Bound For Greatness

Last week, I wrote about Preemie girl and now it's Big brother's turn. My son whom I raised since he was 5 months old is now 21 and hopefully will be graduating from college this year. Unlike my daughter, I had no behavior issues with him when he was growing up. He was such an obedient child that it was easy to bring him along with me to public places because he was very behaved. It was when he started school that problems started. Although he was a sensitive and intelligent boy, he did not like studying. Unfortunately, I did not have the skill nor the inclination to instill in him good study habits because I too did not like to "study". Therefore, I could not teach him what I did not have, which is weird because I was and still am an avid reader and a life-long learner. It is not the learning part that I hated about school but the process of teaching of what must be learned that was being used by traditional schools. I was the type that needed teachers who knew how to challenge and motivate me. However, unlike my son, I forced myself to study when I needed to even if I found the lessons incomprehensible or was bored to death with the subject matter, while he simply did not care whether he passed or not. This attitude led me to do research on learning styles and learning disabilities as he was growing up. Finding information on multiple intelligence was an eye-opener for me but it seems that in 1995, not many teachers or schools were aware of this or if they were, they did not apply this in their teaching methods and remained very traditional in their evaluation and grading system. And so, my son went through his high school years struggling in all his math subjects but breezing through MAPE, Social Studies and the like. Like any concerned mom, I got him weekend tutors in math and Filipino to check his understanding and skills at the same time to give him some advanced lessons. He passed but clearly, he never quite developed a love for study.

BUT, there were other things that he was very very good at.  For the longest time, it became a habit for me to sing to him nightly while putting him to sleep.  I think I have memorized all the nursery rhymes and cartoon theme songs in the world. I even had a Spanish one.  His birth-mother was tone-deaf and for this reason, I'd like to believe that his musical ability is all because of me.  He first sang during his pre-school culminating activity where he had the role of the prince in Cinderella, and all through his primary grades up to high school, he was the class favorite to compete in the school's annual singing contest.

 

When he began his intermediate grades I would teach him some simple chords using the Yamaha guitar left to me by my dad.  Before long he was mastering it and was teaching himself to play the harder chords.  I bought him his first guitar soon after, which was upgraded to a more expensive one by the end of his high school.  Today, he is good enough to get invited to play in college acoustic bands.

But it's not all about music for my son. He dabbles in photography, getting more adept at it as time goes by.  He is also an accomplished swimmer, competing in high school intramurals and used to play little league basketball. But his other great passion is Taekwondo.  Although expensive, I enrolled him in lessons when he was 9 years old believing that it would develop discipline and character in him.  I did not know that it was going to be a long-term love affair for him.  He had enough motivation to make it up to Black Belt- First Dan and joined competitions every summer.  He was good enough to make it into the college varsity team and won a silver medal (it should have been gold, but that is another story...) in the senior division of the 2009 NOPSSEA.  He plans to make 2nd Dan this summer.

He is very good with children and when he was 11, he asked to become a god-father to one of his nephews. He is a loyal friend, a loving, caring and protective son, grandson, brother and cousin. He does not abuse his privileges and never asks for his wants, only for his needs.  Except for wishing that he has better grades, there is not much more I can ask for in a son. I continue to pray that he will be a good man, a man that God meant him to be. Although he is far from perfect and continues to be a work in progress, I have no doubt in my mind that my only son is bound for greatness. 

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