As a teacher I have been faced with many parents who work so very hard to make sure their children do not fail. They go to extremes that most people would not believe. Law suits, slandering other adults professionals, and that's just the tame stuff. Each time I encounter these situations I am just saddened by it. Failure and struggle are part of life and if we keep kids from learning about it within the safe confines of high school we only set them up to experience it when it really counts- in their jobs or in their marriages.
I think we can all look back at times in our lives when we were stretched beyond our comfort zones, we made it out okay... no we made it out better. Those times in our lives when things with difficult situations, when we hurt beyond what we thought we could possibly hurt, when we struggled to the point of tears - those times shaped us, grew us and gave us the strength to face the harder challenges that lay ahead of us. Who doesn't remember their first heart break? The first time you felt like your heart had literally been torn into two pieces that would never be whole again? I know we all have a story about a boyfriend or girlfriend who walked away or worse yet cheated on us, and we can all talk of the pain related to that event with very vivid detail. But from those times, we learned, we figured out that person wasn't our soul mate, we moved on, ready to fall in love again, now stronger, more convicted about the type of person we wanted to give our hearts to. Those painful lessons helped us grow into adults able to cope and deal with the pain and disappointment we are guaranteed to face in the life.
I remember many nights spent crying in high school, but not about some boy who had broke my heart- who had time for such things with my schedule? No, I cried in frustration over my trigonometry or my AP English paper. I kid you not, there were nights I was spent stressing over problems or interpretations or margins or any number of seriously unimportant things. I carried a very heavy class load by choice- I knew I wanted to go college and I loved being challenged. Wait, I love the idea of being challenged- the actually process was not enjoyable. But that struggle, those sleepless, frustration filled nights, prepared me for college. While I watched my college friends spend their freshman year trying to figure out how to study and balance their lives, I enjoyed a the steady pace of a well orginized life, because I learned those lessons years before. That pain, that struggle, paid off for me. I hated it at the time, I mean I really hated it, and it was the best thing that happen to me.
To my friends who are parents, I know it is hard to watch your child be unhappy or to see them struggle, but keeping them from those struggles does not help them. If you love them, walk beside them through the struggles, hold their hands when they cry, help them pick themselves up when the fall, encourage them to step outside of their comfort zones, remind them that whatever it is, it is not the end of the world. The sun will rise tomorrow, you will survive and better yet you will grow - and this too will pass.
