Examples. Sometimes life is better described through examples. Right?
Yesterday, the girls stayed after school to attend an "interest meeting" related to a lip synch video their entire team is supposed to be participating in. They signed up to be dancers/choreographers and the meeting was supposed to explain the different roles. I understand there's a lot of injustice in the 6th grade - project partners who don't contribute, kids who are rude, class clowns - and I commiserate with my little Type A personalities on the regular, but I felt like there was too much drama when they climbed into the van. After a brusque statement that they were told to make the choreography "easy" I asked in a very calm voice if perhaps they could look at the positive in all of this. The coordinator had found them responsible and talented enough to choreograph a dance and teach it to others.
Admittedly, I was coming off of a stressful day. At 2:00 in the afternoon, I had already spent 2 hours of my day driving and 4 hours at a doctor's appointment with my mom. I was calm though. I wanted to remind them that not everything will go their way and that's okay. Let's think about what's good for now and not what's annoying.
Response: "WAH! You don't love us anymore."
Approximately 30 minutes later there were tears during a conversation regarding unwanted lettuce on a sandwich.
There are difficult, dramatic moments, but at the end of day, I know I'm lucky to have good kids. They work so hard at school and dance. They try to be good friends to others. They're kind. I know I could be dealing with so much more right now, and I'm grateful that I'm not. When the biggest problem of the day is lettuce, you know you're good.
At its core, my basis for parenting comes from what I learned from my parents and from my childhood. What did my parents do that worked? What did I not like and why? What was I feeling when I was in the 6th grade? Of course, there will always be something to learn along the way. For example, I was the only girl of four kids. Rich is one of thirteen. Parenting triplets is a completely different ballgame.
So, yes, my kids do sometimes roll their eyes when I give them life lessons, but I'm hoping that some of what I say sticks. For example, throughout the three years of middle school, they have lunch with their entire grade. So even if their friends end up on different teams or don't share any classes with them, they will still be able to sit with them at lunch. The girls have made new "friends" this year. More acquaintance than friend really. Kids they chat with in art class or at gym. I've always told them you don't have to be friends with everyone but you should be friendly. And now, I'm telling them that it's good to have a wide circle of friends, even if some of them are only your friend at school or in class. In high school, you don't know who will be in the same lunch period as you. What about when your chemistry teacher tells you to find a partner for lab work?
The number one rule, however, for this year has been do not tell anyone who you have a crush on unless you can completely trust that person to keep it a secret. This is from personal experience and they've seen it happen at school too. Mary has a crush on Tom so she tells Becky. Becky decides to take matters into her own hands and convinces Mary to allow her to talk to Tom. Tom's hanging out at his locker after school with some friends when Becky approaches and tells him that Mary likes him. Does he like Mary? Tom, understandably at this age, is embarrassed and in order to save face says, no, he doesn't like Mary and never will like Mary. Yuck. How heartbreaking would that be for a 12 year old?!
Moving on . . . It seems like I've gotten the "who is the tallest?" question a lot more than usual this past year. The girls are lined up by height in several of their dances and they are always three in a row. At their 12 year well visit a couple of weeks ago, they measured exactly the same height. 55.5 inches. In Massachusetts, kids are required under state law to remain in a booster seat until they reach 57 inches in height. So, yes, my 12 year olds are still in booster seats. We are so close though!
Anna and Emily have been in the same gym class this year. They had gym for 30 school days in a row and then a new session started and they have gym for another 30 school days in a row. Allie's gym class meets at the same time but she has a different teacher. For the first session, Allie had Mr T and Emily and Anna had Mrs L. For the second session, their teachers were switched and Allie and Emily complained how they liked the other teacher better. So I came up with a simple solution. Because they have gym at the same time, they should just go to their sister's class and pretend to be each other. The gym teachers this year have struggled with telling them apart. Nope, they wouldn't do it.
After the girls' 12 year well visit, Emily was reading aloud the parent care instruction sheet that was given to me. One of the line items was "Understand your teen may not want to participate in as many family activities." Allie responded with, "No, Mama. That will never be me."
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