Education Week

"I used to put goldfish in my teenage step-sons toilet bowl," the speaker told us confidentially on the second day of her class.  "They thought they were too old for fun, but I found ways to make them laugh."

I was attending BYU Education Week, and this particular class had caught my eye.  It was taught by a woman who had married late in life to a widower with a large family of nearly grown children.  She was explaining how she had managed to blend herself into this already well established and defined family.   The class itself was called Success in a Second or Subsequent Marriage, and I was hoping I would be able to use what I learned sometime in my own future.

"You've got to prove to these children that you won't fail them," she told us.  "They've already had someone they love leave them, whether through death or divorce or whatever, so whether they know it or not, they are afraid inside that you will leave them too.  Sometimes they will act out and be absolutely horrible, just to push you away, since they figure you will leave them anyway at some point.  So you have to prove to them that you are going to stay, no matter what."

That sounded like good advice.  I was enjoying this class, and even if I never did re-marry, everything I was learning applied to my own children, too. 

"You've got to remember these are God's children!" she emphasized continually.  "Never argue with them, ask them what they need, what they want.  Remember, 'a soft answer turneth away wrath'.  Try to look at these children the way the Lord would look at them, and love them unconditionally, the way he loves them.  But most of all, don't forget to have fun."

"I used to work really hard trying to get my teenage step-sons to laugh.  You know how stuffy boys that age are.  It's like they think their face will break if they try to smile.  So one night I got a roll of butcher paper and taped it over their door.  I figured in the morning it would be fun for them to run through the paper, like the football team when they run out onto their home field and run through the banner the cheerleaders are holding up."


"The kids got such a kick out of it that it became kind of a family tradition to paper someone's door every few months.  Christmas wrapping paper worked best, because it was so colorful.  The most fun time we had was on my oldest step-sons birthday.  The other kids helped me paper his door during the night, and then we stacked every book in the house behind the paper, so in the morning when he tried to run through it he smashed into a wall of books.  They still talk about that morning!"

She was crazy, but I enjoyed that class! I had forgotten, over the past couple of sad years, to have fun with my kids.  I determined then that I was going to go home and try to enjoy my children.

I loved all of the classes I took that week.  I learned about reading the scriptures, how to follow the Savior, teaching my children morality, how to do genealogy, even ways to deal with depression.   I learned there are two kinds of depression; clinical, which is caused by something physically wrong in our bodies; and situational, which is caused by events that happen around us. And I identified many characteristics in the second kind of depression in my own life. Just knowing this kind of depression gets better over time gave me hope that some day I would be able to smile and laugh normally, again, which was perhaps the best blessing I got from attending Education Week.