I stood in the park last week consoling a weepy mother. \u00a0Her homeschooled daughter was asking to go to school and the mother was overcome with guilt. \u00a0\u201cAm I being selfish keeping her at home?\u201d she wanted to know.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you asked her why she wants to go to school?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
She hadn\u2019t; so a few minutes later when her daughter started begging to join the pre-school class heading out of the park, Mom asked her daughter why she so desperately wanted to be a part of the class.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to line up. \u00a0I\u2019ve never lined up, and I really, really want to line up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLine up for what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor lining up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The desires of children.<\/em><\/p>\n Last year, Zach begged us to sign him up for the more competitive traveling soccer team. \u00a0He\u2019s an extremely competitive child, and I assumed that he wanted to play against the best players. But halfway through the season he lamented that the travel team wasn\u2019t as great as he thought it would be.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re in first place, and you love your team. \u00a0What\u2019s the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought there was carpooling.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought that if you were on a traveling team, you got to carpool to the games. \u00a0And we haven\u2019t carpooled even once.\u201d<\/p>\n The desires of children are not obvious.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>My sister works in a hospital with very sick children, many of whom die. \u00a0One day she walked into the room of a teen patient who had just received a horrible diagnosis \u00a0He was crying and said that he was afraid. \u00a0Instead of jumping in to console him, Jenny asked him what he was afraid of. \u00a0It was his hair. \u00a0He wasn\u2019t afraid of dying; that hadn\u2019t occurred to him yet. \u00a0He was a handsome teen boy, and he didn\u2019t want to lose his hair.<\/p>\n The fears of children.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Last fall, while working on a poster we were making for Thanksgiving, I glared at Ezra for his lack of focus and effort. He needed to quit goofing around, I yelled. \u00a0If he didn\u2019t finish in fifteen minutes, he wouldn\u2019t come with us to the park, I threatened. \u00a0You have no work ethic, I accused.<\/p>\n At the park later that day, I told my friends how I had lost it with Ez. \u00a0Then one of them told me that dyslexic kids have an impossible time copying text from a computer to a paper.<\/p>\n I went home and apologized to Ezra. \u00a0\u201cHey buddy, I was talking to Lisa about how much trouble you were having copying the words from the computer, and she said that people with dyslexia often have that problem. \u00a0I\u2019m sorry that I accused you of being lazy. \u00a0I know you were trying your hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s okay, Mom. \u00a0I already knew I was trying hard.\u201d<\/p>\n I must have looked even more repentant at that point, because he added, \u201cWe both were.\u201d<\/p>\n The assessments of children are sometimes staggering.<\/em><\/p>\n Guess what? \u00a0Our children\u2019s desires are not our desires. Neither are their fears nor their self-assessments. I know that, of course. \u00a0But I\u2019m amazed at how often I forget.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I stood in the park last week consoling a weepy mother. \u00a0Her homeschooled daughter was asking to go to school and the mother was overcome with guilt. \u00a0\u201cAm I being selfish keeping her at home?\u201d she wanted to know. \u201cHave you asked her why she wants to go to school?\u201d I asked. She hadn\u2019t; so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[286,287,8,6],"class_list":["post-891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-childrens-desires","tag-childrens-fears","tag-homeschooling","tag-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\n