Poetry and Storytelling by Kai
WORDS BY KAI. This site is the home of creative expression fueled by passion and inspired by the sparks of a my starlight muse. On these pages you will find my creative voice in lines of poetry, thoughtful essays and commentary, creative storytelling, and in an array of beautiful words to inspire the logophile in us all.
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- ORIGINAL POETRY [A -F] [G-M] [N-Z]
- THOUGHTS AND COMMENTARY - [Personal Narratives] [Informative Articles] [Social Commentary]
- CREATIVE STORYTELLING
Learn new words with the Word of the Day and the topic Word Lists. Build your new vocabulary with new words, old words, obscure words and untranslatable words from faraway lands.
THOUGHTS AND COMMENTARY
Commentaries and essays on a variety of topics including parenting, the capacity for love, emotions, mindfulness and social issues.
Directory - Personal Narrative
A Mother’s Mistake
How could I be so blind to the mistakes I was making? How did I miss the signs I was doing it wrong? How can I forgive myself when my child is the one I wronged? Turns out the answer is simple. But I didn’t find that answer until I faced the harsh reality of my own failure.
My son is almost 11 years old and is smart and funny, and gentle and kind. He is respectful and caring to others and always has a smile on his face. He is good natured and has always been well behaved, considerate and giving. But behind that smile is a pain that I didn’t quite fully understand until this week. Behind the facade he has been holding up is a sensitive and lonely boy who faces juvenile cruelty on a playground full of vipers who he just wants as friends.
My boy has always had a hard time trying to make friends in elementary school. He is very smart academically and has a intellectual maturity to him that suggests he is older than he really is. He is able to communicate intelligently with adults about a variety of academic subjects. He has a gift for retaining information, processing logic and rational thinking towards complex subjects, and a gift for grasping new ideas and exploring beyond what is expected for him to know at his grade level. But he struggles with his social maturity and it has affected his ability to form friendships and bonds with kids his own age. His gentle nature as well as his his emotional sensitivity have made him a target for bullies since kindergarten. And it’s all my fault. I have failed him in his most formative years by not socially integrating him successfully enough with kids his own age. This is a blame I fully accept and one that I intend to make amends for. My job as his mother is to ensure he succeeds academically, creatively and socially and my failure in his social development has adversely affected his self esteem and his ability to form successful relationships with his peers. I failed him.
I followed his wishes to not join any sports activities so he has never been involved in any group organization. Instead of going to summer camps he has had to attend an extended day program at his school because I work full time. This program has the same kids year after year. We lived in a neighborhood full of professionals and retirees so he has not been exposed to a community of children living nearby. And the most important failure on my part has been my career interfering with opportunities for him to have play dates with other kids. I mistakenly took his good relationship with his sister as enough play time that I did not seek out parents in the school to arrange play dates with. He was always happy to be at home with us that we didn’t realize that he was missing out on the childhood relationships that are essential for building his ability to communicate and interact with his peers. By not integrating him more with kids his own age I have put him at a disadvantage. And this disadvantage could affect his future ability to connect with other people and form successful friendships, business relationships and even romantic connections. It has already damaged his self esteem and his valuation of his self worth.
I have failed him by prioritizing his academic development over his social development when I should have integrated them to work together. By emphasizing one over the other I have reduced his capacity for social growth and emotional maturity. I put more importance on furthering his knowledge and empowering his creativity than I did in encouraging his ability to connect personally with his peers and form the bonds children need in order to learn how to to have successful relationships. Because of this lack of preparation he struggles with connecting with other kids. He struggles to communicate effectively with them. He doesn’t relate on the same level. And he has not developed the coping skills he needs to handle the bullying that has resulted from it. His sensitive nature has also made him an easy target to more dominant and aggressive kids and he has been reduced to tears in front of them.
Because he has elevated intellectual abilities he has developed a heightened sense of academic superiority. He knows he is one of the smartest kids in his grade level and he uses that to improve his self confidence. It is his way of trying to even the playing field with the other kids. To prove himself. This attitude may benefit him with the self confidence he needs in the future for educational and employment opportunities but right now it has labeled him as the nerd or the teacher’s pet. His intellect and his love for knowledge has isolated him and hindered his ability to relate to the other kids. He likes to be the one with all the right answers and that doesn’t win anyone over.
I have realized where I have gone terribly wrong this week when I was approached by a school employee and informed that he was mercilessly teased that day so bad that he confessed that he did not want to live anymore. My beautiful, talented and gentle hearted boy was tormented so bad that he felt so hopeless that the idea of his death was more comforting to him than his life. I did not even realize he fully understood or grasped the concept of death enough to be able to comprehend suicidal ideation. It was a terrifying shock to me that the bullying he has endured has lead him to feeling that his life was not worth living. My failure has never been more evident than in that moment because he hid his anxiety and fear and terror on the playground from us because he didn’t want us to know how bad it really was for him. He hid it from his father because he didn’t want to disappoint him by not being the strong “man” he thought he was supposed to be. He has been keeping all the pain hidden from us and it hurts me to know that he has shouldered this pain all alone. For five grades he has endured the pain without letting on how bad it really was for him. He endured it all during school hours. He kept it secret and separate from the safety of his home. So he always came home with a smile and a good attitude. That is why it has been so hard to grasp the severity of the situation. That is why I am still in shock that he felt so bad that he didn’t want to live anymore. I confess right here and right now that I did not know how much much my son puts up with every damn day at school and it horrified me that the school doesn’t even realize the extent of it either. I can’t comprehend how a child can be bullied so viscously on the school grounds to the point of suicidal ideation and the school officials don’t see it or know about it. Over the years it has been mentioned a time or two but for his mental state to have progressed to this level of distress without any teacher observation is shocking to me and I plan to investigate it vigorously. But in the meantime I condemn myself for my own failure to see.
I recognize and understand where I have gone wrong in his development and while I can’t undo the lack of social integration in elementary school I can forge a new path for him in junior high school. He will be going into a new school in August with new kids and new opportunities to form bonds and friendships. My plan is to seek out a child psychologist to help him develop the coping skills he needs to be able to stand up for himself and be emotionally stronger and less sensitive to the effects of bullying. This summer I will enroll him in a summer camp away from the kids in the extended day program so that he can have a fresh start with new and different faces. I will also enroll him in a sports activity that will help develop his self confidence and his ability to work together with other kids on a common goal. And I will encourage him to speak freely and honestly about his feelings with me. I have personally experienced bullying in my own childhood and there are strategies that I learned to use to cope that I can pass on to him. I will seek out the parents of kids he wants to be friends with and I will organize activities that will enable him to have more life experiences outside the comforts of his home and behind the safety of his books and electronic devices. Because we are moving into a new community with outdoor amenities I will ensure that he has ample time at the pool and the basketball court so that he can seek out new friends who live nearby. And I will always ensure that he attends birthday parties and events in which he can interact more with kids his own age. And I will encourage him to invite kids to come over and play at our house.
Being a mother is a hard job and I realize that I have made mistakes. I fear that my full time career has caused most of these issues as well as my own insecurities as a new mother when he was just a baby and toddler. I failed to integrate myself with other mothers when I stayed home with my kids. I never joined parenting groups or the PTA and instead relied on parents I met online. But while those relationships helped me learn how to function as a parent they did not enable any physical real life interactions for my son or for me. A virtual neighborhood is a poor substitute for a real life one and I regret my dependency on my online parenting relationships when I should have formed real life ones.
I am still devastated to understand that my boy has come to a breaking point in which he has questioned the value of his own life. I’m disappointed in myself for failing to understand how my actions in raising him more academically have contributed to his lack of social development and all I can do now is try to change this before it escalates further. Now is the opportune time because of our new neighborhood and starting a new school and he has the chance now to escape from the same bullies he has endured five grades with. The time for change is now.
Now I just have to work on forgiving myself and work harder at being the mother both my children deserve. If that means reducing my career responsibilities in order to give them the time and attention they need then that is what I will do. The formative years do not stop at ten years old. The preteen and teenage years will be tougher and they are going to need a strong mother who will do what needs to be done to ensure they develop into happy and healthy adults.
I tried to articulate this story without getting emotional but truth be told my tears of sadness and disappointment and regret poured out of my soul with every single word I wrote here. As I write these last few lines I am sobbing with a broken heart for my beautiful boy. I’m cursing myself for failing to do my job. I’m beating myself up for failing to see the full picture. But tears solve nothing. Curses solve nothing. Beating myself up doesn’t solve a thing at all. There is only one thing that matters now. So I dried my tears and now I take ACTION. In just one night I have recognized and taken ownership of a grave mistake I have made and now I must learn from it and fix it. Because it’s my motherfucking job.
The past is the past and I can’t change it,
But the present and the future starts TODAY.
And growth comes from CHANGE and
Change begins with ME.
I am his MOTHER. I gave that boy life from my body, nursed him from the depths of heart and today I give him a promise that I will lay down my life in a heartbeat for him to never again doubt the value of his own.
My son is almost 11 years old and is smart and funny, and gentle and kind. He is respectful and caring to others and always has a smile on his face. He is good natured and has always been well behaved, considerate and giving. But behind that smile is a pain that I didn’t quite fully understand until this week. Behind the facade he has been holding up is a sensitive and lonely boy who faces juvenile cruelty on a playground full of vipers who he just wants as friends.
My boy has always had a hard time trying to make friends in elementary school. He is very smart academically and has a intellectual maturity to him that suggests he is older than he really is. He is able to communicate intelligently with adults about a variety of academic subjects. He has a gift for retaining information, processing logic and rational thinking towards complex subjects, and a gift for grasping new ideas and exploring beyond what is expected for him to know at his grade level. But he struggles with his social maturity and it has affected his ability to form friendships and bonds with kids his own age. His gentle nature as well as his his emotional sensitivity have made him a target for bullies since kindergarten. And it’s all my fault. I have failed him in his most formative years by not socially integrating him successfully enough with kids his own age. This is a blame I fully accept and one that I intend to make amends for. My job as his mother is to ensure he succeeds academically, creatively and socially and my failure in his social development has adversely affected his self esteem and his ability to form successful relationships with his peers. I failed him.
I followed his wishes to not join any sports activities so he has never been involved in any group organization. Instead of going to summer camps he has had to attend an extended day program at his school because I work full time. This program has the same kids year after year. We lived in a neighborhood full of professionals and retirees so he has not been exposed to a community of children living nearby. And the most important failure on my part has been my career interfering with opportunities for him to have play dates with other kids. I mistakenly took his good relationship with his sister as enough play time that I did not seek out parents in the school to arrange play dates with. He was always happy to be at home with us that we didn’t realize that he was missing out on the childhood relationships that are essential for building his ability to communicate and interact with his peers. By not integrating him more with kids his own age I have put him at a disadvantage. And this disadvantage could affect his future ability to connect with other people and form successful friendships, business relationships and even romantic connections. It has already damaged his self esteem and his valuation of his self worth.
I have failed him by prioritizing his academic development over his social development when I should have integrated them to work together. By emphasizing one over the other I have reduced his capacity for social growth and emotional maturity. I put more importance on furthering his knowledge and empowering his creativity than I did in encouraging his ability to connect personally with his peers and form the bonds children need in order to learn how to to have successful relationships. Because of this lack of preparation he struggles with connecting with other kids. He struggles to communicate effectively with them. He doesn’t relate on the same level. And he has not developed the coping skills he needs to handle the bullying that has resulted from it. His sensitive nature has also made him an easy target to more dominant and aggressive kids and he has been reduced to tears in front of them.
Because he has elevated intellectual abilities he has developed a heightened sense of academic superiority. He knows he is one of the smartest kids in his grade level and he uses that to improve his self confidence. It is his way of trying to even the playing field with the other kids. To prove himself. This attitude may benefit him with the self confidence he needs in the future for educational and employment opportunities but right now it has labeled him as the nerd or the teacher’s pet. His intellect and his love for knowledge has isolated him and hindered his ability to relate to the other kids. He likes to be the one with all the right answers and that doesn’t win anyone over.
I have realized where I have gone terribly wrong this week when I was approached by a school employee and informed that he was mercilessly teased that day so bad that he confessed that he did not want to live anymore. My beautiful, talented and gentle hearted boy was tormented so bad that he felt so hopeless that the idea of his death was more comforting to him than his life. I did not even realize he fully understood or grasped the concept of death enough to be able to comprehend suicidal ideation. It was a terrifying shock to me that the bullying he has endured has lead him to feeling that his life was not worth living. My failure has never been more evident than in that moment because he hid his anxiety and fear and terror on the playground from us because he didn’t want us to know how bad it really was for him. He hid it from his father because he didn’t want to disappoint him by not being the strong “man” he thought he was supposed to be. He has been keeping all the pain hidden from us and it hurts me to know that he has shouldered this pain all alone. For five grades he has endured the pain without letting on how bad it really was for him. He endured it all during school hours. He kept it secret and separate from the safety of his home. So he always came home with a smile and a good attitude. That is why it has been so hard to grasp the severity of the situation. That is why I am still in shock that he felt so bad that he didn’t want to live anymore. I confess right here and right now that I did not know how much much my son puts up with every damn day at school and it horrified me that the school doesn’t even realize the extent of it either. I can’t comprehend how a child can be bullied so viscously on the school grounds to the point of suicidal ideation and the school officials don’t see it or know about it. Over the years it has been mentioned a time or two but for his mental state to have progressed to this level of distress without any teacher observation is shocking to me and I plan to investigate it vigorously. But in the meantime I condemn myself for my own failure to see.
I recognize and understand where I have gone wrong in his development and while I can’t undo the lack of social integration in elementary school I can forge a new path for him in junior high school. He will be going into a new school in August with new kids and new opportunities to form bonds and friendships. My plan is to seek out a child psychologist to help him develop the coping skills he needs to be able to stand up for himself and be emotionally stronger and less sensitive to the effects of bullying. This summer I will enroll him in a summer camp away from the kids in the extended day program so that he can have a fresh start with new and different faces. I will also enroll him in a sports activity that will help develop his self confidence and his ability to work together with other kids on a common goal. And I will encourage him to speak freely and honestly about his feelings with me. I have personally experienced bullying in my own childhood and there are strategies that I learned to use to cope that I can pass on to him. I will seek out the parents of kids he wants to be friends with and I will organize activities that will enable him to have more life experiences outside the comforts of his home and behind the safety of his books and electronic devices. Because we are moving into a new community with outdoor amenities I will ensure that he has ample time at the pool and the basketball court so that he can seek out new friends who live nearby. And I will always ensure that he attends birthday parties and events in which he can interact more with kids his own age. And I will encourage him to invite kids to come over and play at our house.
Being a mother is a hard job and I realize that I have made mistakes. I fear that my full time career has caused most of these issues as well as my own insecurities as a new mother when he was just a baby and toddler. I failed to integrate myself with other mothers when I stayed home with my kids. I never joined parenting groups or the PTA and instead relied on parents I met online. But while those relationships helped me learn how to function as a parent they did not enable any physical real life interactions for my son or for me. A virtual neighborhood is a poor substitute for a real life one and I regret my dependency on my online parenting relationships when I should have formed real life ones.
I am still devastated to understand that my boy has come to a breaking point in which he has questioned the value of his own life. I’m disappointed in myself for failing to understand how my actions in raising him more academically have contributed to his lack of social development and all I can do now is try to change this before it escalates further. Now is the opportune time because of our new neighborhood and starting a new school and he has the chance now to escape from the same bullies he has endured five grades with. The time for change is now.
Now I just have to work on forgiving myself and work harder at being the mother both my children deserve. If that means reducing my career responsibilities in order to give them the time and attention they need then that is what I will do. The formative years do not stop at ten years old. The preteen and teenage years will be tougher and they are going to need a strong mother who will do what needs to be done to ensure they develop into happy and healthy adults.
I tried to articulate this story without getting emotional but truth be told my tears of sadness and disappointment and regret poured out of my soul with every single word I wrote here. As I write these last few lines I am sobbing with a broken heart for my beautiful boy. I’m cursing myself for failing to do my job. I’m beating myself up for failing to see the full picture. But tears solve nothing. Curses solve nothing. Beating myself up doesn’t solve a thing at all. There is only one thing that matters now. So I dried my tears and now I take ACTION. In just one night I have recognized and taken ownership of a grave mistake I have made and now I must learn from it and fix it. Because it’s my motherfucking job.
The past is the past and I can’t change it,
But the present and the future starts TODAY.
And growth comes from CHANGE and
Change begins with ME.
I am his MOTHER. I gave that boy life from my body, nursed him from the depths of heart and today I give him a promise that I will lay down my life in a heartbeat for him to never again doubt the value of his own.
STARLIGHT POETRY BY KAI
View Me on Twitter @kairosoflife
See Creativity Chaos - a Creativity Blog by Kai
About | Reprints & Copyrights | Home
© 2019-2020 Copyright Starlight Poetry
VIEW FULL SITE DIRECTORY
View Me on Twitter @kairosoflife
See Creativity Chaos - a Creativity Blog by Kai
About | Reprints & Copyrights | Home
© 2019-2020 Copyright Starlight Poetry
VIEW FULL SITE DIRECTORY