I find one particular tension is the most complicated and difficult part of parenting. While I want the home and family to be a safe and nurturing place for Philip and Chloe, coddling them is not an option. I need to expose them to the kinds of challenges and adversities they will eventually face as adults, so that they are properly prepared for what will come. How much I protect them, how much I withdraw my protection and how much I orchestrate adversity is a delicate task.
The biggest thing I want to train them to manage well in life is relationships. With middle school coming quickly, Chloe is beginning to encounter what is probably the most difficult peer environment one ever encounters relative to one’s maturity. We’ve worked hard to ensure Chloe’s best relationships have been well maintained as well as cultivated. Patty and Holly have proven to be the best and most desirable friends among Chloe’s peers. Patty goes to school with Chloe, and Holly does not. What makes Patty and Holly stand out has been that both have proven to be extremely fun and extremely trustworthy.
The remainder of Chloe’s peers fall into what one might describe as a friendship matrix. Some are particularly fun. Some are particularly trustworthy. A few are neither. There is little correlation between the two, although some peers’ untrustworthiness is bad that it undermines how much fun they can be. We’ve worked with Chloe to help her understand the difference and to operate accordingly. Savannah, for example is extremely trustworthy. But Chloe does not have nearly as much fun with Savannah as she has with nearly all other friends. Rita’s daughter Jasmine is a lot of fun, but Chloe knows that Jasmine is not particularly trustworthy. Nonetheless, Chloe spends a lot of time with Jasmine and we are supportive of the friendship. Jasmine’s insensitivity hurts Chloe’s feelings sometimes but Jasmine’s insensitivity has also trained Chloe to set firmer boundaries with others. At this point, Chloe uses what she has learned about boundary-setting when dealing with Jasmine.
Jasmine is manipulative. A lot of kids are manipulative. She tends to remember promises made to her while forgetting promises she had made. When confronted, she tends to argue that she “really meant” or “really said” something else. While some of Jasmine’s words and actions cause Amelia and I to groan, we have not shut Jasmine out of Chloe’s life. Instead, we use the relationship to train Chloe how to manage people who are manipulative like Jasmine. When the two were deciding upon a movie, Jasmine at first claimed she didn’t want to see Insideous because it was “a bad movie” but later the same day when the two learned Patty was planning to see Insideous, Jasmine began to praise Insideous without admitting Patty’s presence was influencing her values.
Such behavior is frustrating for Chloe. She reviews Jasmine’s words and actions with me or with Amelia whenever they violate what Chloe considers the dividing line between right and wrong. But such small violations of one’s moral and ethical compass happen with regularity throughout life. Those who cannot handle the grayness of the world at large live in a state of constant frustration. Or worse, they fail to embrace a moral and ethical compass. Those who can accept and even navigate the grayness of the world at large while still living by a personal, high code are not only the strongest adults I know, they are also the most capable of finding meaning and happiness whenever a beacon of light cuts through that grayness.
With middle school now only months away for Chloe, I know the difficult behaviors she encounters and the associated hurt she experiences are going to increase in both frequency and severity. This last year before middle school is a time for her to develop the life skill of navigating through the grayness before that heavy grayness settles in for a three-year tenure. Regardless of how bad it gets at Hermes Middle School, Chloe will always have her home, her brother and her parents as a safe refuge. And backing that up, she’ll have her very fun and very trustworthy friends, Patty and Holly.
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