Our Children are Much More than the Grades on their Report Cards or the Scores on their Standardized Tests

At first glance, you might see an "average" teenage boy - one who loves to play football, talk to girls, and listen to his I-pod. A boy who does well in school, and yet every time a teacher praises him for his academic promise, he looks away as if embarassed. He wonders where he'll go to college and worries about what his future will look like. He has a short temper sometimes, and other times can appear withdrawn and introspective.

But if you look a little deeper and listen a little more closely, you might just understand the complex story of this young man.

It's the story of a child who remembers, at the age of seven, being told by his mother to put his shoes on the wrong feet, wear his shirt backwards, and "act retarded" when they went into the government office to collect the child's disability check for $700 a month. And it is a child who, when the government agency cut his disability funding because they realized not only was he not mentally disabled, but he was excelling in school - bringing home all As and Bs and scoring high on state standardized tests, started to hide his report cards so his mother wouldn't beat him, stab him, try to shoot him. Because, you see, she "needed" his $700 a month to help support her drug habit, and because her son was excelling in school, she no longer received this money.

So this is a story of a boy who, by the time he was thirteen years old, was on the streets selling drugs because that was the only way he was allowed to come home. His mother would kick him out, repeatedly, and then charge him $50 to come home and sleep in his own room for a day or two. She might beat him while she was home, or she might be so drunk or high that she'd forget he was even there.

And the story goes on. This is really only a glimpse into the life of a young man who is fighting every day to make a future for himself that looks different than his past.

But he cannot do it alone. And he can't do it until the adults in his life, the ones who are helping him keep his grades up, coaching him in football, keeping him well-fed and on the right medications to manage his bi-polar disorder, giving him a warm, safe place to sleep every night, take the time to understand the complexities of his situation.

And if there's any lesson that this young man can teach us, maybe it's that our youth are incredibly resilant, but they still need our love and support. And they still need us to take the time and effort to listen to their stories and honor their voices. And, if we do so, we just might be reminded of the many ways in which our children are much more than their grades on their report cards or the scores on their standardized tests.