Overcoming Fears...

I must confess, I am not very good at math! It is just not my strongest area. I enjoy some math, basic algebra was my all time favorite, but anything beyond that was really hard and confusing. Of course, this means science isn't very high up there either! I enjoy life sciences, but not so much the formal sciences. So it should come as no surprise that I have a young student VERY interested in building robots! And not just any robot...he wants to build a cheetah that can run and jump and be controlled by remote. AH!

I don't even know where to begin! But I do know one of the most important things my mother ever taught me, I don't have to know everything, I just need to know where to look or who to ask for the answer. That I do know! I sent an email out to a friend who might know of such things. I received some ideas and this kit for the kids to start with. Oh, boy! Now I have this kit of circuits and I don't know what to do with it! But my young son is anxious to get at it.

Now comes the hard part...I didn't get to it before we lost the house last year and wouldn't you know it, the kit survived! But then I didn't get to it at the rental, I used the excuse that there were too many little pieces with little sister around. We moved back to the property with this beautiful island, plenty big to work on experiments. Still, I put it off. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to figure it out and I was embarrassed to admit it.

Well, three weeks ago, I finally got up the nerve to pull it out, convinced that I would be disappointing my son when I couldn't figure it out. But I had put this off far too long, so I opened the box, looked over the instructions and attempted to help him create the first example, just a basic circuit. IT WORKED! I had figured it out! I was so excited! We took it apart and assembled several more before sister got up and we had to put it away.




But then something amazing happened! The next day, during sister's nap, he asked to pull it out again. I let him, feeling a little more confident in my ability to help him. We did a couple more and then I got tied up in something else. I thought I would come back to find him waiting for me or giving up and off playing. But, no, he was still at the island, finishing a rather complex circuit about 150 steps from where we had been working. "Look, Mom! I think I did it!" You know what? It worked! He spent her entire nap time reading the books and assembling, dissembling and reassembling circuits...all on his own! He did it again the next day too, and the next week! He is asking for a more advanced set now. He is good at it. I am not. That is what makes this world so intensely amazing!

My husband says this is the most challenging part of home schooling - we as parents have to face our own fears! So the next time one of the kids asks to get into something that overwhelms me...I hope I'll be a little faster to give it a try or at least to allow them to try!

(Sister wanted to get in on the fun, too!)