Got a call from my daughter today indicating that she had gone to her daughter's soccer game today. Little Ryan's team didn't play. Just the girls' teams. Since the other parents were sitting halfway between the two girls' games in order to try to catch some of the action in both, Megan asked permission for Ryan to sit with her at Robin's game. It was then that she found out that Ryan was under "house arrest", but he was allowed to sit with her. House arrest?? Why??? Well, it seems that Ryan decided to walk to a friend's house six blocks away from home yesterday but didn't bother to ask or tell anyone he was going. (Have I mentioned that Ryan is 7??) Three hours later (!) as he was on his way home--probably having been sent that way by the parents of the kid he was visiting--he heard people calling his name, several of whom were police officers! Thus, house arrest. Ryan isn't permitted out of sight for a month, which includes playing outdoors after school. He told his mother that it never occurred to him to ask to go, but I'm not buying that. He knew better! This is not the first time that Ryan has brought wrath down upon himself--and others--because of his impulsivity. He will learn...maybe. He told Megan, "This is the first time that the police have ever had to look for me." Megan informed him, "IT HAD BETTER BE THE LAST!" Will it sink in? I'm not so sure, but I hope so.
Apparently my grandson is one of those who has to learn things the hard way. He comes by it honestly. His mother is the same way. (I could write a book!) I am reminded of the night that Megan went to the movies here in Plainfield with some friends, boys included. We had just moved to the community and school had just started. She was beginning to make friends in 7th grade, although I didn't know any of them. I told her I would pick her up in front of the theater when the movie was over...sometime shortly after 9:00. I arrived, but she wasn't there. In fact, no one was there. I waited and waited and drove around the block a dozen times. I even went up to the theater to ask exactly what time the movie got out. Long past! I drove home, thinking she could be trying to call me. (There were no cell phones back then.) I didn't have Call Waiting on my home phone, so every call I made in an effort to determine anything was risking missing a call from her. I had no phone numbers or names to go by, and I was frantic. Finally, at 11:00 PM, she called and asked me to come pick her up at a phone booth in front of Dairyland. I was both relieved and livid. She told me that the group had decided to go for pizza and she went along for the ride. I hadn't sent her with enough money for that. Had she called me and said they wanted to do that, I would have said okay...but she didn't. To this day, I don't know if she actually went to the movies or what transpired that evening. Did SHE learn anything? Probably not, but I sure did. I gave her a punishment. I just don't think anything I ever did by way of that had any meaning to her.
My sister, in her teenage-and-younger years was one of those Hard Learners, according to things I have heard in family lore. Unfortunately, I was an adult before I faced that kind of learning. (I think when you learn the hard way as an adult, it hurts worse!)
I Corinthians 13: 11--"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." I'm still working on that!
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