Yesterday was a pleasure! If you don’t know why, then I assume you’ve been under a rock for the last 24 hours and don’t realize ‘The Hobbit’ trailer finally came out! See it here.

And for the Frenz household there is another joy, and I’ve got to share it. My son is in his first year away at college and my third child to go to college. Of the three, he is the one SO and I have been most concerned about adapting to academia. He is dyslexic, and reading has been a terrific trial for him. He was nine years old before he learned to read and so naturally was behind. But more than that, he had already begun to think of himself as ‘the dumb one at school.’ Getting help for his dyslexia has been much easier than helping him to overcome this attitude about his abilities. It took years before he stopped saying he was dumb. Thankfully, in his last few years in K-12, he began to understand he had a great ability in math. He also became a wicked chess player and has a diabolical way around a Rubik’s cube. I think his record for the cube is around 20 seconds. He does it at parties to entertain and has even done it with his eyes closed a couple of times but not at 20 seconds! When I’ve said, “And you think everyone can do that?” his response, “Oh, it’s nothing, Mom, it’s just a trick.” Whatever. I know the cube or a chess board or anything to do with logic or a puzzle is nothing to him. He gets it and gets it big time.

But all that wonderful logic went out the window when confronted with the possibility of going off to college. He was terrified. Yet there was no problem dealing with the recruiters for his athletic scholarship. That was another game to him. However, having to go to class and having to possibly read 50-100 pages of material a day and then write something about it?!! Kill me now! was his thinking. Well, he ended his first semester and will receive a 4.0 or something just shy of it. He is pumped as you can imagine, and obviously, so are we. He never believed he could pull that off, and he kept telling us, “Don’t expect me to do as well as the girls. Please don’t expect that!” We would have been happy with his grades as long as we knew he was trying and told him, “Just let yourself learn how to do school.” He did that, but his competitive nature made him go the distance to make those grades.

Mostly, it is the culmination of years of him coming to an understanding that he is capable. Along the way I learned not to be depressed about his struggles. and thankfully, I’ve realized they have made him a better person. He is very compassionate toward others who have difficulties and often finds himself in situations where others need help and now he believes he can help!

I asked him how he would rate his first semester of school on a scale of 1 to 10. He said it was a 10, and I took exception to that, so he said, “Okay, it was a nine and a half since my classes weren’t challenging enough.”

note: A big thank you to bccmee for editing my son’s photo which will go on the Wall of Fame at the high school where he ran track and won two state titles and was All State several times. The photo is beautifully done, and my son also says a hearty thank you for that!

edit: A little clip of the Rubik’s obsession. I noticed his time is slipping a bit. He’s back up to 40+ seconds:

If he did this as he normally does, he let someone else scramble the cube.

December 21, 2011
Categories: Tangents . Tags: compassion, dyslexia, joy, quality, Richard Armitage . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 24 Comments