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Dream Big

The other day, I was driving my son to music camp. The camp was at the same place where he takes his drum lessons but, rather than private lessons, the camp groups the kids into bands that perform at the end of the week.

When I asked my son if he liked the band experience, I expected his response to involve the difference between lessons and performing or what it is like to play with other musicians. Instead, his response centered around wondering if he would get on the Wall of Fame that the school had of previous students.

I wasn’t entirely surprised by his response. Very often, his goals involve a championship. When we talk about hockey, he wants his name to be on the Stanley Cup. When we play Fortnite, he wants to be on the leaderboard or have his own skin like the influencers have. He talks about subscribers and likes for his Twitch feed and YouTube channel.

As a kid, I remember being young and obsessed with getting my initials on every video game I touched to leave my mark on everyone who would play the game after me. At one point, my initials filled the high score screen of a game called Mr. Do that I played every day while waiting for the school bus.

I played basketball in the driveway and imagined the next shot was a buzzer-beater to win the championship, and I tossed balls in the air and pretended that I faced a full count and needed a hit to win the game. Creating the ultimate clutch scenario and delivering is the dream of many would-be heroes, even those of us who were not destined for sports greatness. It added drama to a sport or game that I loved to play.

I’ve heard interviews with professional athletes who had the same dreams, except they focused on achieving them. Even at a young age, they would spend hours working on their game, taking slap shots, making free throws, or swinging a bat. They aimed to become a professional athlete and help a team win a championship by delivering in that clutch moment.

Whether it’s video games, sports, or music, that desire to be the best can be a great motivator. But what happens when achieving that dream becomes the bar? What if whether a dream is achieved becomes the only measure of worth?

I love that my son has big dreams. For everything he has been through and everything he struggles with daily, he could have just as easily become a victim of his situation and have no dreams at all. But I’m afraid that if he doesn’t achieve his dream, he will resent the experience rather than be proud of himself for what he did accomplish.

I realize those are my feelings and may not be his. It breaks my heart that his chances of playing in the NHL are minuscule, and because I’m disappointed for him, I’m expecting him to be disappointed, too. But my feelings are based on my frustration and anger at what his condition has taken from him, which probably results in a higher degree of disappointment, just like it results in a higher degree of admiration for what he can accomplish.

Ultimately, my job as his parent is to let him have his dreams and make it okay, whether he achieves them or not. My job is to instill in him the ability to be proud of himself for his accomplishments and to encourage him to love the experience, the sport, and the time he could do what he enjoys. It’s my job to show him that there is a sense of accomplishment in doing something and then working at it to improve and become the best you can be, even if it doesn’t come with a trophy or picture on a wall.

I’m a big believer in dreaming. If you don’t dream it, you can’t become it. – Magic Johnson

Dream big, pal.

Sneaky

For a while, I’ve been thinking that Apple’s Parental Controls were poorly implemented. We would set the controls, and then within a few days or weeks, we would see them change.

As an engineer, I set out to troubleshoot the problem. At first, I thought it was because our son has two devices. Perhaps the changes weren’t propagating to one of them, and that device was corrupting the settings. But even after I ensured both devices matched, the setting would change again after a few days.

One day, my wife casually mentioned giving my son her phone because he needed to “check something.” That’s when we figured out he had convinced my wife to let him use her phone and was changing the settings.

Sneaky.

Once we figured that out, we sat him down and told him what we learned. We covered issues with trust, money (Apple’s refund policy for something like this is less than generous), responsibility, and consequences. We took away his devices for almost a week, and when he got them back, we didn’t encounter any issues.

For a while.

The other day, my son said, “Dad, I like your drawings.” I’ve been drawing on my iPad, which I leave downstairs in the living room. He knows my passcode but not the parental control code. We chatted about respecting people’s privacy and boundaries and not using my iPad without asking, and I left it at that.

A few days later, I discovered that the parental control settings had changed again. As I went in to fix all the settings, I realized that once you unlock the iPad, it didn’t require the parental code to turn off the parental controls. You can turn off the parental controls with the device’s passcode, which my son knew.

When my son saw my drawings on my iPad, he was on it to disable the parental control code. His mention of my drawings turned out to be his undoing,

Sneaky.

Controlling his impulses and urges is hard enough for him as a teenager. My son’s intellectual and emotional challenges mean that the process will take more time. We’ve been at this long enough to understand that it’s not a flip that we will switch; it’s a gradual undimming until the light is at its full brightness.

As we talked to him about these choices and the consequences, I felt conflicted. His ability to troubleshoot the problem he was facing and come up with multiple solutions is actually impressive. I know engineers with less tenacity and creativity. Using that ability to be sneaky and violate our rules, however, is the wrong expression of those skills.

Our job as parents is to help him use his power for good.

Imagine That

A few weeks ago, we went to three concerts in five days.

The first concert was REO Speedwagon and Train. What might seem like an odd mix was incredibly entertaining. My wife also has connections with both bands. When she was little, her family stayed with the lead singer of REO for a few months in California. My mother-in-law and the lead singer’s wife were friends, and when my wife’s family needed a place to stay, they landed in the guest room of one of the hottest bands at the time. With Train, at a small show a few years ago, my wife found herself on stage singing with the band.

Wild.

The second concert was the following night. It was my wife’s band that she joined a few months back, and we’ve been lucky to see almost all of her shows. It’s an incredible feeling to see her back on stage where she belongs doing what she love and is so good at.

The third concert was Imagine Dragons. Our son has wanted to see them for years, but we missed their last show in Pennsylvania. This year, they released a new album and, with that, began a new tour. This tour’s first stop was across the river in New Jersey, so we got tickets as soon as they went on sale.

My son counted down the months, then weeks, then days, and finally hours until the show. The day before, he wrote a letter to the band that he asked me to send to them.

The day of the concert, we agreed to a game plan that would start as soon as we walked into the venue:

Go to the merchandise table and get t-shirts.
Put on t-shirts.
Get food.
Sit down.
Eat.
Rock out.

We breezed through the first three steps and sat in our seats as the crew was changing over the stage after the opening band. The venue was packed with amazing energy, and every time one of the screens turned on, there was a surge of excitement until we collectively realized it was another commercial.

Finally, the lights went down. The screens lit up with an image from the new album “Loom” and a recorded poem played over the speakers.

Through distant lens, I see your shrouded form
It carries there through some fervent storm
Its promise neither wilt nor rapture bloom
But only that it will not fade
It looms…

My son spent the first part of the show with his phone in his hand, trying to capture every moment as the band performed. I could see him taking in the experience as he sang at the top of his lungs. It was as if the band did the show just for our son, playing all of his favorite songs.

I love watching him be so engaged and happy. With all his struggles, past and present, I am grateful that we can give him experiences like this. The looming surgery reminds me not to take the time we have for granted. As too many people know in this community, it can all end too soon.

Of all the concerts I have seen, this was one of my favorites. Not just for the band and their performance but for the joy I saw on my son’s face. It was made even more special that we experienced it with our expanded family member, who was attending one of her first concerts. Watching the two of them sing and dance for the entire show was worth the price of admission.