My Child

Kaleb is such a conundrum and I’ve yet to fully understand him.  He’s only five weeks away from becoming a teenager and I fear my confusion around him will only deepen.

I’ve intentionally avoided children my whole adult life, so understanding what’s “normal” and what’s not in a child, is lost on me.  On one hand, I think everything Kaleb is and does is perfectly normal, and on the other hand I think the opposite.

The boy is obviously more comfortable around adults than children, having been socialized by us, rather than a classroom full of his peers.  He carries his own in an adult conversation and I’ve yet to meet an adult that is not impressed by his ability to articulate his thoughts and the confidence he portrays while doing it.  Most children, on the other hand, find his behaviors annoying.

Since Kaleb hasn’t had any siblings or neighbor kids to knock him around when he does pestering little things that kids like to do – he remains clueless that he’s no fun to be around in a group setting.  Last weekend he was at a Junior High retreat and he came home less than thrilled by the experience of it.  He found it profoundly unfair that he got in line early to get a seat in the front of the bus, and some of the bigger kids exiled him to the back seat.  When he tried to sit next to other kids in the middle of the bus, no one would let him sit there.  He’s yet to “own” the reason why.

I’ve spied on Kaleb when he’s been in youth group or other classroom settings, and I’ve yet to see him sit quietly, keeping his hands to himself.  He’s often bopping someone on the head with a pencil or poking them in some fashion.  I’ve told him repeatedly he needs to imagine a buffer zone around everyone that should NOT be penetrated, but it just doesn’t register with him.  Turns out, at the retreat, he sat in a room and waited for kids to enter, then pelted them with pieces of candy.  I later told him it would have been a nice gesture to stand at the door and politely hand out the candy, but throwing it hard in people’s faces will not make him any friends.  He’s otherwise a quick learner, but the social skills portion of his learning years lags way behind.  Fortunately, he’s picked his friends well.  They tolerate his social quirks, sighting, “Of course Kaleb is annoying, but that’s just who he is.”

When he was younger, his intellect caused him to be attracted to kids older than himself, but now that even kids his own age are being affected by the raging hormones in their bodies and he’s not, his friends are becoming younger and younger.  His Christmas list this year is still full of toys he wants to play with.  

I’m in no hurry for him to mature, as there’s plenty of time for that, but I find these past few years to be very interesting, watching all his long time friends morph into these young adult men, and my sweet boy is still just that.  He still fits on my lap, as he’s not even 75 pounds or up to five feet tall yet.  He cuddles me like he did when he was three years old.  I’ll savor his boyhood as long as I can as he’ll be a man for the rest of his life.  I think it’s a gift to me from God that he’s a late bloomer.

A woman that did some academic testing on Kaleb when he was six years old told me that he’d be a late bloomer.  She said it was common for kids that are super smart.  I finally had to tell Kaleb that bit of news since he was feeling left behind as all his younger friends are even a head taller than he is.  But I still downplay his intelligence as much as possible so he doesn’t ever feel he’s somehow better than anyone else.

I love the Einstein quote, “Everyone is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid." When Kaleb was told by his friend, many years ago, that he was a “genius” I told him that everyone was.  I pointed out that his friend could name all the major league sports teams and he couldn’t name one.  Just because he likes to read books and spout a lot of facts makes him sound intelligent but that just means he’s book smart.  Everyone is smart in the areas that interest them.  I’ve just been amazed though at what does interest Kaleb.

Last year Kaleb took a high school Chemistry class and this year he’s taking Physics, honors Algebra and high school English.  He’s doing incredibly well in all of them, and he doesn’t even like English.  He’s also excelling rapidly in piano.  His teacher said she’s taught for over 20 years and never had a kid that learns faster than Kaleb.  He swears he doesn’t like it, but when he was stressed out one week over all the homework he had from his classes, Kory asked if he wanted to drop out of piano (I would have NEVER asked him that), and he said he didn’t want to.  So I guess he does like it, but doesn’t want to admit it because it wasn’t his idea to take lessons.

We had a parent teacher conference with his Physics teacher this week and she said he’s such a joy to have in class and he’s keeping right up there with all the high school kids (most of them are Seniors).  She encouraged us to start a high school transcript for him because he’s already taken so many classes he could get credit for.  I told her I was in no hurry to get him started in college anytime soon but she reminded me that there won’t be much to challenge him academically in a few years unless he IS taking college classes.  I understood, but I just keep looking for ways to slow him down.  The year we spent in Norway was one of those years, and we might go live there again for the same reason.  He’s so immature and not ready emotionally to be doing anything other than what he’s doing now, so I thank God for everyday that we get to be home with him.

Everyday I pray for wisdom for God to help me deal with this kid.  He’s not easy as he loves to debate about every little thing and is always looking for ways to outsmart my intentions.  We’ve had many talks about not breaking the letter of the law but totally defiling the spirit of the law – something he excels in.  He challenges each and every rule or consequence I give him and is always trying to redefine everything I say.  His brain never stops.

Since we don’t watch TV, books have always been his favorite source of entertainment.  Just yesterday I had to run into LaConner and he begged for me to take him to the library.  I had to use it as a reward if he got his other work done by the time I left.  He was so motivated, he zoomed through everything in record time (and did it all perfectly), just so he could check out a stack of books to read this weekend.  On a rainy Saturday where he’s had no one to play with, I’ve seen him read ten novels without getting up from the couch.  He forgets to eat, and I have to force him to drink water as he swears he’s never thirsty.  He’s so focused on reading that he tunes us out and is lost in his own little world on the corner of the couch, devouring books.  Sometimes I have to restrict him from reading as a punishment because it’s the only thing that really hurts. 

At this point in his life he wants to be an inventor.  He claims that electro-magnetism is the thing of the future and still one of the untapped resources the world has yet to explore.  I guess our job as parents is just to support him in the areas God has gifted him and then set him free.  Our house will certainly never be the same when that day comes.