Our grandchildren stayed with us for the past three weeks and the morning they were preparing to leave, I was sitting on the porch with my 14-year-old granddaughter talking about how the summer went.
I asked her if she’s ready to go back to school and she told me she’s been bored most of the summer because she has nothing to do. We invented things for the kids to do, which was good, but that encompassed about three weeks out of the entire summer.
She told me she hasn’t had a schedule of any kind, doesn’t necessarily like sleeping late in the morning and believes she is too young to try to build a daily itinerary.
So she can’t wait to get back to school in Rapid City where she’s a straight A student and middle school cheerleader for the boys basketball team.
Her 12-year-old brother couldn’t be more opposite. He’d just soon live with his grandparents forever if he could. TV is far more important than school. He sees school as something his parents make him do. And, although he has friends in school, he tells us he can always see his friends after school and on weekends.
He’s a good student and although he doesn’t get the grades his sister produces, it seems his parents have to light a fire under his butt to get him to do his homework. Regardless, he excels, because he has to, he says.
These two school kids are most likely like all kids about that age. Some love it in school and some don’t.
During my newspaper career, I was in schools a lot to cover sports, academic excellence, new teachers, science fairs and whatever else. And it seems I always ran into the same kind of mentality. Either kids loved school or they didn’t.
I guess it’s been that way forever. When I went to school, I didn’t want to be there. Job opportunities in my hometown were calling my name and in fact, I had several temporary jobs in high school that could have turned to full time work.
High school wasn’t so structured as it is for my granddaughter now. The only reasons I stayed in school was to pass English and compete on the track team. I knew I wanted to be a journalist so English was important, but man, when we got to Shakespeare, I was bored out of my mind.
Today’s teachers do an exceptional job. They create the right environment. They create the motivation a lot of times and they are good leaders. Their jobs are never easy because not every kid is going to excel and get straight A’s. Bless them because I know I wouldn’t have the patience to educate a high maintenance kid.
What really amazes me is how some kids perform at their age and with grace. When I worked in Langdon, I covered the volleyball team and in Kenmare it was the wrestling team. Those kids usually got up early, went on long road trips and although some would sometime complain about that, they still managed to get straight A’s and keep an after school job at the local grocery store or hardware store.
That says a lot about a kid who is that motivated. Many of us had trouble just getting our homework done, let alone travel across the state to a wrestling match and not only get the homework done, but place in the tournaments.
When I hear comments like all kids want to do nowadays is play video games. I beg to differ. There may be a small minority of kids who want to do that, but in my experience, the masses of teenagers are in it for a reward; a diploma, get college scholarships, work toward a career, impress a girlfriend.
Whatever the reason, we need to commend these kids for their hard work. Lord knows I couldn’t have balanced a schedule some of today’s kids have and I’m sure many adults my age would agree.
A couple of weeks ago, I ran into my old boss at the farmers’ market. He said he has five grandchildren, like we do. He said aren’t they wonderful? They know so much that we didn’t, such as technology. My 12-year-old grandson has bailed me out of tech problems numerous times.
Don’t ever underestimate today’s kids. They have a lot to prove and from what I’ve seen during my career, and now as a Grandpa, almost all of them are doing just that.
