Helper Edition

Middle School.  The mere thought of Julian being in middle school has overwhelmed me, beginning in May when I attended his promotion ceremony at the elementary school he and his siblings have attended since kindergarten.  I thought of the bus ride where he would no longer be one of the "big kids."  Now, as lowly 6th graders, he and his friends would possibly be the objects of teasing, the result of tween kids jockeying for position.  He was nervous the night before school started.  He had no trouble falling asleep, but was awake at 11:00 and never slept again.  He was up and down; in and out of two different bedrooms, lying on the living room couch for a while.  When I dragged myself into the living room in the morning, I found the throw blanket in a heap and a step stool pulled in front of the front door, positioned so he could look out the little windows across the top.  He'd heard something unsettling.

A child of few words by nature at times of transition, he rarely gives me more than a "good" as the response to my question about the quality of his day when I pick him up each afternoon.  From that one word-the tone of it, the lilt or flatness of delivery, I am left to my own devices and time to extract an overall accounting of how it actually went.  One day last week, the second week of school, that one word told me that something was amiss.  I know better than to press hard; it only results in stone silence.  So I play around with phrases that might elicit more conversation.  "Seems like you may be a little uneasy today.  Is that right?"  I got an almost imperceptible nod.  I knew from this, that nothing monumentally horrible had happened, because that would have resulted in a stormy growl of "I don't want to talk about it."  I knew the nod was permission to ask a little more, treading lightly as I went.  "Do you want to tell me about it?  Do you think I can help?"

"It's just that I can't make the lock work on my locker.  I've tried everything, and I've been late for home room a couple of times because of it."  I asked if maybe it was broken, but he said no, that it worked fine when his friends did it for him.  I asked if there were a teacher in the hall who could help and he said she told him after the second time she wouldn't help him any more, that he had to be independent and figure it out.  She had not shown him the method, but rather had a skeleton key that she used to pop it open for him.

I've been that child.  I've been the kid who was embarrassed by something at school that was easy for some kids but not for me.  Haven't we all?  The kid who was late learning to tie shoes, or fold paper book covers, or read, or play cards.  I can be whipped back to the rolled eyes of my peers, the under-the-breath scoffing, the sighs of criticism in a heartbeat, just by hearing of another child's fear of looking stupid or fat or pimply or inept.  The vulnerability of raising children is real.  I will defend any child, any time, in any circumstance, and I brought my girls up with the mandate to do the same.

I knew there had to be a solution beyond, "Just keep practicing-you'll get it eventually."  The need to learn was urgent and I could feel the pressure under which he was operating.  I believe in giving tools to find answers rather than handing over solutions.  I couldn't go to school to open his locker for him, but dammit, I felt like it.  When we got home, I turned to YouTube.  In the search bar, I entered, "Open school locker affixed to door" to get to the exact kind of lock he was battling.  Sure enough, there was more than one video that showed demonstrations of how to crack that particular nut.  I watched a few of them, and landed on one where the demonstrator was a 6th grade boy who started out by saying he knew how hard it seemed and how embarrassing it could be, but it was actually pretty easy once you got it figured out.  I handed Julian my phone, and he watched the video three times in rapid succession that night.  In the morning, we went for a treat at Starbucks, and he watched the video again.  I then offered to drive him to school instead of the bus, because I would get him there earlier so he would have time to try the lock without being under the pressure of racing from the bus to home room.  That made him really happy.  As I dropped him at the corner by the school that morning, I watched him make his way up the hill to the entrance, and I said out loud, "Please, Universe, help this child get his locker open."

After work that day, I may have driven faster than usual to the middle school.  There was a spot right in front of the door where he exits, and I pulled up and scrambled out, anxious to hear The Locker News.  I saw Julian heading down the hall toward the door, backpack slung over one shoulder, one thumb hooked under the strap,  chin up, walking tall, his body language telling the whole story.

I didn't even have to ask.  He threw the door open, and when he got to where I wait for him outside, he walked up next to me and said, "Gaga! I got my locker open without any trouble both times today!"

This little thing.  This tiny detail in a HUGE school experience.  I know it's not really a big deal, but it is.  I know most kids get it on the first day, but he didn't.  I was so happy for him, so relieved, and so happy for myself knowing that this worry, this blip on the radar, was now behind him and when the next one comes, he will be reminded: there's usually an answer, no self-imposed criticism is necessary, and I will always try to help.

I congratulated him, and said, "See?  If we talk about our setbacks, we can work almost anything out."  And then he said the thing I will never forget.

"And I was able to help a friend who was struggling to open his locker.  I taught him how."