I'm reading Waiting for Superman, right now and, in it, the film-maker author Davis Guggenheim talks about the convergence and impact of seemingly unrelated topics.
That struck a chord. I thought, "Yes!" when I read that statement. I think he terms it "illumination by collision." I'm presently having one of those head-on impressions regarding my son.
For me, it's taken years to come to a crux. So bear with me.
Shortly after our son was born, his “adoptive grandmother”/our neighbor (his nagymama) said something to me, which I’ve thought about now and again throughout his life, and a lot more recently. In essence, if not exactly, here's what she said:
Remember to be in his corner. There will come a time when he comes into conflict with someone of authority, probably a teacher, and you need to let him know you’re on his side.
My boy was a toddler when she said this to me and already showing his independent nature by stealing out of the house and over to hers for the cookies he learned she would give upon his knock. He was little more than a year.
Now, looking back, we might have clued in sooner of his escapist tendencies, because it was when he was about eight months old when he no longer stayed in his crib. (Bedtime has never been easy with this kid. Still isn't.)
We learned this one night when he showed up at my edge of our bed. Not really seeing him, I sensed his short self.
We were so perplexed, because his crib was high and UPSTAIRS (and he was so young!). So we snuck up and watched him. Shortly after we left him in his crib, he hooked his leg and swung himself over the top rail and literally dropped to the floor; in no time flat. Soon after, we went for a futon replacement.
His Houdini-like qualities continued to take shape.
He escaped out of the house around 20 months, and was found in the middle of the road by some random stranger who was not so gracious about how my tiny boy may have found his way there without my notice. I was changing a diaper. I had no idea he could have the capacity to unlock the door and leave.
We promptly raised the locks on all exit doors.
When he was two, he broke his thumb whilst attempting to open a giant, heavy gym door and escape his playgroup at daycare.
At five, he literally left his British nursery school sight UNSEEN and ran all the way home, about half a mile, through council housing. I was just leaving the house to pick him up and opened the door to find him there. Red in the face from running, he blurted, “I just wanted to make sure you were here!”
(We realized then he had separation anxiety, because a few months earlier during his birthday breakfast, Daddy got a call to work and still hadn’t returned. That was the onset of the current Iraq conflict)
A year or so later, a behaviorist in his British primary school (his third) tagged him as potentially having Asperger's Syndrome (which is on the Autism spectrum). So we had him tested. He didn't have autism; instead, we discovered he was exceptionally bright and, it turns out, very bored in school.
Our son has never been an easy kid, but he hasn’t had an easy life, either. It’s been an ongoing journey, learning to be his advocate, while nurturing who he is, sometimes with Daddy; sometimes without. He’s in his fifth school as a sixth grader.
He’s twelve now, and it seems the time may’ve arrived to take those early words from Nagymama to heart and step into the ring. But let me first add the other seemingly non-related topic:
Recently I’ve come across several studies, and real-life/real-time personal examples, which support something my husband’s been saying for a long time: in an effort to pay due attention to girls, minorities, etc., boys, in particular, are getting left behind.
In an article by Janice Shaw Crouse in “American Thinker,” she writes; “the male-female ratio on college campuses has changed dramatically. Women outnumber men by 4-3. Men currently make up only 43% of college graduates.” According to USA Today, 135 women receive bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men. That imbalance is predicted to widen in the coming years. This creates huge social issues between educated women and the under-educated, immature/irresponsible young men who make up their marriage prospects.
At the clinic, the discussion transcended from a backstroke focus to working with boys, to the emasculation of boys in society as a whole. I’m not prepared to take on the subject here, but it certainly resonated with me, and I keep thinking about it. It was then I realized the subject of educating our boys goes deeper than my household, even though I'd read articles before.
Now I return to my boy, and here's the collision.
Recently, my school-loving son has once-again returned to his escapism tendencies, only this time it's more of the cerebral sort. He's beginning to retreat into himself. Maybe it's his age. Maybe it's something more. Maybe I'm trying to make too broad a connection.
He's shared throughout the year different experiences where, in my interpretation, the ability to act like a boy both in his classroom and school-wide, has been usurped. There are no contact sports allowed at recess. When the boys are seen as being "too rough," which means when they rough house at all, they are made to write something the school terms "reflection sheets." As I understand it, these are accounts of what the school deems bad behavior given by the offenders and the possible consequences. (The boys told me they simply write the worst version of what possibly could've happened just to get the whole process over with.)
Yesterday he came home from school and told me his class diverted from their regular curriculum to watch videos on bullying in a special health lesson — he thinks due to a war game one of his friend's created on paper.
Let me say — these aren't rough boys. They're all part of a GT program, and while they love to actively debate and press issues (I coach several of them; been the catechist of many in church and taught Junior Achievement in class), and can be rambunctious, I don't see them as the fightin'/bullying type. While I have no problem addressing the subject of bullying in general; I do take issue with reacting to a war game creation by making the students watch bullying videos.
And here rests another connection. What also came up in our swim coach clinic, is a statistic (for which I don't have a source) that skateboarding seems to be one of the last, male dominated, activities where boys can go, create their own rules and get physical with each other without parental or adult interference. Could this be true?
It's a complex subject. Education in general; society as a whole; boys in particular. Advocating for our children isn't easy. My son certainly isn't innocent in pressing buttons and trying to negotiate himself out of accepting responsibility for his behavior, but lately his accounts of his experiences at school are downright scary. Maybe some of you can relate.
Are we squashing our boys? For those of you who have no boys — that marriage reference kind of hits home, doesn’t it? Exactly who and what are we shaping are boys to become?
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