I will be chaperoning Prom for my high school students tonight, and I am looking forward to it! Seeing them all dressed up is such a treat. Yesterday, they had a "formal Friday," when they wore pretty nice clothes--past prom dresses or really nice dresses, suits for the boys, etc.--and that was fun. The girls will have their hair done up for tonight, makeup, etc., adding that extra touch.
Still, I'm so sad that my own son could not get past his shyness to ask someone to the dance. The pain of watching one's child be left out, always, always--I cannot describe it. Would it matter if the child was senseless of his own isolation? One student is physically handicapped but intellectually normal, and I imagine it is very hard on her family. No one can see my son's difference, and he gets labeled "lazy" and "weird," when in fact he is scared and lonely and often unable to absorb all that is said to him. But because he's bright (when he has information, he can use it so well) and strong and tall, no one has any clue, no sympathy--not my colleagues, his teachers, not his peers, whose ignorance I can more easily excuse because they are so young. I know he seems indifferent and we talk with him about body language--reading it, signaling it--but these are recent conversations, opened up only by his own desperation. God willing, he will make friends at college. I can only hope and pray; my heart sticks in my throat when I think how I will be unable to help him there.
How many other people share his loneliness? I am good at reaching out, but I vow to be better!
Still, I'm so sad that my own son could not get past his shyness to ask someone to the dance. The pain of watching one's child be left out, always, always--I cannot describe it. Would it matter if the child was senseless of his own isolation? One student is physically handicapped but intellectually normal, and I imagine it is very hard on her family. No one can see my son's difference, and he gets labeled "lazy" and "weird," when in fact he is scared and lonely and often unable to absorb all that is said to him. But because he's bright (when he has information, he can use it so well) and strong and tall, no one has any clue, no sympathy--not my colleagues, his teachers, not his peers, whose ignorance I can more easily excuse because they are so young. I know he seems indifferent and we talk with him about body language--reading it, signaling it--but these are recent conversations, opened up only by his own desperation. God willing, he will make friends at college. I can only hope and pray; my heart sticks in my throat when I think how I will be unable to help him there.
How many other people share his loneliness? I am good at reaching out, but I vow to be better!
No comments:
Post a Comment