Why are some kids such punks?

Hey all,

I hope you had a good weekend and a good start to your week.

I forgot to mention Father's Day on Friday. I have to tell you that I love Father's Day. But for me, everyday is Father's Day. If I am working, I get to come home to be with all my children. If I am not working, I get to wake up and have breakfast with all my kids and plan our day. I am a lucky man. Sunday was just a culmination of a great year with my kids.

Also, it is a nice reminder of who I am. Sometimes you can get lost in the stresses of work (and if you say your work is not stressful, you are lying) and get kind of down. But, for me, I can go home and remember my place in this world. I am a husband and I am a dad to four wonderful children.

My wife and I are building a legacy. We like to think we are raising four productive members of society and raising them to live, not for themselves, but for the King. It is a tough job but I couldn't think of doing more rewarding work in life.



Speaking of kids...

My son, who just turned 11, is in a week long basketball camp. Rashard Lewis is the 6'11" Orlando Magic player who is putting on this camp. I walked in the gym to pick up Luke on Monday, and it was a zoo. There were probably 300 kids in this one gym. It was electric in there!

Luke and I got our picture with Rashard. It is so funny. I mean, he is more than a foot taller than me. If I put my arm up high and stretched out as far as it will go, I would barely be able to reach the top of his head. I was talking to this man who has a regular sized head but it is like he is on stilts. It was hilarious.

Luke had a great first day. The second day was a little different.

The camp is for kids of all ages. So they group all the middle school kids together. Luke is going into the 6th grade, so he is grouped with kids that are going into 7th and 8th grade. It seems that some kids have taken it upon themselves to teach Luke everything they know about being a punk.

First, I have to tell you that, while Luke is going into the 6th grade, he is the 2nd youngest 6th grader in the school. So most kids are starting "the change" physically, but he's not. He is not small but he is probably lagging a little behind a bit. I mean, when kids start puberty they get big and they get big quick.

Anyway, there are kids from every walk of life at this camp and I think it is good that he gets to be around other kids that are not the sheltered Christian kids he is used to being around.

But yesterday we started rethinking the above.

It seems that during break time they all get Popsicles. So Luke is eating his Popsicle and some kid comes over to him and says, "Yeah, you like that don't you?"

And Luke says, "Yeah, I like this Popsicle." Then all the kids start to laugh.

Turns out they were messing and talking smack with Luke all day.
One kid was talking about how the girls at his school have big boobs and that he isn't a virgin. All this riddled with F-bombs. WHAT??!!!

Okay, Luke gets home and tells my wife all of this. So, what do we do? Do we get all crazy and go down there and raise a stink because we don't want our kid hearing the F-bomb (from someone other than his dad)? Do we get all in a rage and go down there and take this one kid out?
Well, we don't know yet. One thing we did know we had to do was have an additional sex talk with Luke (if you missed the blog about the sex talk, it was an instant classic, you have to look it up).

He was curious about the popsicle comment. So we had to talk to him about oral sex. Real nice, real fricking nice. We had to tell him what a virgin is. Isn't being a parent fun?

Can't we just go back to the way it was. I mean my father never gave me the sex talk and I turned out fine.....well kind of.

Then we had to tell him how most kids are punks. I had to tell him that with boys from 6th-8th grades everything is about boobs and penises and punching each other (come to think about it, it kind of is the same at 41 years old).

That is all there is to it. Hormones are going crazy and boys have a hard time doing anything else. And if you are talking to a kid, and you can talk about boobs and penises all while punching someone then you have hit the 7th grade tri-fecta.

I think as parents we try to shelter our kids but there is a point where he is going to hear the F-word. There is going to be a time where he hears about sex in a way different than the way we talk to him about it. It is just going to happen. We just weren't prepared for it quite yet. Happy Father's day to me.

So Luke is going with one of his friends, and this friend's mom was doing the driving.
Because she has two boys and they are both in the camp, she volunteered.
She had a discussion with her 6th grader, and it seemed that he was getting the same treatment and she was going to go ballistic. She was going to go down there and pull everyone out of the camp.

The ladies were on the phone and cooler heads prevailed, and it was decided she was going to drop the boys off and then just talk to someone on top. See, there are "counselors" but because there are so many kids, the "counselors" are girls from the local high school girls basketball team. Yeah, like they are equipped to handle this. Hell, we are hardly equipped to deal with this.
I'll let you know how it goes.

I was going to talk to you about something dental but once again it became all about me.
I will tell you that I got to do some really rewarding work last week that I want to show you.



We are about half way done. We did the anteriors first and then we are going to get to the back of his mouth. This was a guy who didn't trust dentists. He is a blue collar guy and obviously a hard worker. He has insurance and brought a wad of cash.

Once he felt like he could trust me, he jumped in with both feet. He dropped $3800 cash on the counter (yes, I said Three thousand and eight hundred dollars) and told us, "Let's go until this runs out, and when it does let me know, and I will get more." I love guys like this, what an opportunity for me to change someone's life.

I worked on this guy for a couple of hours. I did temps on 7 and 8 and did direct resins on the rest of his teeth. I can't describe this guy at the end of his appointment. He is this big body-builder type and I kind of thought he got a little water in his eyes because he was so happy.
Two hours worth of work and you know what I got out of it? A raving fan for life.

Have a great Wednesday,
John