Last Wednesday, Tracy and I went to Naomi's Parent/Teacher Conferences. She is our "easy child". When Nick and Nate were in school, these meetings were quit painful. But Naomi, works hard and in general here grades are great. We are not the kind of parents that require certain grades from our children. We only ask that they do their best. Omi's best happens to be Mostly As with a few Bs in Honors and AP classes. But this semester quarter for the first time since elementary school, Naomi actually has a C on her report card. The C is in AP Physics and its just 2 points away from a B. Of course, all of her teachers say she is a great kid and participates and knows her stuff and is willing to help others. After talking with her teachers, it has become a bit apparently that she is possibly dealing with some grief in a couple of her classes.
Nick was a physics major. He loves physics. He also loved his welding classes in high school. Omi is taking both physics and welding. She has the C in physics and a B in welding. Her welding instructor adores her but said she looks a bit overwhelmed in the shop. And her Physics teacher says she looks a bit anxious in social situations. I explained to both of these teachers that Naomi took these classes cause wanted to, but also because she was close to her big brother and her big brother loved these classes and this was part of the plan that the two of them had.. for Omi to take these classes then major in mechanical engineering and the two of them would work together when Omi graduated college. Naomi has been struggling with "What now?" ever since Nick died. But she continued with plans that were already made. But I am certain that Omi thinks about Nick when she is in these classes and that stirs up a bit of her grief. She also has social anxiety, which we had to inform her physics teacher about. Anyway, I let both of these teachers know about Nick and the anniversary coming up. If Omi is going to have a hard time in school during this time of year, it is going to be in these two classes, and they needed to know why. And both of these teachers said, "Now that you have told me this, her behavior makes sense. Thank you." I am proud of Omi for sticking with a plan and for going through courses that can strike a nerve. She is so smart and talented, she is going to make an amazing engineer. She is one tough cookie.
Speaking of tough cookies. Last Thursday, she broke up with her boyfriend of almost 2 years (Nov 30 would have been 2 years for them). I am not going to go into the details; they are not mine to speak of. But I will say, that in this day and age, a regular teenage break up, can be made into a huge ordeal thanks to social media! It's not like when I was a kid. We called our boyfriends or hopefully met in person, but the break up was done either face to face or via phone. We might call our friends to vent and cry. We might talk to our parents, possibly. We might even write notes and pass them back and forth at school with the person we broke up with. But there certainly wasn' any big huge public announcement or need to change a relationship status on Facebook. It was "clean" without crazy drama that the kids now have on social media.
Naomi broke up with her boyfriend and immediately got on facebook to make changes to her relationship status and to "unfollow" the boy she had been dating. She didn't need his status messages showing up on her news feed right after they broke up. Naomi didn't make any huge public announcement. The only thing she said publicly on facebook was "Why does this have to hurt so badly?" There was no mention of a break up from her (other than her relationship status changing). She handled her business with elegance and class. And when a big huge blow up happened over a status message *I* posted that some how got back to his family, Omi was attacked by his mom via facebook IM. It was horrible. All of this happened because someone took something wrong from my status message and made a bad assumption and as rumors do, it got ugly, and we were accused of talking badly about the boy Omi was dating... which we never did. Anyway, it was ugly and uncalled for. Yet, again, Omi held it together and with class, got on her own facebook wall and yelled at people to stop spreading false rumors and stood up for her ex boyfriend. She handled the entire thing with grace and class. In a world filled with ragers on Facebook (and I can be one of them), Omi kept her business private and kept her dignity. I am very proud of her.
Social Media has changed the way we do things. It has forever changed the look and feel of a "break up". It gives people the means to be passive aggressive in crazy ways and behave in such ways they would never think of in person. People have a false sense of safety behind a computer screen, but the reality is, we need to be even more vigilant with what we or how we act. You never know who knows the people you are connected to, and that could allow something to spread like wildfire! Not to mention the texting on the phones. Information gets out so much faster now, and it has the power to seriously harm (if not destroy) someone if we are not careful. I would love to say its just the "kids" we need to worry about, but unfortunately, its the adults too. Adults behave just as badly as the kids do (sometimes worse). So how about we all remember that NOTHING is private once you put it on the Internet.. NOTHING. And eventually, that stuff can come back and bite you in the arse. So be ready to take full responsibility for every word and every picture you put out there. And remember if you cant say something nice, then don't say it at all!
As for Naomi surviving a break up and getting through school at this time of year, with the year anniversary of Nicks death just 15 days away... there is never a good time for a break up and I am very grateful for the people in our lives that love and support her. Last weekend was really rough on her and on us as her parents, but things are looking better and we are all recovering from the drama of the break up. And we are keeping a special eye on her and helping her with big projects coming up in school. And we are keeping her engaged in things that keep her feeling strong and empowered like belly dance, silks class, voice lessons and her horse.
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