This morning my son wore a tux to school. ( He bought one for 20$ from the thrift shop). He is doing a business presentation at his school. His ( fictional) company came out top in a group of 18 companies.
First of all I am thankful that the school provides opportunities like this for the kids. 18 groups ( of ten students each) were given as part of a project to teach them business management skills with three million dollars ( not real) and I million shares and they had software that tracked every decision the CEO made and the share values fluctuated like in real life. My son made the decisions backed up with mathematical calculations and his company did extremely well.
The journey to this moment was not easy. The last three years of our stay in Vancouver, there was a bar of chocolate in our fridge with his name on. He got the chocolate in Kindergarten for Easter and was so tormented to make the decision to eat it. Apart from that, he also had the notion that if he couldn’t eat it, no one else could either, so he wrote his name on the bar and kept it safely in the fridge. Every now and then I reminded him that his chocolate is still in the fridge. I didn’t throw it away because this was a good opportunity for me to teach my son a valuable lesson. So I kept in the fridge. When we were moving to Australia and while emptying the fridge, I showed him the chocolate and told him, ” you can eat it or it goes in to the bin” He didn’t want to eat three years old chocolate and it went it in to the bin and I explained to him that , if he had made the (right) decision to eat it on the day he received it, like his sisters did, that would have ensured that he enjoyed the chocolate, by delaying the decision, he gained nothing.
Over the years, I refused to make decisions for him. He wanted a computer, he needed to do the research and choose. He wanted new t-shirts, he had to go to the shop and buy. (that was something he struggled with the most because there were too many to choose from and he couldn’t do maths to figure out which one suited him the best)
I also started making him pay a bit of money regularly to charities and made him volunteer at the Thrift shop so he learns to share. ( He made the decision to donate money to a charity as part of one of the decisions he made for the business project and his teacher was very impressed)
He ironed his business shirt ( Blue stripes) and polished his shoes last night. He tried a few neck ties before deciding which one he was going for. ( he went for a grey silk tie, I would have preferred an earthy/red tone, but he will learn to figure out what works eventually).
It is such a delight to watch my boy grow up to be a capable man.
I am very happy.
🙂 Congrats! Credits to you as much to him.
MS: Thank you 🙂
Encore Sarah!
Nimmy: Thank you
Congratulations to your son! and to you for enabling him!
Ann: Thank you