Today we went to Parent/Teacher conferences for David. He's in third grade and his teacher is Ms. Sattler at Belmont Elementary School. He really seems to love his teacher and his class, he's getting along nicely, scoring high in all regards and by all reports very well accepted by his peers.
As we sat there talking with her about his achievement and progress I realized that during the last several months, my little David had pulled me aside and in confidence, as his dad, he had been telling me the most important events and occurrences in his little world. I hadn't even recognized it at the time; I thought we were just having playful conversations. But as I entered his world and spoke with his teacher I recognized that she identified the same critical events just as he had.
For instance, she had paired him with an autistic boy who rarely ever speaks. "Dad, she told me that she chose me to help Henry because she trusts me." Her version was, "I put them together on purpose. David has opened this child up in ways that I could not have. He is now beginning to engage his classmates and talk to them like he never has before."
As I walked around the classroom and saw his desk, the weather calendar, the salamander and crickets I flashed back to the 20 minute long discussion we had about raising animals in class, watching chicken eggs hatch after being incubated or discovering the magic of a chrysalis becoming a butterfly before our very eyes - 34 years apart.
She continued, "David does really well in math. Sometimes, too well. He becomes a bit braggadocio's about his accomplishment, 'Wow, I got a hundred... I didn't think I'd get a hundred but I did and it's pretty amazing! Did you? No? Oh, but I did!'" There was no mal-intent in his words. He was so worried about his success or failure that when it paid off he was truly ecstatic. David pulled me into my room last week and showed page after page of perfect score math assignments. Pleased as punch at his great success.
The thing about Dave is that he is simply brilliant. Every bit as smart as his brothers he has the ability to accomplish as much as they have and will academically, perhaps anyhow, as they have set the bar very high. But he lacks a certain confidence. He desires to be the best but if he is not the best, he feels that he must not even try. And if he does try and fails or even just comes up short then the risk was too great and should not have been attempted. Tears will follow. As in his last two tennis matches where he lost to the other school's 2nd best 6th grader. Even though he is just a 3rd grader right now.
Today during that conference when I reflected on the experience of having my 8 year old confide in me his greatest accomplishments and concerns, I began to understand the importance and purpose of sacred prayer. Prayer is that personal connection and communication from an immature and growing child to his father; where things of seemingly magnificent importance right now, which in an eternal scope are in fact miniscule, are shared.
My Father attends to me as these concerns are discussed at great length and with even greater care, than I rendered to my son. I can comprehend better how David sees me, because that is how I see my Father; as well as how my Father sees me because that is how I see David.
I suppose that I also understand what great a feeling it is when your son is willing to share these moments with you. The love I have felt for each of my boys in these times is impossible to convey. Maybe I will be able to when my vocabulary gets bigger, more like my Father's.
As a side note: Tonight after our scripture time I was trying to share an 'attaboy' with my kids so I said, "Did you guys know that at one time or other I have had every one of my boy's teachers tell me that my son was the best student in their whole class." Brigham chirped in, "Ya, Mackay's teacher said that about me."
Point, Brigham.
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