Amidst the initial flurry of papers that came home from school this August, one showed up asking for responsible students to help out with Safety Patrol. These are the kids that open and shut the car doors during morning dropoff and afternoon pickup, and help maintain order throughout arrival and dismissal. Perfect! A wonderful, rare opportunity for Ben to serve his school. I pulled the paper out of the stack and left it on the counter as a reminder to mention it to him.
Ben sees it as he’s passing by, "And Mom, I’m not going to do Safety Patrol." I gave him a noncommittal we’ll-see-ish kind of response and let it lie until I could talk to Brian about it. He agreed that it’s important for Ben to give back to his school, since the rest of his days are spent being served by the wonderful people there. So, we got our unified front together and brought it up again. Ben’s response this time was vehement – NO. WAY. As Brian remarked, "There was weeping and gnashing of teeth."
He had given safety patrol a try last year when they needed substitute helpers while the 5th graders were at camp. And, it turns out, he really didn’t like it. Lots of interaction with people he didn’t know very well, which is not his cup of tea. So, my mommy mind is turning and thinking, "Well, there’s another reason to do it – you’ll build social skills!"
Well, we had unwisely taken up this fight before bedtime, so we told Ben we would think and pray about it some more and let him know what we decided the next day. The next afternoon, I was talking to my friend who also has a shy son and telling her our dilemma – get him outside his shell and serve his school, or reckon with the fact that he’d be miserable the whole time and let him get out of it. She listened and said, "Don’t do it. I’ve done the same thing to (her son) so many times. It’s never worked out or achieved the results I wanted it to, and he just ends up resenting me for it."
Around the same time, Brian came up with the idea to seek other opportunities for him to help. My first instinct was negative – it just sounded so unstructured and not easy. But, it was a good way to put the ball back in Ben’s court. Now he had a choice – he could find another way to serve or he could join Safety Patrol. He chose to talk to his teacher (all on his own at school) and asked her if there was anything he could do to help her. Thinking that she might need a little more explanation, I followed up with an email explaining the situation and telling her not to create something that would just make her life more difficult. She responded with great enthusiasm and actually had something that she really needs help with – sorting all the students’ graded papers into their boxes on Monday afternoon before the Tuesday folders go home.
And that was it. Now Ben helps out every Monday for about 30-40 minutes after school. He gets to be in there with his teacher (whom he absolutely adores) doing work that he finds much more enjoyable than opening and closing car doors. And it’s a real help to her, crossing one task off her list of many.
So, this has been a very long post, but I write these for me as much as anyone else. In this case, I want to remind myself, once again, my child was created as he is for a reason. No amount of forcing a square peg into a round hole is going to change the way he is wired up. If there aren’t opportunities out there that fit him, then we need to look harder and uncover or create opportunities that will allow him to explore, learn, and grow to be the amazing Ben only he can be.
But, if you are interested, please nominate yourself and leave me a comment so I can check out your post!
