Sozlet stories

This is terrific, Soz and Sozlet. Cinema needs new auteurs.

A couple of random things about the kid:


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She has been "the smart one" for a while. Yesterday after school, she told me that in class, her friend Nate responded to a question from the teacher about what resources they use to check facts (dictionary, encyclopedia, Wikipedia), with "Um, C"? C is a very good friend of sozlet's, one of two or three who could claim the "best friend" mantle. And very, very smart.

This is the kind of joke that is usually made about sozlet, and as she reported this (it was in the context of Nate being funny) I couldn't quite tell what her reaction was. Was she disappointed that Nate chose C as the Ultimate Smart Person instead of sozlet?

She eventually got around to that part without me asking, and I thought it was interesting.

She says she prefers to not be so narrowly labeled, that she likes not just being the smart one.

We were also talking about how C takes this stuff very seriously. That's a huge part of her identity, being smart, and it's a bit of a weight on her. For example, they both took part in a geography bee recently. Everyone expected C to win, including C. Sozlet ended up doing better than her but two other people did better than both of them. (Sozlet was third, C was fourth.)

This was a HUGE DEAL for C. She was really upset. Sozlet was pleasantly surprised that finished in the top three.


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Sozlet sometimes has a hard time falling asleep at night. A few nights ago she just didn't want me to say goodnight and leave, and said she was really worried, but then didn't want to talk about it. I was a little concerned, since she's usually pretty open and talkative. Had something really bad happened at school? What?

I circled around to it the next day, and she took a deep breath and said it wasn't that there was a THING she was worried about, it was hard to explain, and she'd been too tired the night before.

Her explanation went something like:

She'll start by thinking about her day, fairly banal things. How she did on a test, say. But then things start spiraling from there. She'll think about her whole school career, and whether she'll go to college, and what college, and how she'll do, and what job she'll get, and how many people are having a hard time finding jobs, and how that should be resolved, and then on to resolving all the other problems in the world, like global warming, and people starving in Africa....

"Dude!"

That's a quote from her, addressing her overactive brain. Basically, "I'm an 11-year-old kid trying to go to sleep right now, I can't solve all of these problems, leave me alone!"

But her brain does not.

I told her I really, really sympathized.

Then we devised a way for the extra water in the oceans from global warming to be diverted to Africa (via ocean + desalination plants) to be used for both potable water and irrigation for crops.

Er........WOW!

I don't think it's, like, viable.

Just we both have the see-problem-fix-problem syndrome, which is both a blessing and a curse. Mostly the latter I think.

I did talk her down re: responsibility for every problem she sees and she was like I know I know (we've had this conversation before). Mostly I sympathized.

And just had a very interesting conversation with her about religion! She's always been fun to talk to but there's definitely a whole 'nother level going on lately, especially in terms of critical thinking. Broke out the big Joseph Campbell books for her. It's a proud day. <sniff>

I heard something fairly recently about how the way you praise your kids can have a big effect on how they do later on.

Kids/people praised as being "smart" had difficulties when they ran into problems they couldn't easily solve.

Kids/people praised as being "hard workers" would initially be stumped by the problem, but would dig in and solve it.

Now I make a conscious effort to praise the kiddos for being hard working in addition to being smart.

Yeah, you said that here too I think and it made a big impression on me. Certainly makes sense.

It's something we've done but not really consciously, I've been more conscious since.

I think we have hormones flowing and the beginnings of the massive brain changes that occur in the adolescent brain.

Yes, the over responsibility ain't viable....but don't you recall that explosion of global interest and desperation to fix everything yourself? I know you're saying you still kind of have it, but I wonder if it began about the same age for you?

Interesting times ahead!

I'm so glad she's so smart and wise. May lose the wisdom for a while!

soz, Sozlet is an amazing kid. She's extremely fortunate to have you as a mother. Caring and consistent. Involved and concerned.

I wish you both well during her adolescence.

Speaking only for myself, my save-the-world phase started around the same age as Sozlet's. (You may want to inform her that global nuclear war is what she really should be anxious about. Remember that one?) But by the time I finished high school, my concerns had given way to a healthy cynicism. I hope she'll recover as well.

Yep, I think you're right about the brain changes.

The viability comment btw was about our global warming/ feed Africa plans, which is what I thought you were "wow"ing about, but maybe not.

You (and Thomas) are right that my save the world stuff (as opposed to more mundane see-problem fix-problem stuff -- I've always been a mother hen and she is too) probably started about her age, too. I think that was when I was very into trying to secure voting rights for kids. I'd figured out that there was only so much one person could do, but that elected officials had more power, and I was really frustrated that I couldn't have a say in that.

My P.E.A.C.E. group came a bit after that (Political and Environmental Action Committee for Education. Yeah). We actually organized rallies and stuff in the later phases of that one, which lasted a few years. My co-founder is still a major activist.

Roberta, thank you! Fingers crossed re: adolescence. I can see things going a few ways.

I was kind of wowing about your whole post, actually....mainly about her reflective capacity.

That's a fantastic sign by the way.

yes. this seems incredibly normal to me. I was about sozlet's current age when I developed a mad passion for solar power saving the planet from doom and destruction and went to the library to study up on solar panels every Saturday for months.

Random sozletness:

The mom of one of her friends (Liv) got it into her head that Liv should attend an etiquette class.

All of the local kids eat like pigs, this is true. We're forever reminding/correcting sozlet at the dinner table, since she can usually eat like a human if she tries, and we're almost always appalled when her friends come over for meals.

One theory is that they have about 10 minutes to eat lunch, so they learn highly unpleasant gobbling habits. (They have more time, but they are all talkers, and it ends up that they have to actually EAT in a very small amount of time. Maybe more like 5 minutes? Can't be healthy.)

Anyway, a bunch of piggies. Definitely. There's one who I actually refuse to take out to a restaurant because I did once and then watched in horror as she demolished her plate. I tried to rein her in a bit but didn't really work. Anyway.

Etiquette class.

Liv does NOT want to go to this class, so her mom sent an email to a bunch of her friends' moms to see if a friend could be roped in and make the chore less unpleasant.

The MOMs were all quite enthusiastic. The kids were all profoundly unenthusiastic.

The class covers table manners but also things like posture, keeping your room clean, all kindsa boring stuff.

Sozlet, however, was begging me to go.

Please please please???

Her friends think she's mental.

The mom of one of her friends wrote that her daughter, C, can't believe that sozlet's so excited about the class (probably gonna happen).

I replied "I know, she's just odd that way."

The mom replied, "That's almost exactly what C said! She said '[sozlet]'s just funny that way.'"

Yep, she is.

How would you explain Sozlet's out-of-there-ness about this project? I would guess that she thinks of etiquette as a skill, and that she finds all skills worth learning no matter what they are. But why guess when I can just ask you?

Yes, pretty much. She just likes learning. She said something like, "even if I won't use this stuff all the time, it's good to know."

It's a very similar approach to the one she took to going to church with a friend recently.

She's very very CURIOUS about everything. Which is mostly a good thing, occasionally irritating. (She's an incorrigible hoverer.)

Part of the sozlet-ness of this story too though is that she is really unconcerned about being an outlier. She's happy to go her own way and just laughs if people gawp at her.

Another recent story -- a friend of hers is a candy fanatic. Well, most kids are, right? This one really loves her candy though, and in an unclear set of cause and effect, her parents are very anti-candy. (Was she a candy freak and they set limits? Did she become a candy freak because of the limits? Not sure.)

So, we have a candy shelf, on which candy languishes for quite a while. Sozlet likes her candy too but she doesn't have it very much, plus she now has braces which complicates things. She got a chocolate frog at the Harry Potter Universal theme park a couple of months ago, and there's a sign on it that says "must eat by January 28th!" Oh, which has passed. Whoops. Anyway.

I'm a very minimal supervisor when kids come over. I'm there if needed, but mostly they're on their own.

The friend asked sozlet for some candy, and sozlet wasn't so sure about that. At some point in this conversation the fact that some of the candy was languishing from Halloween came up and the friend was shocked, shocked. Why on earth hadn't sozlet eaten it already?!

This developed into a classic peer pressure situation -- why not have just a little? Nobody would know!

Sozlet refused.

She told me about it later in the context of something else, I applauded her and said that kind of thing will just keep coming up, if she can handle it when it's just candy she can handle it when it's other stuff too.

She definitely knows how to stand her ground. But the thing that's more interesting and a little hard to explain is that she LIKES being the outlier; it's not just neutral, something she's OK with, she actually gets a kick out of it when everyone's calling her mental.

Maybe she likes being viewed as an outlier within her group of friends. If she was so far outside that she didn't have friends, I think her views and actions might be different. Just guessing.

Brace yourelf, soz. Your daughter reminds me of me.

I have had this thought!

This made me think of a certain picture you once posted of her father. Do you think it's almost time for her to get her Iroquois haircut?

OMG. Good luck!

She seems a bit less fresh than I was, based on what you describe. One can hope.