They handed me a list of supplies to collect. Including rubber cement. Because we’d be doing arts and crafts.

Do you remember rubber cement? It kinda looks like honey and oozes delightfully off the little brush when you unscrew the lid. Then you catch a whiff of it and YOU KNOW your brain cells are DYING. Yet the smell is strangely appealing. Probably because it’s also deadening the sense receptors in your brain.

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Alas, we 4th grade, gifted kids were given free reign with the sticky gunk. We may have been enrolled in a secret experiment to see if the rubber cement would dumb us down enough to mainstream with other kids by middle school.

But that year, every Thursday I boarded a bus with three other kids, all armed with our art supplies, and we headed off to spend the afternoon with other gifted children from schools across town. In a windowless basement. Which I’m sure had top-notch ventilation.

There, we bonded together as we glued pictures of terrible disasters to poster board. The Hindenburg exploding! The Titanic going down! The Challenger blowing up!

Oh, what joyful times we had. I mean, what small child wouldn’t want to decoupage discarded toilet paper rolls into exploding space shuttles?

These days, I have a theory about why the adults in charge thought it important for us little kids to dabble in such horror. If only they’d sat us down and told us. But enough about that for now.

All things are possible

The arts and crafts projects went on til 6th grade, when we went to middle school together and took the “hard” classes.

It was like pre-med for 11-year-olds. Only the strong survived. Not everyone made it out of 6th grade alive. But if you did, you earned the coveted HIGH ACHIEVER label. Which meant: ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE IN LIFE.

We learned to expect it. AP classes? Whatever. 6.0 GPA? Check. Ivy league education? You betcha. Decent job after college? Sure thing.

Then the Titanic crashed

Accolades poured in for us. Until they didn’t. When the Titanic went down.

Otherwise known as breast cancer or divorce or an autistic child or a parent with Alzheimer’s or the neighbor running over the dog or your partner getting fired or addiction or a toxic boss or infertility or a freak biking accident.

I could go on. And, no, I haven’t experienced all of these. Nor is this my bucket list. But let’s take breast cancer for example. I know three amazing women between the ages of 35 and 50 dealing with it right now – in the midst of raising small children and trying to work professional jobs and caring for aging parents. Ugh…

What about you? Did you know adulting might look like this? Did you know what might be on the horizon? Did anyone give you a head’s up when you were younger?

Life isn’t fair

There is one thing the adults did say. Ad nauseum. “Life isn’t fair.”

Anyone else hear that on repeat?

I’m doing my part to hand down this cliche to the next generation. Typically I pull it out when a wee one is complaining about how they want a damn milkshake after I’ve spent $17 on a popcicle filled with organic fruit concocted by a fancy pants dessert artist.

This phrase is pretty catch-all and roughly translates to: you get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit or eat the treat and shut your whine-hole or starving children would give away their little brother for one of those or you don’t always get what you want.

But no one told me to watch out for icebergs.

Life is hard

A friend recently posed this question, “What do you wish someone had told you when you were growing up?”

This: LIFE IS DAMN HARD.

What do you think? Do you agree? Did you know the Titanic would crash?

If so, please tell your gifted kid. (And also your “average” kid.) So they can start preparing for this in the safety of your arms. That way they’ll be ready to handle the hard parts when they’re out in the world.

Let them fail now so they’ll know failure sucks but is manageable. Let them help people in need now so they’ll develop empathy and a kind heart and so they’ll know it’s okay to ask for help when they need it. Let them know now that gliding through life AIN’T EVER GONNA HAPPEN.

Kiddo, you’re gonna fall on your face. You’re gonna learn ugly things exist. You’re gonna discover things aren’t easy. You’re gonna find out that life sucks.

But here’s some good news: LIFE IS ABOUT LEARNING AND GROWING, too.

And learning is something high achievers do. A lot.

Building resilience

You’re next step, momma, is to add RESILIENCE to your kid’s assignment list. To help them build muscle to handle those icebergs lurking around the corner.

I’ve been thinking on this since reading the fabulous book, How to Raise an Adult: Break free of the overparenting trap and prepare your kid for success, by Julie Lythcott-Haims.

According to Miss Julie, the goal of the building resilience “is to ‘normalize’ struggle – to give students a sense that struggle happens to everybody, and that they need not be ashamed when they experience it – and to demonstrate that struggle teaches us lessons and opens up new possibilities.”

Because, she goes on to say:

If students are in their late teens or early twenties when they first face their own very normal human trait of imperfection, they’ll lack the ‘brush it off, get back on the horse, try again, persevere through it’ mentality they could – should – have cultivated in childhood…

So when you hand over that rubber cement to your 4th grade, gifted kid, tell them to save some for later. For when they face their first disaster and need to glue all their pieces back together.

And tell them their momma is cheering them on and knows they’ll be just fine. Eventually.

How are you preparing your kids to deal with life’s disasters? Share your thoughts below or on Facebook at MothersRest.

Photo credit: christianecvo from Pixabay

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS
This comment from a reader is a beautiful counterpoint to this post:

For me, as a child, I always knew life was hard, no one had to tell me. But growing up I was constantly compared to my older brother who ultimately (academically) achieved more, which never bothered me because I never cared about grades. I knew I was smart without a label. Even as a single parent now, not having a life partner is better for me. What I do is tell kids who struggle is that life will not stay a constant battle, that adulthood is so freeing.