The Sun Returns!

[lydamorehouse]

 I have a window open and the sun is shining on my face. It's a gorgeous day. 

Of course, I instantly looked at the leaves still covering much of our front gardens and yard and thought, "Someone should take care of that." Since I am sitting in the upstairs sunporch, apparently decided that that 'someone,' was not, in fact, me. At leas not right at this minute. I might have to go out and poke around a little. It's REALLY nice out. 

We'll see. I don't actually have a huge amount of time before I have to get ready to go pick up Eleanor. It's Friday, so a group of us are meeting for our usual hangout at Claddaugh. 

Mason's home sick again, though. This one was a bad one. Migraines are like that, though. He emphatically did not want to deal with the fact that rebound headaches are a thing. as is a need to recover from the first one, (and was in such a state that he convinced himself that a second absence = utter and complete failure.)  Thus, we were half way to school before I made the executive decision to turn him back around. 

I wish I understood how better to talk to Mason about the high standards he puts on himself. I'm sure, if I had taken him to school and he'd had some kind of physical or mental collapse the school would be looking at us demanding to know why we push him so damn hard.

We don't. This is all him. I am constantly talking to him about how grades aren't the end all, be all. I know that he definitely got the message from the University of Chicago's dean that transcripts matter, but I tried to explain to him 1) attendance isn't EVER looked at, 2) particularly if the overall GPA is good. And, GOOD, it doesn't have to be only A+s from here on out, either. What they are REALLY looking at is that you've challenged yourself, taken the hard classes that might net you a B, but are not "Basketweaving 101."

Mason seems also quite convinced that successful people never take breaks. Given that both me and his mom do, I'm guessing he either doesn't think we're successful (a possibility) or he must have superheroes for colleagues (or both.)  Because I asked him, "Are you saying NO ONE in your classes is ever sick two days in a row?" He was convinced this morning, at any rate, that no, none of them are EVER out sick more than one day, and then only once every blue moon. I have no idea how to counter that. Only later did it occur to me that there's something wonky about this thinking that goes beyond the obvious. Obviously, people can do well and be out sick more than one day. However, what is this strange benchmark in Mason's mind even saying about people who are chronically sick? Are they automatic failures? When did attendance = intelligence, anyway? I have no idea what's going on with him this morning, except, I suspect, he's just feeling panicked because AP tests are coming in a week and the migraine exhausted him to the point of hysteria.

Both of which are legit.

But which make me feel even better about putting my foot down and demanding he pay attention to what his body is telling him.

Comments

[sraun]

Two things - first, put off the raking a while longer. I'm told that cleaning the debris up before the overnight lows are reliably breaking 50 has a deleterious effect on the insect population.

Second, gee, Mason sounds like one of my step-daughters. Does he have a serious Type-A personality? If so - good luck! We never came up with a way to convince her to listen to her body - I think her husband finally succeeded.

[lydamorehouse]

Yay! A reason not to rake.

And, yeah, Mason might be Type-A (I am so, so not; his mom has a tendency in that direction, though.) He definitely has that perfectionist streak you sometimes see in gifted kids.

[j00j]

It's good that you're pushing Mason to stop pushing himself-- this is how gifted kids burn out-- it's part of what happened to my partner's wife (grad school left her with chronic mental and physical health issues-- she now knows to pace herself but it's been a lot of work). I wonder if learning about disability concepts would help (self care, everyone needs to move at their own pace, etc), but I suspect the main problem is that he's holding himself to a different standard than he'd hold other people. I hope there's a way for him to learn other than hitting the wall hard and having to stop. I definitely want to help my partner's kids learn. Of course right now their problem is they're toddlers and those mostly run at either FULL STEAM AHEAD or EXHAUSTED MELTDOWN unless you can help them regulate at the right time.

[lydamorehouse]

Thanks. Parenting is hard. But, he seems to be in a much better place this week.

[retromoon]

As someone who feels (somewhat) similarly and hates taking time off, reading this kind of makes me a little angry because it was difficult for me to grow to listen to my body to know when to take time off.

Like, I'm reading this and thinking like- is it fun to go to work/school in pain? To do (school)work in pain? To not concentrate on the things you like because your body is so busy flashing the red alarm that you're only putting in 50%? If your son told their college admissions administrator that, "One of my best traits is working while ill, potentially getting the people around me sick while decreasing the overall quality of my work"...what do you think they would say? And I mean, thankfully migraines are not contagious, but there are other illnesses that are.

I'm saying this in my own way because I don't know if maybe it could flip a switch for you on how to explain to your son about taking care of his health and understanding his own limits. Taking care of yourself isn't just important for yourself, it's important for the people around you.

I sincerely hope you guys are able to work through this, because I feel in university a situation like this could be easily amplified for a kid who likes to do tons of stuff and challenge themselves. It's just....really important. You've only got one body.

(Also, obviously, I apologize if I'm overstepping or something- you guys know your son best!)

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, a bit part of why Mason and I are talking about this so much is that we're actually hoping for him to enroll in PSEO (post-secondary education opportunity, which is a fancy way of saying college courses while still in high school.)

To be fair to Mason, one of the problems is that his school has a very early start time: 7:20 am. They're inflexible about it because of the way they have their afternoons scheduled in terms of what they call their "five ten" classes, which are kind of like electives, but include sports in a way that still allows this fairly underprivileged school the chance to still send everyone home on a school bus (which is scheduled by the city). If he could even get another hour of sleep in the morning, every morning, I think he'd be less prone to the effects of having stayed up late? I feel like if he could get into PSEO, we could pray for late start classes... I mean even a 8 am class is so much more sane for a teenager than 7:20.

I'm not sure. The good news is that right now, he's back on an even keel.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, too. Obviously, I don't get much from the other perspective, so that's helpful.