Thank you, Joshua

As a special education assistant studying to become a teacher, I learned sometimes the best example is the worst example.

Along the way I worked with countless teachers soaking in their knowledge and guidance. Exemplary behavior management styles, motivational tips, and creative teaching strategies all added to the gift I realized in my 30’s I was ready to use. But disengaging teaching methods, unorganized lessons (sometimes, shockingly, no lesson), and ineffective classroom management provided me with more teachable moments than I could have ever asked for.

Several years after my teaching career began, I transitioned to be a full-time mom and part time teacher. I applied the “best example is the worst example” rule I had learned in my teacher training to parenting. Seeing parents who did not set regular sleeping routines for their babies and suffered for it reinforced for me the value of a loose structure to the day with a little one. Watching a toddler careen head first down a playground slide and crack his forehead open at the bottom like a sliced peach instilled a feet-first only rule in our family our children still at least try to follow. As our two boys grew and we introduced screens to them we watched with them and in common areas following the dangerous result of a friend’s child being persistently contacted by a stranger online without their knowledge.

Our boys pushed into their middle childhood years and our family joined a community pool. I took my continuous parenting observation skills to new heights. I was curious to see how other mothers handled their 6 and 9 year old kids while swimming and put the best and worst practices to good use.
One mom in particular caught my attention…and my ear.

Sitting only a few loungers away I could hear her inquiries and run downs of possible teachers for her son in the upcoming school year. Her game-by- game description of her son’s soccer season that possibly (hopefully) prepared him for a competitive soccer league was riveting in detail and level of self- absorbency from a distance. The plethora of constant directions to her son were unavoidable for everyone.

“Joshua, here’s your snack. Have a snack or you’ll be hungry.” “Joshua, put your flip flops under your chair. You don’t want them to be hot when you put them on again.” “Joshua, stay here. I need to put sunscreen on you.” Joshua walks away. “Joshua, you need to have sunscreen on.” Mom follows Joshua half way around the pool. “Joshua, I need to put on your sunscreen!” Joshua jumps in the pool.

Among the noise surrounding the pool (and sometimes in my own head during quiet moments away from the pool) I couldn’t help but hear, “Joshua…..Joshua….Joshua!” I took the constant demands made of Joshua to heart, examining the many requests I made of my own children and started to make some changes.

I ignored my boys as they choke-tackled each other in the deep end of the water.

I let the lifeguards blow their whistle at my kids running around the pool instead of reminding them to walk myself.

The burning asphalt of the parking lot on their toes was a better teacher than I could ever be for them to put on their flipflops before we left the pool.

As the days of summer break waned and our visits to the pool became numbered, I laid back in a chaise lounge relaxing in the sun and largely ignoring the antics of my children. I read more, I chatted with another mom without distraction, I absorbed myself in journal writing. Every time I caught myself before letting out my own nagging version of “Joshua,” I felt a little bit lighter and could tell my boys did, too.

During our remaining and more relaxed trips to the pool, though, I found myself scanning the crowd looking for one boy. Each time I spotted him I couldn’t help but say to myself, “Thank you, Joshua.”