Pistachios ....

I'm sitting here on my couch working on my next blog post (which now will wait to be released) when I decide to take a social media break and scroll through my Facebook newsfeed and come across this post from my former assistant teacher (Adam Ryan) when I taught Head Start. I must have re-read it about 5 times before I finally commented and asked him if I could share his thoughts on my parenting blog because I found it to be so brilliant. Such a powerful analogy:
"Relating my students to pistachios .....

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"Relating my students to pistachios:
-Some students are easy to teach. They’re the ones you don’t need to work at to get to because they’re the treasure pistachio.
-Some students require a little more effort. Those turn out to be the rest of the pistachios that you actually need to pry open to get to the good you know exists.
-Then there’s the pistachio student with the weird opening...like how in the world am I supposed to get to this thing? Ultimately, what’s inside really turns out to be quite good. Get ready to work and add the seasoning because now, it’s ready! Potential Pistachio
-And finally...the pistachio you just can’t open because somehow...there’s no opening. What’s going on there pistachio?"
He then stated that the moral of this story was not to work on homework while eating pistachios, but I believe the moral of this story is much much deeper. This can easily be used as parents as well - especially those with multiple children. It can be so easy to compare your children to their siblings and/or peers, but this is a great reminder that every child is different. We may have to dig a bit deeper and work a little harder as parents, but with a little work (sometimes a lot of work) we will eventually break through that tough outer shell and be rewarded. Though your children may not thank you at the time or even realize all the work you are doing to break through that shell, one day they will look back and know just how much they were loved. They will know that they could have been tossed out like an 'impossible to break open pistachio" but that instead you never gave up and worked on breaking open that shell until it indeed opened up revealing the most perfect pistachio. So, with all due respect to Adam, I do not agree with what he believes the moral of the story to be. I believe that the moral of the story is to value and appreciate each and every "pistachio" no matter how difficult or how long it may take to open. Never give up on them because with a little work, each "pistachio" can be unshelled!