A Very Special Weekend

I have been promoting parents talking to their kids about adolescence for a long time now, but this weekend, the talking hit home for me. My 11-year-old son, Ethan, and I embarked on a trip to Chicago together. The purpose of the trip was two fold. First, I had a few meetings with junior high pastors for my sabbatical project, but second, we were going to have a “man” weekend.

Our weekend started with Ethan getting out of half of Thursday and all of Friday from school (he did not complain). We hit the road to Chicago and began to listen to Dr. Dobson’s “Preparing for Adolescence” CD series. I will say that I don’t think there is a lot of good material out there to help parents navigate this important transitional time and although Dobson’s stuff is horribly dated (he recorded it in the late 70’s) it is still, I think, some of the best stuff out there. To clarify, what I like is that he does not just cover sex and the physical changes that will occur in the years to come (and I must say, I think he covers this subject very well), but he also talks about inferiority, conformity, love, and friends. The dated side of the material shows up in his examples and statistics. I would love to see him update these (or have one of his staff do so).

Friday put us at the Cubs game. Ethan has always been a Cubs fan (influence of his grandfather), but he had never been to Wrigley. So, naturally, we needed to get this done while we were there. It was a great day (except they fell apart in the 5th and lost by one run). We got to the stadium at 11:00 for b.p. and Ethan was initially not excited about standing around for two hours prior to game time. However, after 90 minutes he got a ball and that made everything worthwhile. An added bonus and totally a coincidence, Ethan’s grandpa and uncle were at the game and we were able to sit with them and enjoy our special day together.