Rational?

Few weeks ago, my son had to do a project with 5 other students. They had to make a video presentation  “back to the future” and they were told that the grade for the final term will be based on this assignment!
This particular project was very hard, for the school didn’t allow the students use their own camera, they couldn’t take video shots outside the school etc etc and the school video camera wasn’t compatible with the media player..And finally they completed the project after working on it for 3 weeks and he submitted the project on USB.

Last Friday morning, I noticed my son frantically looking for something on his computer and he looked really stressed.
“What is going on?” I asked
“Mom, The back to the future project saved on the USB given to the teacher isn’t working and I saved the project on each of the 5 classmate’s USB. Now none of them have it”
“What about your own copy?” I asked
“Mom, remember my hard disk crashed?”

Honestly. I wanted to scream..
Because I know how much time and effort my son put in to that project.

All through my childhood, the one thing I remember my mother  doing was to make me feel even more miserable when I did something wrong. She would go on and on and I had promised myself I wouldn’t do the same to my children. We all make mistakes in our life..

I am not a saint ( and my temper is legendary!)..but I had to try.

“Did you send it by email to any of your friends?” ( at least it would still be in his send mail!)
“No, mom, I might have send it through Skype” he replied
“Look, there is no point in getting stressed. The worst that can happen is that you will have to do it again. I will talk to your teacher and ask her to give you an extension. Meanwhile you check again, you must have saved it somewhere. You are my son and I know you aren’t that silly not to have saved it”
He hugged me..

It is actually possible to be rational..by screaming and yelling at him, what would I have gained? Who in their sane mind would have deliberately lost a project that took 3 weeks to complete?

As for the lost project, my son did save a copy on the school computer and his group got an A..

Imagine, how I would have felt if I had yelled at him and then learned later that he did save his work at school and got an A?
 

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