Jacey Eckhart
I AM GLAD it is not my job to teach leadership and career planning to a bunch of eighth-graders.
So far this year my son Sam has come home from school jeering at one of The New York Times' best-sellers, "How Full Is Your Bucket." He has mocked the concept of synergy. Last week he even got online to show me the idiocy of a program that makes a guy figure out the cost of an apartment, a car payment, insurance and food, and then determines how much his starting salary ought to be.
"Like I'm going to have any trouble making that," Sam scoffed.
My husband and I both try to point out some of the excellent ideas in these programs and how we use them ourselves on the job. Although Sam's eyes appear to focus on our faces and his ears are certified to be in working order, we don't think any of it is sinking in. The armored arrogance of a 14-year-old is formidable indeed.
What I really want to tell him I can't begin to say out loud. Someone who can mock the word "bucket" for more than 40 minutes at a stretch doesn't want to hear word one about how I want him to develop his champion heart. Mercy, those two words would put the boy into traction for a year.
All I'm saying is that I want him to get ready for an occupation in which he has something worth fighting for, something worth throwing his whole heart after.
I know the champion heart exists. I see this so often when I work with people in uniform. When they talk about a problem they are sorting through on the job or a place where they were stationed, many of them burn with a light you don't see every day. They actually believe, I mean they really, really believe, that they are meant to protect and defend. They have surety of purpose.
I want that for my son. It doesn't have to come from the military. Lots of other kinds of people get that same meaningful burn from their work. Other people never find it on the job but get their champion heart from some other life circumstance. They battle breast cancer. They fight with their cerebral palsy. They take up an everyday, rest-of-your-life fight against alcoholism or anorexia.
Still other people develop a champion heart by doing something for a person they love. Parents of special-needs children battle to get their kids the services they require. Military spouses follow their service members to duty station after duty station. Families of newspaper reporters put up with the hours, knowing their loved one wants this job and no other.
But how do you convince a 14-year-old that humans must have something worth fighting for? Some part of me does think that when life was physically harder, having something to set your heart on was easier. Battle this soil. Fight that ton of steer. Set your heart on stripping one more ton of tobacco so you can pay the note on the farm and your wife can have more than two dresses.
How do you tell a 14-year-old that you worry that a computer and a cubicle won't offer enough resistance on which he can build his champion heart?
You don't. You can't. Instead you follow the example of middle school teachers and keep on presenting the curriculum, hoping that something good seeps in.
Jacey Eckhart, jacey87@mac.com
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Parenting
Being a parent of 2 grown, educated settled boys....I feel pity for many raising their kids in this day and age. There is no bounderies for kids any more. There is no limit a parent holds to,to make a child understand the meaning of "needs" and "wants".
In todays day, parents don't think twice about filling up a home with so many unwanted toys for a child...I have never seen so much garbage (toys) fill so many households and the child ruling the roost and space.
What has become of rules, guidance and bounderies?
Designer clothes, sneakers for $100? Yes, they were around during my childrens growing years but did I buy them..absolutlely not..I let them know if they wanted to dress in these things, they will buy them when THEY can afford it. It worked. To this day, my sons both thank me for this realty check for they won't buy these things today either thinking it truly is a waste of money..
Priorities
As the father of a teenager myself, I know how hard-headed they can be. Thats why I constantly drill it into my son's head that his "job" for now is to be a student. I tell him that he only gets one chance to do it right. Once he graduates, his transcript can't be rewritten. Sure, he can do other stuff. He can participate in sports and other activities and he can hang out with his friends. When he's old enough, he can even get a part-time job. But his first priority is that of his role as a student. He has a few years ahead of him before he has to figure out what to do with his life, but he'll have more choices when that time comes if he does his "job" well now. His family and the other adults in his life are always there to guide him in his choices and maybe even steer him in the right direction. As parents, we teach our children based on our own experience. Despite qualifying as a "gifted" student, I barely made it through high school. I was too concerned with everything but being a student. After enlisting in the Navy, I got married(and divorced) WAY too early. Fifteen years later, I've scraped together a pretty decent life for myself with a great wife and 3 great sons, my own h
Hey Jacey....
Good article. You son still has some time to find that thing worth working for. He's only 14. Also, many other's such as myself didn't find it until a little later on in life. I worked several jobs before finding it but when I found it I knew it was right. Maybe the schools would do well to have more career oriented days when people such as police officers, military personel, medical, etc come to the schools and actually interact with the kids and give them an insiders view of what their jobs are about and how they find reward and pleasure from it.