He's also fairly uncommunicative.
True story:
When Rob dropped a fence post on his hand while helping out at an Eagle Scout project and it hurt like the dickens, he didn't say a word. To anyone. All day. He finished the project, ate pizza, swam with the boys, came home. Rob's finger looked swollen, so I asked about it and he mumbled something about dropping something on it.
The next morning, his finger was five times the size of any of his other fingers, so being the astute mom that I am I took him in to the doctor.
His finger was broken.
He hadn't said a word.
Rob is similarly disinclined to share with me what goes on at school. No matter the strategy or angle I use to extract information out of that kid, he remains silent and I remain clueless.
Rob usually takes the bus home. Recently, though, he stayed after school for a study group and I picked him up. There were no other kids in the car. On the way home, he saw a girl from his school walking across the street and he . . .
wait for it . . .
started talking!
I remained outwardly calm so as to not alarm him into silence.
Turns out, he didn't like the girl and had some valid reasons -- which he actually explained to me.
I spent several hours after our conversation in a partial state of shock.
Fact #1: It is highly inconvenient to leave the younger kids at home in various stages of after-school chaos to go anywhere, much less to the middle school to pick up Rob. Especially since he can easily hop on the bus and come home all by himself.
Fact #2: I am most likely to hear communication from Rob when we are alone.
Fact #3: Fact #2 supercedes Fact #1 in importance.
Resolve: I will pick Rob up from school sans other kids a minimum of once a week.
Desired Outcome: One more decent conversation with him by the end of the school year.
More would be fabulous.
Here's hoping.
3 comments:
I love Rob. This is a good story! Tyler and I have been having "snuggle" time at night after his brothers are in bed and he tends to open up to me then. I think I will keep up our "snuggle sessions" so he keeps talking to me!
When I came home from college one year, my mom picked my brother up from high school, and I was in the car. He talked the whole mile and a half home, short distance, that could have easily been walked. My mom made a wrong turn, on purpose to keep the conversation going. When I talked to her about it later I learned that she did this for each of us to learn more about our lives. So, I pick my kids up from school almost every day. Inconvenient, yes. Do I feel like I spend a great portion of my days in the car driving kids around, yes? But worth every minute of it, absolutely.
There was a talk given by someone somewhere (gotta love the specifics there!) about how important it is to be at the "CrossRoads" with our kids. (Maybe Pres Benson? that rings a bell) But the point was that kids are ready to talk at specific times- usually at transition stages of coming/going. It certainly has been true with my own kids- they are bursting with information when they walk in the door. But if I am on the phone and ask them even 5 minutes later how their day was? "Fine". So I plan my day around being available for the deluge of precious tidbits of conversation that come at 3:10, 3:50, and 5:00. (basketball season!) Also, waiting up while they are on dates is one of the best ways to get one on one time with the older ones too, and find out stuff you would NEVER hear in the morning. :)
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