Life Lessons from the Safety Patrol

I can hardly believe it, but Bean is going to be in 5th grade next year. Where has the time gone?!

Anyway, apparently I don’t get a vote in the whole growing up issue, so here he is, knocking on the door of 5th grade. In our elementary school, 5th grade is the last year before you move over to the middle school in 6th grade. And, as in most schools, there are definitely some perks that come with being the top dog for your last year. One of those being the safety patrol.

Last year, Bean had the chance to sign up for band, but he didn’t bring the forms home to me because he didn’t want to do it. This year, I told him that he had two choices. He could either join band or he could sign up for safety patrol. Or, better still, he could do both! Over dinner one night, Chris and I explained that he was at the age where his service and volunteerism would begin to impact his future.

“But what if I don’t want to volunteer in the future, either?” he asked, being totally serious and innocent.

“Well, for one thing, one of our family priorities is serving others because God calls us to go out and be his hands and feet. But for a more practical reason, you may not want to volunteer right now, but there will be other things that come up as you get older and you’ll want to apply to participate in them. If you have volunteer experience now, you are helping make your future applications much stronger.”

We talked about different things he might want to try out for in middle school, like NJHS or Student Government, and how the choices he makes to serve now will be helpful to him achieving those goals. We also talked about how being involved in those things in middle school will help him in high school, and how the things he does in high school will help him in college, and so on. We even shared about areas that Chris and I volunteer or serve and how they make an impact not only on those we serve, but in our own lives, as well.

It was hard for me to not come down hard on him for asking about the importance of volunteering. OF COURSE he should volunteer! OF COURSE he should want to serve others! But after I took a deep breath, I reminded myself that this is really just the beginning of Bean learning how to set and achieve long-term goals. It was actually a really great parenting moment.

And then Bean missed the application deadline and didn’t apply for the safety patrol.

*eye roll*

*body flail*

I was so mad at him! THAT next talk was about taking responsibility for yourself and it definitely ended in no screens for a few days as a consequence. But we have such amazing teachers at our school and the one who oversees the safety patrol noticed that Bean hadn’t submitted an application. She asked him if he would like to apply and when he said yes, she agreed to a one-day extension.

Bean was so excited and proud to turn in his application, but Chris and I reminded him that the only reason he was able to do this was because of the kindness of the teacher and not because he himself had done anything great. Which sounds harsh, but it is true. He needed to be reminded that he should be especially thankful to that teacher for helping him correct a mistake he made. When he turned in his application the next day, he apologized for it being late and thanked her for giving him a chance to make it right.

SO MANY LESSONS IN THE SAFETY PATROL EXPERIENCE! Sheesh! Who knew?! But that first day when he came home wearing his safety patrol belt, his excitement and pride were through the roof and I knew that the ordeal would be one he would remember.

It’s easy to brush kid problems off as unimportant. It would have been easy for me to say, “Well, you didn’t get your application in. Just turn it in late.” Or even “Oh, good, you got safety patrol,” without any of the harder conversations around those seemingly simple acts. But as parents, we have to recognize that learning experiences are as valuable as we make them. We have that control. We can hold onto an experience and give it value through the conversations we have with our kids. We don’t have time for everything everything can be a learning experience for our kids. But there are certain times when Chris and I stop, give value to a situation for the lesson it is presenting, and then spend time with our kids working through it together. I’m really glad we did that this time.