This is Breck.  Breck is fun.  Breck is friendly.  Breck is energetic.  Breck is kind.  Breck is athletic.  Breck is shy.  Breck is outgoing.  Breck listens.  Matter of fact…
Breck.  Remembers.  Everything.

Do you ever wonder why your memory works the way that it does?  Some events in life are etched eternally in our minds like the wedding vows say, “for better, or for worse…”

As many students eagerly anticipate Christmas Break, there are others that have been dreading it since coming back from Thanksgiving Break.  Here is what I have learned over the course of my lifetime.  Kids sometimes come to us with baggage that they need help with.

This point has never hit home more than it has this past week.  Our school is 1:1 with Chromebooks and we have a few different platforms that monitor what students are looking at and typing on their school computers.  In the past few weeks, I have had multiple notifications about students and concerns with what they were typing.  It turns out that many of these students have been working on a personal memoir.  Reading through the alerts made me realize one thing.  Kids listen.  Kids.  Remember.  Everything.

Writing is therapeutic for me and helps me collect my thoughts.  Abe Lincoln wrote to vent to his political opponents (and didn’t send the letters).  Some people write to give advice (I’m currently reading The Dichotomy of Leadership and Dare to Lead).  Others write with the goal of immersing you in their alternate world (Harry Potter).   I should write more often, but I often make excuses.  After reading many of these memoirs, I have reflected on our students and their childhood, my own, and more importantly, my own children and their childhood thus far.

For some reason, our brain remembers good and bad times very vividly.  For me, I remember listening to Paul Harvey and Alan Jackson as my dad and mom drove down Highway 6 on the way to Wheeler’s in Hastings.  I would stare out at the mounds of dirt and think, “Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee, does it really get hotter than a hoochie coochie?”  And then, when Paul Harvey was over, I would always mouth, “This is Paul Harvey, Good Day!” and “And now you know, the rest of the story…”

Which brings me back to Breck.  Our kids go to daycare a few miles outside of town and Breck oftentimes rides with me in the morning.  We talk, sing, and ponder many of the wonders in life.  Mind you, Breck has also been introduced to everything from Alice in Chains to Queen and in between.  I love music and the thoughts and feelings it brings to the forefront of my mind and the particular mood that I am in at that particular moment.  One of my favorite artists is Eric Church.

A few months ago Breck walked into the living room and shrugged his shoulders in his signature way (like my great uncle Mike) and said, “Dad!  Drank a little drank!  Smoke a little smoke!”  He saw me chuckle initially and then kept doing it the rest of the day.  My wife looked at me like only a wife can do with the look of, “what are you teaching him?”  To which I replied, “Turn the quiet up, turn the noise down…”  She was not amused.

The moral of the story today is for parents, myself included.  Kids are only young once and they are malleable, impressionable, and innocent.  They remember everything in their life, good and bad.  They keep on keeping on.  They are easily influenced and all want attention.  Kids are quick learners and will manipulate situations to better help them survive.  As adults, I challenge all of us to be cognizant of what we are doing, what we are listening to, and what we are teaching our kids.  Chances are, they will remember it.