The returns are in the investment

This is about the same boy X-Man. I'm truly amazed at him. I'm blest that we hit off the first time we met, when he usually spaces out and totally ignores someone new. X-Man is different from most (nearly all!) 11-year-olds today. He has no cell phone. Instagram, Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and so on -- don't exist in his world and he gets glimpses of these when his parents use them for intermittent communications. Since I last showed him animated versions of the plant and human circulatory systems on the Internet, he would remind me to validate his written work against the Internet :).

Lesson #1 Perspective, not positive thinking

He attends a special needs school. What he learns is simplified based on an abridged curriculum. Just when you'd think this should encourage pass rates, he flunked all his subjects in the latest mid-year assessment. His favourite subject is Science and his score was dismal. With a twinkle in his eye, he proudly and earnestly told me that he was truly pleased with his Science score because "I had zero marks before!". That remark continues to resonate in me even though it's been a few months since he said that. It remained a very humbling moment for me.

As adults, we could often be and know of any naysayers who prefer to take the speck out of another's eye without keeping in check the log in one's own. X-Man has never once compared himself to anyone else. He's not envious. He seems oblivious when being sneered and jeered at. He sometimes wishes his problems away, but most times he'd try and recall how he had the same problems solved or take initiative to try out a new way.

Lesson #2 Know your place, chart the course

For each test section he had answered, he was able to articulate if it were a lack of skills in tackling the question format or he was plain careless. Because he had pretty clear views of himself, we could take his learning to a different level. Life skills take precedence over techniques and marks. Together we confront attitudes toward hard problems, we overturn those mental molehills even though they keep returning.

Lesson #3 Stay focused, keep trying

X-Man takes a lot of effort to coach, but the lil one puts in even more to be coached. Signs of distress show easily and while first instincts will see reject his chore. But once he's coaxed back on track, he'd put in full rigor to complete the task. Our work table is often filled with lots of eraser shavings! I shall tell him they represent his labor of love, because he loves his mom and he does not want to disappoint her. His mom rewards his cooperation at school and our weekly meet-ups) by taking X-Man on train rides to nowhere (like cruises to nowhere), visits to Jewel @Changi (he was there four consecutive days in the first week it opened), park hops on the Park Connector route. No cash and luxuries involved. The family can well afford more, but #Happiness is priceless. The mom takes on part-time work so she can be with him. It may look like a sacrifice to you and me, but she truly reaps her returns of unadulterated affections with the invested time and effort in X-Man. SMART goals truly should remain simple and highly attainable. Hope X-Man retains this ability and not become like many of us who either fail to set goals or perpetually in the state of setting really complicated ones. Mother and son both know their individual and shared goals and work towards them, never giving up on each other.

Conclusion

It takes work to push / get everyone over the finishing line. X-Man's mother IS a success at managing all the daily challenges that can sometimes far outweigh what we face at work. In team sports, the team doesn't exist to glorify one, it is going to be as fast as the most agile member or as slow as the lagging one. They say it takes a village to raise a kid, so for the sake of the village, let's raise him and raise him well!

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