Let's Dance!

In a world on fire full of crazy hate, it was fun to watch high school students and teachers dance like no one was watching. But there lots of people watching -- a high school gym full parents, students, teachers, and administrators who cheered on the dancers for the "Dancing with the Santa Cruz Movie Stars" competition. We never watched the Dancing with the Stars show on TV, but we used to love So You Think You Can Dance. 

I remember when I was in high school when some of us would do funny skits during assemblies that sometime involved other teachers and even parents. 

Like the time I stood in the gym in nothing but a towel wrapped around me (I had shorts on underneath) with a few more of my football team. We were blindfolded and we were supposed to guess which girl was giving us a kiss on the cheek (or something like that). I don't remember all the context during the assembly, but that's what we did. However, the twist was our mothers were the ones who kissed us on our cheeks, and a gym full of students, teachers, and administrators got quite a kick out of it. 

There were many other fun times like these when I was in high school, but this dance show at our daughter's high school was next level. Our daughter Beatrice wasn't dancing, but she was there with her friends cheering on the competitors, including her favorite math teacher. It was only the second year of this competition, and the dance teacher who organized was another favorite teacher of Beatrice's. 

My wife Amy and I hadn't had that much fun on a Friday night since our date nights of old, pre-kids. Watching the high school "Dancing with the Santa Cruz Movie Stars" competition filled me with pride and nostalgia. Teachers or another student were paired with dance students who choreographed the dances to movie soundtrack songs from Barbie, Mama Mia, Teen Beach, Singin' in the Rain, and many others, including Star Wars. Yes, Star Wars. I wanted to get up and dance with a lightsaber, too. A student, a school administrator (who won last year), a professional dancer and choreographer, and our city mayor made up the judges. 

What was the most inspiring for us, though, was all the dancers' willingness to be vulnerable for the sake of fun and entertainment, for trying something new. No one was making fun of anyone as far as we were concerned. The packed gym was cheering on all the dancers regardless of their skill level, and some of them were pretty darn good. Most of the dancing pairs only had a few days to pull together a routine, too. Amy and I used to take dance lessons and love to dust off our moves sometimes, so this got our boogie shoes tapping. In the immortal words of Kevin Bacon's character in Footloose, "Let's Dance!"

Adulting With Us

When they were kids, we could do no wrong. We knew that wasn't true, but our kids didn't call us out on our mistakes and those poor parenting moments. 

Like cursing at other people doing dumb things in their cars while we drove near them, next to them, across from them, anywhere around them. That's me. One time in particular that has since become a family inside joke was when we were turning left on a green light. Before I could turn, I had to wait for the oncoming traffic to cross. Behind me was a guy obviously angry because he was stuck behind me until I could turn. He honked and then zoomed around us heading straight just as we were able to turn left. He mouthed something at us and that's when I flipped, cursing at him and flipping him off. He was driving a work car with some solar company name on the side. 

Mom and kids were a little taken aback. "Dad!" the kids called out. Thankfully my road-rage breakdown was short-lived, and the ongoing inside joke became "there's that 'solar guy' again following us." 

That was a couple of years ago. Now that both our kids are true teens, we find them pointing out our mistakes and shortcomings. All. The. Time. 

And that reminds me of when I used to do that with my own parents. My dad usually took it in stride, but my mom would sometimes tell me I was being disrespectful. But more often than not, she'd admit she'd made a mistake, especially as I got older and became a young adult. 

My wife Amy listened to a great podcast recently. An interview with Lisa Damour, PhD, author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers. She shared it with me and I gobbled it up. As I listened, I could feel myself nodding and saying out loud, "Yes, and that, and that, and that." 

So many take aways for me, for us, and when Lisa said, "They have phenomenal acuity for the shortcomings of adults," I thought, Yes, I did then, and they do now. 

Just the other day I heard it over and over again about how triggered I get about other drivers when I'm driving and even more so when I'm not. How "judgey" I am on the road. They're not wrong either. 

However, it can hurt when we're called out by our teens about our own mistakes, mistakes we should do better owning, even when their feedback is as direct and unfiltered as it is. Thankfully they're not crossing the rubicon of intentionally trying to hurt us or sabotage us. If they were intentionally trying to hurt us, then that's a whole other ballgame of issues to deal with. 

Ours aren't, and most of the time we don't take it personally. Our teens are all up and down emotion while they individuate and find their own identities and voices, just like we did when we were their age. They model our good and call out our bad. This is also their way of adulting with us, adults they love and trust, and so their helping make us better people is a win in the raising teens column. 

To Make The Shine Glow On

"I just got lost

Every river that I tried to cross

Every door I ever tried was locked

Oh, and I'm just waitin' 'til the shine wears off..."

–Coldplay, Lost!

At first, her painting felt sad and lonely. But she actually painted it at a time when she felt good about her young life, all that was happening in it, and what might happen next.

She was very proud of her work. Is proud of it. Our oldest Beatrice is quite the talented artist and we're proud of her and her work. 

Both our kids are quite the artists actually. Are quite the intuitive feelers. This is evident as they grapple with new life and learning and frontal lobes developing in front of their very eyes. Or, more correctly, in back of their very eyes.

Whether Bea intended it or not, there is a melancholy feel in the painting. The dark forest behind her. The shadow of herself in the pond that's not a true reflection, only dark shadow. It's reminds me of the line from a Coldplay song: "Oh, and I'm just waitin' 'til the shine wears off." Waiting for the good things to fade away, leaving only darkness it it's wake.

But that's me projecting my own life experience into my interpretation of my 15-year-old's painting. It doesn't mean that teens don't have ups and downs and dark deep thoughts -- they do. Not the same life experiences as us their parents, but we're also not dismissive of their angst and encourage them to talk about all their feelings. 

What I love is that the question in her painting was actually a statement: What NOW. With NOW being all caps. Like it's a challenge to what will happen next, what life will bring. Again, I'm projecting my own interpretation here, but I feel it's close.

That's a bold statement as far as I'm concerned, but demanding the "what" to manifest itself this very second is normal instant gratification longing that both teens and adults feel. Making something positive happen is another story altogether. Too many of us wait for the "shine to wear off", because that's what we expect to happen ultimately, if we feel we've been let down before by others and/or circumstances; it's always someone else's or something else's fault. This is all emotionally hard for developing teens to comprehend, but it's especially difficult for adults who never knew how to deal with adversity in the first place. 

Encouraging our kids to experience and feel all the feels, to be able to express them verbally and non-verbally (like through art), and then to work on manifesting what's next will serve them well throughout their lives. We don't want them to wait for the next bad thing to happen. We want them to make the next good thing happen for themselves today -- to make the shine glow on. 

Getting It All Done

I sat at my desk working on algebra homework after school. I was in junior high at the time and loved math, did very well in math, but didn't always love all the homework (of any subject). What teenager does? True, I always felt like I had accomplished something important in finishing the homework and studying for quizzes and tests when I had them, no matter how long it took. And the reward was in understanding what I was learning, and of course, good grades. 

What made it all more palatable during the homework time was the music I'd listen to. I put in an 8-track tape of Aerosmith, Kansas, Journey, or another rock band of the time (this was a few years before I became the Rush fan I still am today). Yes, 8-track tapes. I had those along with cassettes and record albums. 

Not really the best study music, and definitely not reading music (I did turn off the music when I was just reading), I still enjoyed my rock and roll with math, history, science, and other subjects throughout junior and high school. 

Yes, my parents would ask me every day if I had homework, and remind me to do said homework, and I got it done, with or without my music. The deeper into high school I got the later I would stay up, although that wasn't always the best time to study and finish homework. I had to because playing sports and other extracurricular activities ate up my after school time, especially in the fall when I played football. But I got it done. It's always a beautiful mess in progress. 

For our own children today, we've impressed upon them good study habits and the autonomy to get their homework done and study for tests. We do ask them if they have homework every day, and they can get stressed about getting their work done, but most of the time their own developing work ethic keeps them on task. Also, they both love their own music sometimes when they're doing their homework. Our middle schooler Bryce is a night owl and will work after dinner and late sometimes, and our high schooler Beatrice likes to be fresh in the morning before school, or to do if before dinner if there's time. No matter when and where, they're doing the work. 

We help our kids when they have questions about their schoolwork, or at least try to help them. Some of these subjects we haven't studied for decades, and the curriculums have certainly evolved over time. We've found that, if we can't help them, even if we look up the subjects online for refreshers, having them attempt to explain to us what they're trying to learn actually helps them find the answers we can't help them with. And in their explaining, we follow along a little bit better and learn something ourselves. My goodness, I had AP calculus in high school, and I have no idea about the math they're doing today. Mom is also more patient than me, and the usual go-to; I'm like the substitute teacher that way. 

In the end, our kids are getting it all done with their unique strengths and struggles, and in their own unique autonomous ways, with great grades to show for it and we couldn't be prouder. Even with a little teen whining along the way. Or a lot.