Last week, CC was working on a project at school that required several sessions of work. It’s a beautiful flower that is made up of many smaller flowers, all folded in an intricate way. This is totally CC’s type of art project. She can be creative and artistic while following directions at the same time.
One day she came home from school, and from what I understood, had the majority of her individual flowers stolen. Apparently, they all have a box they can keep their projects in, but 8 out of the 12 flowers she had made disappeared from one day to the next. She was pretty upset and didn’t really feel like remaking the flowers in order to complete the project. She felt that since the teacher already saw her make them, that would be enough and she could quit then and there.
We had a discussion together and I talked to her a bit about life and the stuff it throws at us sometimes. Sure, it’s not fair for someone else to get credit for work she’s done, but there was nothing she could do about it anymore as the teachers couldn’t even find the culprits. She’s my daughter after all, we don’t quit.
In a way, that’s one of my strong points. I get pretty low, pretty darn close to giving up, but I always manage to pick myself up again and figure out how to go on. This is something I really want to impart to my children, because set backs are a part of life. It might be, like in CC’s case, something that someone did to us, or it might be something that is out of our control, like paper work that takes forever to complete.
She said that the teacher had given her the option to team up with a classmate and help her finish her project as she was a few flowers behind. “Better than giving up”, I said as she determined to still make something out of what she had left.
I was pleasantly surprised when she came home on Friday with a complete flower, all the little flowers done by her—again. She had taken the time to refold all the flowers, and didn’t opt to team up with the classmate after all. Something else I keep trying to teach them seems to have sunk in: If you’re going to do something, do it right and do it all the way.
I’m proud of my kids when they put into practice something I’ve tried hard to teach them. I also had a chance to check my own life and see what things I needed to focus on in order to complete properly. I’ve dropped so many balls in my life, I sometimes am a little unclear on what I need to pick up still. But step by step, and bit by bit, I’m picking up the pieces and hopefully, the artwork of my life will be something I can be proud of in the end.
Silverwaters 