I have been recalling times from my childhood, sometimes difficult times, and looking back, I see myself just unable to take seemingly logical steps to solve problems in my day to day life. I wonder when and how a child learns these things? Or was it just me who was so inept? I feel even now, decades later, that I am still learning to solve problems. Often, these have to do with speaking up for myself and telling other people what I want and need. I wonder why we don't teach children these things? Do some children just learn them automatically? Or are we all that way when we are young? On the other hand, I think, what power does a child have to say what he needs and wants or truthfully what the real issues are for him or her? Does he/she even know? And even if he knows, can he articulate them?

For example, when I was in kindergarten at a school quite a long walk from my home, I used to sometimes "take the long way home" and arrive at home a long time after I was supposed to. When my mom would ask, I would say "I got lost" or "I stopped to pick flowers" or some other lame excuse. I would get in trouble for this. Really, I just didn't want to come home because I didn't get along with my mother and was scared of her. But how do you tell your mother this when you are 5 years old? I would get in trouble for this behavior. My mom would yell at me and my dad sometimes beat me for this repeated disobedience. I just didn't have a solution so I kept doing this despite the consequences. Was there another solution? Even now, I'm not sure what it was.

Another example was that I was hit by a car crossing a very busy road when I was in first grade. I became scared of crossing this road with its traffic whizzing by. Unfortunately, I had to cross this road each day to get to school. I was often too scared and so ended up not going to school that day, just playing hookey and goofing off, wandering around the neighborhoods or hanging out at the public library. I got in big trouble for this too, but kept doing it. Sometimes I could cross the road if I was in a big gang of kids, but if I was alone, it was too scary and I just couldn't do it. Again, I was punished for this at home. I guess I was too embarrassed to admit I was scared to cross the road. I'm not sure that excuse would have been accepted by my parents, anyway. Maybe it would have, but I had this idea they would think that was just an excuse to get out of having to go to school, like I was malingering or something. And it was embarrassing to be so scared and weak, so I just let them think I was being bad and playing hookey.

I try to keep these things in mind with my own kids when they are seemingly disobedient in what seem to be irrational and uncharacteristic ways. What is truly going on there? I remember in first grade my youngest daughter would sit at her desk at school and cry. She wouldn't do the assignment that they were supposed to be working on. Why? We finally discovered that at these times her pencil would be broken and she was too shy to ask the teacher for permission to get up and go sharpen her pencil. So she just sat in her chair and cried. Being a kid sure is hard. How do we teach kids to speak up? I don't feel like I ever encouraged her to not speak up. She is in high school now, and does well in school. She is a natural introvert and seems to be accepting of herself. Recently, she was nominated to be in the honor society at school (for good grades). She has to apply and list all her extracurricular activities and "positions of leadership." She does do some sports outside of school, but she has no positions of leadership. It is hard enough for her to join a team, much less be the team captain or club president. Why is it necessary for a 15 year old student with good grades to have to have "positions of leadership" in order to be in the school honor society? ARe Honor Societies just for extroverts?