odds. And third, he/she may very well be the exact student they are looking for, regardless of the fact he/she may not check all the required boxes.

After my daughter met with the counselor (in the morning), I received a text from her that she wanted to go home. I knew this was an SOS since she never likes to miss school. I just happened to be at school for a presentation, so I went to the office and signed her out. She was an emotional mess and I was irate at this counselor for his insensitivity. I wanted to march into his office and ask him who the hell he thought he was - why he felt it was his job to dash dreams. But, I didn't. Instead, I took my daughter to get her nails done and then to lunch, all the while, talking her off the proverbial ledge and reminding her of the unexpected success stories of those who were told no and defied the odds. And yes, I also told her, if it's not meant to be, there must be a reason. Self-esteem is always hard to cultivate and grow in teens, especially girls, and one person with one thoughtless message can destroy it.

Once I calmed down, I did write the counselor an email, explaining the importance of the message he sends to the students he meets. I'm sure being a counselor is not an easy job, and I understand they see multiple students every day, but kids need a healthy balance of reality and hope in order for them to push through their insecurities - because, let's face it, kids are filled with insecurity. As a teacher by trade, I know how difficult it can be to foster a positive environment within the classroom, or any place where kids convene, all the time. Negative attitudes, inflated egos, and general teenage angst can create a calloused teacher, counselor or administrator over time. Why do you think teachers need the summer off?! But if you have taken a job in one of these positions, it is also your job to treat each student fairly, ridding yourself of any bias due to others you have encountered in the past. I have encountered too many jaded teachers and administrators recently and often find myself shaking my head, wondering why on earth they are still teaching or working within the school system if they can't stand the people they serve. It's appalling, really.

I don't mean to rant or give teachers and administrators a bad name - there are still countless great ones and we are blessed to have them teaching and guiding our children. It's just important to remember that each child responds differently in any given situation - no one student can truly be compared to another. The way their situations and needs are approached will either help or hinder the way they will view the world in the future. Who's to say the little boy or girl who sits quietly in the corner and who doesn't perform well on tests or school work isn't destined for something great? Shut the door on this child or prop it open and see if they walk through it? I certainly hope my children are surrounded by those who prop the door open and let them feel the breeze from the other side.

I want to give a special thank you to all those who love our children and have a true love for teaching and guiding them with a spirit that inspires them. Thank you to all those who don't build a roof over their potential and who go above and beyond to find the talents hidden within our children. Thank you to all those who never shut a door and lock it. You are the ones who make a difference - you are the ones who turn straw into gold!

Looking For A Book To Read?

If you are looking for a new book to read, check out my mentor, Tammy Greenwood's, new literary thriller, Where I Lost Her. It has received wonderful reviews and is being called a "page turner". I feel blessed to have her as my writing mentor and am humbled by the amount of time she dedicates to helping other writers learn the craft. Her words are always beautiful, true prose entwined with a heart-wrenching story. Happy Reading!