…while we are absent, one from another…

One hundred eighty. That is roughly the number of days dedicated to the school year. Those days are spread out over several months, and the year-round school schedule we follow helps distribute the load across the seasons. Still, that is almost half of the year spent within the walls of a school, and outside the immediate influence and oversight of parents… I take a step back and try to think of it in terms of actual time spent.  The school hours associated with those days come to about 1,170 for Jaden and Dillon; 1,260 for Logan.  Even at first glance, it seems to me like a lot of hours. When I consider the time I spend away at work during those same 180 days, I figure I get to spend about 270 hours  with the kids (If I don’t travel).  I add another 600 hrs if I include 12 hours per day on the weekends. I’m still losing ground.

I’d love to say that all those hours are quality hours…that when I get home, the stress of the world melts away and I make the most of the opportunities. It is my goal every day, but I do not succeed every day. I try to reinforce the behaviors and qualities we tried to instill upon them early on. I try to make an impact in some small way, and to be an influencial figure in their lives. But 180 times a year, for hours on end, they are beyond our reach.  You want them to be comfortable and feel safe. You want them to take advantage of opportunities to be brave, and to feel empowered to be themselves. Last year, we made the most of volunteer opportunities in the classroom. I tried to go at least once every other month and Kendra went monthly. This year she has a standing Tuesday appointment and goes to eat lunch with them each Friday. At some point though, there has to be the trust that you’ve planted the right seeds and done all you could to help them take root. Eventually, as the weight of your influence wanes, you can only make yourself available, ask questions, and remain present. Even then, believing that you’ve done the right things, the hours can make you crazy.

We have been very blessed these past couple years to have found teachers that have been truly interested in not only the education, but personal development of our boys. I was impressed by a few of Logan’s middle school teachers who made a point of keeping in regular email and phone communication with us. Those early teen years can be treacherous, and having a pair of extra eyes and ears and additional voices of reason were very welcomed sources of support. I imagine it would be very easy for teachers at that grade level to remain detached from the nomadic student population. Instead, they took the time to care about our child as an individual and partner with us in his success. I appreciate them reaching out the way they did. It encouraged us to engage with his other teachers and maintain healthy lines of communication, and completely shifted the way I looked at parent/teacher interactions at the middle school level. It also helped reshape my expectations for involvement and communication at the high school level.

With Jaden and Dillon, the teacher interaction has been phenomenal. Each teacher, from pre-school through first grade, has opened her classroom to us and her life and even her heart to the boys. They have created environments that allowed Jaden and Dillon to flourish and have taken the time to know them as individuals. We’ve been fortunate enough to develop friendships with their former teachers and have enjoyed several social events with them ranging from birthday parties, to barbeques, to dive-in movies. I know it probably isn’t typical, but the time spent volunteering in their classroom and in dialogue after school really provided us the opportunity to get to know the teachers and also allowed them to get to know us. Those exchanges allowed us to be advocates for one another and reinforce behaviors or lessons from the classroom to home and vice versa. So it was with optimism that I looked forward to going for dinner last weekend at their first grade teacher’s house (yes, that one ).

We had a great time…we talked and swam and both she and her husband were gracious and accommodating. The thing that I took away from the evening was not that they were such a nice couple (which they were), or that she had a fully stocked playroom for kids of friends even though they have no children of their own (yet), or even that she followed through on a conversation she had with Jaden about us getting together which ultimately resulted in the dinner plans (as impressive as that was).  I watched the interactions and saw her interest in hearing what the boys had to say, and in being involved in their imaginary play. I was pleased by the fact that she did not stop with the items we provided about the boys in the infamous assignment, but took her own path toward learning more about each of them. She met them on their level, but did not interact as a peer. She seized a few opportunities to teach, but did not saturate the evening with lessons. She cares about kids. She WANTS to be doing what she is doing. Her passion and dedication shine through. But,what I left their home feeling that night was that those 1,170 hours might not be as far removed from us as I had originally thought… and that we had found another true ally in the education and development of our sons.

Thanks for coming along for the ride!