Tag: the boy

The Spiderman them line is, of course, “with great power comes greater responsibility.” Part of the charm of the Spiderman cannon is the simple truth of that statement. I don’t think you’d find anyone who’d argue that point.

When viewed in the context of a superhero, it seems kind of funny to apply that concept to kids. But I think it’s an pithy phrase for a phase the boy seems to be going through. While he doesn’t have any emerging superpowers, he does have an emerging power that he’s becoming more and more aware of.

His physicality. He’s bigger than the majority of his friends. Not just bigger, but built differently as well. Most people that first meet him typically mistake him for someone 2 to 3 years older than he really is. Basically, he’s bigger, stronger and just as fast as most of his peers.

So he’s been going through a phase lately where getting together with his friends typically results in a friend getting roughed up a bit. In his defense, the boy isn’t doing anything differently from what his friends are doing. It’s just that the results tend to be a bit more extreme. His friend’s are the ones who go flying, get knocked down and, very occasionally, get hurt.

And therein lies the problem. The boy needs to learn that his rough housing with his friends they way they all do will more likely result in someone else getting hurt than the boy. For one, his arms are at his friend’s head level in the majority of cases. And for those cases where he isn’t, he’s just bigger than they are. The laws of physics all favor him, for the time being, in those situations.

Obviously, he doesn’t mean to hurt anyone and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. The couple of times where he has hurt someone else (and those times have both been superficial bumps- no blood or anything major) it’s been because he lost himself in the moment and either used all his strength or his size during play. Probably like any other kid might have done.

But like I told him when we put him to bed tonight, he needs to start learning to control himself a bit more. If he doesn’t start now, he may end up hurting someone more seriously down the road. I tried to help him understand by him thinking about what might happen if I used all my strength when wrestling around with him. He seemed to respond to that idea.

I don’t expect his physical advantages to diminish either. He seems to be gifted with a fair amount of athleticism to go along with his size. That means he’s going to naturally know how to use his body in ways those less gifted won’t be able to. All of these kinds of things are great, but they come with a burden as well. He won’t be able to use them to there fullest extent while goofing around with his buddies. Right now, he thinks that means he won’t be able to have fun with his friends either. That’s incorrect. He just needs to learn how to do it with restraint.

This past Saturday, the boy and I spent the day at a martial arts tournament we both entered. It was the boy’s first real tournament, and my second. I participated in another one about a month ago and enjoyed it, as I suspected I would. Whether the boy was destined to enjoy his experience was, well, completely results oriented. I don’t know if that’s the norm for approaching-nine-year-olds, but it’s definitely the way the boy is wired.

There was a bit of confusion for him leading up to the event. For those of you not in the know, which I presume is a majority, there are 3 different competition formats at a MA tournament: breaking, forms and sparring. For adults, there is also a weapon’s form. I trust I don’t need to explain why there isn’t such a category for the kids.

The boy competed in all three formats for his age and belt level. The confusion arose because he had to decide what form he would perform and the type of break he wanted to perform. For both, he started out with one thing in mind and had to change it in the final week prior to competition. For the form, it was a quirk of the tournament format and for the breaking we were told the break he wanted to do wasn’t appropriate for his belt level.

The tournament itself was quite the affair. It was located in a hotel conference room with 10 different rings setup so multiple levels and ages could compete simultaneously. I can’t even begin to count how many different groups there were over the course of the day, so suffice it to say there were over 400 competitors at the event ages ranging from 6 to 50+ and belt levels ranging from beginner to grandmaster (typically 6th Dan and up). Just for a more specific taste, for men’s black belts alone there were at least 10 different competition levels.

The tournament didn’t get off to the greatest start, if you’re a kid that is. It started with a long memorial for the tournament’s founder who had passed away within the past year. Thankfully, I was separated from the boy since we had to arrange ourselves by belt level and the boy “outranks” me. At least where MA is concerned.

Despite the slow start, the boy’s division, “Red Belts 6-8 years old” was one of the first ones to compete.

Just let me state that, as a parent, an MA tournament is an experience in patience. Not just because of the waiting, but because there are tons of parents all scrambling to get into position to watch their kids compete. Unfortunately for me, the boy was in a center ring, so there was no “good” viewing area, except standing on a chair and watching from 50 feet away over everyone’s head. My attempts at video taping were thwarted on a number of occasions by interlopers wandering in front of my line of site. They seemed particularly well-timed for when the boy was up.

Despite the personal frustrations, the boy left with a 3rd in breaking and a 2nd in sparring. Based on the scores, I think the judges dinged him a bit for his form because they didn’t feel it level-appropriate. That’s not his fault, nor really his instructors. It was more a quirk of the tournament’s timing alongside his instruction schedule. If it were another month out, he’d have been fine on that score.

Even with the nice results, the boy still managed to be disappointed. His 2nd place in sparring particularly irked him. Getting 2nd meant he lost the 1st place match and he didn’t like that. He gets a pained expression on his face that’s unmistakable- all flushed and on the verge of tears, a sobbing-like type of breath pattern. As much as I’d like to help him work it out, it was probably for the best that he was on his own and forced to deal on his own. He maintained what was left of his composure for the awards ceremony, and just like that, he was done for the day.

He spent the remainder of the morning sitting in a little nook he fashioned out of all the equipment bags, reading his Harry Potter book, his medals dangling from his neck. A lot of his MA mates wondered what he was reading, and he got a lot of congratulations for his medals. Not a few parents were impressed as well, especially when they found out he wasn’t reading for a book report.

As for me, I won forms in my division, didn’t place in sparring and didn’t compete in breaking. I don’t know if the boy was watching the sparring, but I hope he did so he could see that it doesn’t have to be all doom-and-gloom when losing. (That comes later…)

The rest of the day, we spent watching the other competitors, especially the black belt levels. They were really something, particularly the sparring.

Towards the end of our day, the boy came up to me with a bag of peanut M&M’s he’d found in our lunch bag. The Wife’s doing- a little surprise for him. He wanted to share the bag with me. Who was I to refuse?

So we finished the bag, and by that time it was pretty late and time to get going. He chose Cracker Barrel as our spot to stop for dinner. He had rainbow trout for dinner and a fudge brownie. He enjoyed the fish, but not the brownie. I enjoyed the brownie.

On our ride home, he was mainly concerned with when he could watch the 2nd Harry Potter movie. He’d finished the 2nd book and started reading the 3rd one. He was disappointed he couldn’t watch it when we got home, but it was going to be too late for movies by then.

When we did arrive home, the Wife and the lass had one more surprise- “gourmet” cupcakes. They grabbed a couple of pistachio flavored cupcakes, one of his favorite. As well as mine, funny coincidence that.

The boy has already made mention of his “next” tournament. So it’s safe to assume that, even though he didn’t win, he’d enjoyed the day well enough.

That made two of us.

A few Summers ago, I read the first Harry Potter book to the boy and the lass. I think it took a couple of weeks to get through it. They both loved it and they both wanted me to read more of the books to them.

But that was never the intention.

The intention was to plan a seed of curiosity that would get them hooked enough so they’d want to read the subsequent books themselves. We’ve allowed them to see the 1st movie, to keep the story fresh. We haven’t let them see any of the subsequent movies. “After you read the books…” we keep telling them.

A couple years ago neither of them was ready to read a Harry Potter book. Now, the boy has been capable of reading the 2nd book for awhile and in fact started it about 4 months ago. But he would only read a few pages at a time. I suppose being “capable” and being “able” are two different things in this case.

Within the last week or so, a few things came together. One, I suspect, is his ability to concentrate has improved to the point where he can sit and pay attention to the story for an extended period of time. Two, his reading has gotten faster. And third, and arguably most important, his bit-by-bit, small chunk-at-a-time has finally yielded enough progress through the book where the story has taken hold of him. He’s past the part where all the questions are being raised and into the section where answers are coming at him fast and furious.

It’s been fun to watch, because he’s now well over half-way through the book and any spare time he has he sits down and reads. He keeps asking me and the Wife questions about what’s going on and keeps telling us “I know who opened the Chamber of Secrets.” Of course, he doesn’t know because he hasn’t finished the book, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking he’s figured it out.

Where once he talked about reading “one more page,” he now talks about reading “one more chapter.” A seed that we planted a long time ago finally seems to have germinated.

The boy got stuck on the following clue while doing a crossword this morning:

1. Ancient

The answer was a 3-letter word ending in ‘LD’, and was obvious enough but the boy couldn’t quite figure it out. So he asked me for a hint.

I said “Grandma and Grandpa.”

He replied immediately “Oh, ‘OLD’.”

Heh.

Coming home from martial arts lessons tonight, the boy was talking about cars.

Initially, he was wondering how to tell if rare cars are old cars or just new cars that haven’t been around for long yet. He uses the term “rare” a lot lately. He seems to be fascinated by the concept, always wondering what the most “rare” thing might be whether it’s a car or an animal or a food or whatever.

He figured a kid like himself wouldn’t be able to tell the difference because he hasn’t seen enough cars to know what’s knew versus what’s old. I got him to think a bit about characteristics of old cars versus new cars. He seems to think old cars are boxier than new cars.

Then he was wondering if “horses still towed things” when I was a kid. He quickly corrected himself: “Oh, no, cars were around in the 1800’s so horses probably weren’t pulling things when you were a kid.” I paraphrase, but that’s the gist of what he said. I went on to suggest that his grandparents might have grown up with horses still towing things. I know my Grandfather delivered milk using a horse-drawn buggy of some sort.

Then he asked if things always “evolve,” which seemed like a million-dollar word coming out of his mouth. But he used it correctly. I told him how cars have changed over the years, how radios weren’t always digital and the like. Finally, he said “I think cars will be different when I’m grown up. I think you’ll just have to push a button to start them and I think that you’ll just have to say things like ‘Air Conditioning On’ to make them happen.”

He might not have to wait that long for that list to come true.

It struck me then that was the first time I’d had such a conversation with him. It was less about me answering questions and more of an exchange. It’s not like we were discussing philosophy, but we were having a talk about, well, nothing in particular.

If I play my cards right, it’ll be the first of many.

When last we’d checked in on the boy’s martial arts training, he’d ended up on the short end of the testing stick and hadn’t advanced to his next belt. My assessment at the time was that he would just have to suck it up and make sure he did what he had to to make sure he passed this month.

To the boy’s credit, that’s what he did although it wasn’t as easy as all that.

He tested with the head instructors this past week, and they took him aside and worked a little extra with him on his stances and his form in general. It must have paid off since he got the go ahead from them to proceed to the red-black level- the last level prior to becoming a junior apprentice.

He was all smiles tonight after his graduation, as well he should be.

I believe that some day, the boy will respond to his personal crises with a calm, calculating demeanor.

Today is not that day.

First up, this morning he started looking for his DS. His search started where he was sure he’d left it the night before. It continued in that general spot. It ended in that spot.

In between, he would walk away. Each time his level of agitation increasing. It “started in low, then it started to grow.” He muttered half-intelligible things like “It has to be here…” in a whiny, weepy tone. Sometimes the “here” would be more like “heeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-uh.” He dug more frantically through the area each time he went back to it, certain he had somehow just missed seeing the large black carrying case his DS resides in.

He refused to listen to anything the Wife suggested, like other spots it might be. He refused to listen to anything logical, like if it wasn’t where he was looking it was probably someplace else. “NO! IT HAS TO BE HERE! THIS IS WHERE I LEFT IT!” was the retort. He was also fatalistic, declaring it gone forever and that he needed a new one. I almost snorted my milk through my nose at that point.

He never did find it. He went to school this morning miserable, certain it would never be found. His final request to me before heading for the school doors was that I would look for it. He walked off, shoulders slumped.

I found it 5 minutes after I got home.

It was in his sister’s hockey bag. Long story short, we were drying out hockey gear and they left everything out in front of the fireplace to get it dry. When we asked them to clean up, clearly the lass also knocked the DS into her bag along the way.

The boy’s next chance to practice his crisis management skills came up just before dinner. Sometime last week, he’d ordered a book about making balloon animals through Amazon.

No seriously, he did.

That book arrived today along with a bunch of balloons and a pump for inflating them. He was very excited and opened it up immediately to see what kind of cool things he could make.

His first attempt resulted in a balloon popping in his hands.

His second attempt he tried to make a sword following the book’s instructions, but it didn’t work out. So he turned it into a dog and gave it to his sister.

His third attempt, the balloon popped while inflating it. The color started to rise in his cheeks.

His fourth attempt, the balloon popped while inflating it. He threw it’s shattered remains on the floor and screamed “WHAT KIND OF STUPID BALLOONS DOES AMAZON USE!?!” The weepy whiny tone set in shortly thereafter. “What’s the point of the balloons if they’re all going to pop?”

He made a fifth attempt. It popped as well. I’m pretty sure the noise that emanated from his voice confused any birds in the general area. Possibly some small woodland mammals as well. He grabbed the remaining pack of balloons and attempted to rip them in half. Ironically, they stretched on him and he failed.

The attempt seemed cathartic though, as he calmed down after that.

I’m certain he won’t always be this emotional about every little, or big, thing that doesn’t go his way. I was once in his shoes and the troubles of childhood can seem enormous from that myopic perspective. Somewhere along the way, perspective starts to settle in and we become a little more practiced in dealing with misfortune. Whatever form it may take. The boy isn’t there.

At least, not today.

A friend stopped over for a bit tonight and she was describing some of her trials and tribulations with her youngest son where video games are concerned. After listening to her describe his behavior, she seemed a little shocked to find out that the boy behaved very similarly at the same age while under the influence of video games. Perhaps because she’s only ever known him since he was 7, her vie of him was different. He no longer has the same tearful fits when it’s time to turn the games off nor the melt downs when he has to let his sister play. He has matured, as they say.

After she had left, the boy was working on his homework. We got yet another performance from the rushing, cranky, can’t-take-criticism-on-his-work boy. Because he has his Blue and Gold Banquet tomorrow night, we had planned on letting him stay up a bit longer to get a bit more done. But after a few minutes of abuse when we went over some of his work, we changed course and told him to go to bed.

With him in bed, the Wife and I discussed the possibility of letting him turn his work in without any corrections on our part, but giving his teacher a heads-up that a stinker was incoming. We thought perhaps getting a note from his teacher that he could do better work would finally spur him to take his time a little more and take our criticism constructively, rather than snapping at us and turning to all the drama he currently does.

Then I think of the boy who used to play video games and how it seemed like he would never change. It occurred that perhaps this is simply the way of it with him. For that matter, perhaps this is the way of it with many kids.

They kick, they scream and they call you names because their coping abilities are so meager at a young age. After a little time has passed and they develop some callouses their attitude changes a bit and they mellow out. Finally, one day perhaps, they even become civil about the whole thing.

So perhaps the behavior is just the price parents pay for trying to teach kids good habits. It’s not an indication that anything is wrong, per say. Simply that everything it as it should be, and it too shall pass.

I’ve been working with the boy on his multiplication “facts.” That’s what they refer to them as now, as opposed to multiplication tables. It was the same thing with addition and subtraction. I guess I can’t argue with the new nomenclature as it’s correct, they are facts. Still, it rankles for some reason.

Anyway, tonight was the first night he was able to work through all of his 7’s, 8’s and 9’s. He was, understandably, pretty proud of himself.

In fact, he was so flushed with confidence that he wanted to learn how to multiply double digit numbers. I hemmed and hawed a bit, mostly out of some respect for the school. Then I came to my senses and realized “HEY! He wants to learn something and wants ME to teach him!”

What the heck was I waiting for.

So I introduced him to double digit multiplication, showing him the mechanics of how to multiply the digits together and then add the 2 results. I kept things simple, avoiding any multiplication that involved carrying. I even showed him why the math “worked”, introducing him to breaking up a number and using the distributive property. Aside from making the mistake of wanting to add for some reason, he picked up on it and was working through problems after just a couple of examples.

After we’d finished up for the night, he told me “It makes so much more sense when you explain it. When the teacher shows us this stuff, she makes it seem so complicated and stuff. But you do it and its, like, so easy.” I was quite proud of my apparent teaching chops.

Naturally, he got the next problem wrong…

This week is Stripe Testing week at the boy’s martial arts school. The school has these evaluations at the end of each month to give the students a chance to progress through the belt levels. The boy currently is at the red level and needed only 1 more stripe to qualify to graduate to the next belt level- his last prior to becoming an apprentice. So he’s getting real close.

He went on Monday and after testing the instructors said they’d be giving him his stripe but that he needed to get an “Intent to Promote” form filled out. This is a supplemental form they use to solicit feedback from the parents and even school teachers to make sure that they are applying things they learn to other aspects of their lives such as being a good student, helping around the house and so forth.

So I took him to class again last night (he’s supposed to go, minimally, twice a week). That’s when things took a little detour.

On Monday, the instructors running the class were the usual Monday crew, but their are also not the head instructors. The head instructors were there for Wednesday and they essentially re-evaluated him and, to cut to the chase, they did not promote him to the next level. They had him perform his belt level form several times- twice with a group and then a final time on his own, and they deemed it not up to par yet. Being familiar with the form, I couldn’t disagree with their assessment (I’ll have to do the same one to attain my next belt level.)

To his credit, he did it as well as I’ve seen him. I don’t know what happened with the other red belts whom tested on the same form.

When he came out, the boy was, unsurprisingly, upset. Not to the point of tears, but unhappy because he thought after Monday that he’d be graduating. He was blabbering about how he would be stuck at the red level forever and ever and I decided I’d just let him blow off steam without commenting. We’ve all been disappointed before and sometimes we just need to vent frustrations. I realized the boy is no different, so I let him vent. So long as he didn’t get out of hand.

When we got home and the boy informed her about the results, the Wife was also upset about how it turned out.

I was initially disappointed for him as well. That said, I also felt it was an opportunity to test the boy’s mettle. To this point, he had advanced on time through every belt level. As his belt level increased, I began wondering when the lack of crispness and body control would start to catch up to him.

One thing I’ve tried to maintain with both kids is the ability to honestly evaluate their abilities. I don’t know that I always succeed, particularly with schooling, but with the martial arts stuff I feel I’m a decent judge. I thought on more than one occasion that he could stand to be held back a bit at previous belt levels, but they continued to move him along. I had refrained from interfering with them because I realize the instructors have seen 100’s, if not 1000’s, of different kids go through their school at this point and many had made it to black belt. I’ve also seen the quality of their adult and teen black belts and can say that they are well taught and skilled practitioners. In other words, they know what they are doing. And here now, finally, was a moment where they basically told him “It’s not good enough.” He will have to work to improve himself and his technique.

On the way home, while he continued to vent he lamented that he didn’t even know what he’d done wrong or what he should do to improve it. I took a chance and explained three different parts of the form that would make it significantly better. He listened quietly to them. When I was done he complained “That’s a lot…” I didn’t think so, though. He had already learned the whole form, which was a lot more than 3 things, and he did more of the form correctly than not. He seemed to calm down a bit after that. Perhaps the idea of a direction helped to comfort him.

Neither the Wife nor I ever felt that attaining his black belt should be a pro forma matter. Indeed, part of the reason for signing him up was to give him something challenging to attain to. So that he might be given the opportunity to learn that success takes work. Here, now, he will finally begin to receive that lesson.

Whether he learns it remains to be seen.