Nathan and his friend, Jayson, were making themselves a snack yesterday afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0 We started chatting about the math test that Nathan had studied for the night before.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He’s taking pre-calculus and has been having\u00a0a little difficulty\u00a0making connections between some of the concepts.\u00a0 This was a big test for him and he was describing some of the problems.<\/p>\n
That’s when Jayson made a comment about how he finally turned his grades around because he found a purpose.\u00a0 Normally, I would have thought this was another one of Jayson’s\u00a0 wise cracks.\u00a0 He has a knack for making fun of just about anything in a humorous kind of way.\u00a0 But there was something slightly different about his tone.\u00a0 And when I pressed him about it he said, “I figured out what I want to do in life.\u00a0 I want to go into sports medicine.\u00a0 And I can’t do that if I don’t get good grades.”<\/p>\n
I think it was one of the few times I had ever seen Jayson be dead serious.\u00a0 And it was weird, because he looked like a completely different kid for a moment.\u00a0 That’s when I knew that, as a junior in high school, he had found his passion.<\/p>\n
Not all kids will find their passion that young.\u00a0 And others know it as soon as they’re born.\u00a0\u00a0 But part of our\u00a0job as parents is to help our kids discover what interests them.\u00a0 It begins by asking them what they like to do.<\/p>\n
In Jayson’s case, he loves basketball.\u00a0 He’s pretty sure he’s not going to be an NBA pick any time soon.\u00a0 So Plan B is to work around that.\u00a0 He can still be involved in sports, just on a different level.\u00a0 And since his open heart surgery a couple of years ago, his mom helped him get involved in working with other kids who have had surgery.\u00a0 Through this, he discovered his place in life, his purpose.<\/p>\n
If we can help our kids look for their purpose through the things they love, the chances of them having careers and lives\u00a0they enjoy is greatly increased.\u00a0\u00a0And you\u00a0can bet that\u00a0if I ever need to see a sports medicine doctor, I want it to be someone like Jayson, someone who worked hard to follow his passion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nathan and his friend, Jayson, were making themselves a snack yesterday afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0 We started chatting about the math test that Nathan had studied for the night before.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He’s taking pre-calculus and has been having\u00a0a little difficulty\u00a0making connections between some of the concepts.\u00a0 This was a big test for him and he was describing some of the problems. That’s when Jayson made a comment about how he finally turned his grades around because he found a purpose.\u00a0 Normally, I would have…<\/p>\n