| Don't you hate that pit in your stomach when you | | | | wasn't the end of the world, and then together came |
| know you've made a big mistake but you're not | | | | up with some strategies to handle the situation. He |
| exactly sure how bad the fallout will be? Then you | | | | would contact the teacher first thing in the morning to |
| lose a night's sleep tossing and turning, beating yourself | | | | see about the possibility of re-doing the experiment on |
| up for doing something that seemed reasonable at the | | | | his own time. If that wasn't possible, we would |
| time, but now you know it wasn't. Do you remember | | | | encourage him to write the paper explaining his |
| back to high school when even minor decisions carried | | | | skewed results in light of his errors. Either way, some |
| the weight of the world? | | | | good life lessons were being learned. |
| Enter my son, high school freshman, perfectionist, and | | | | By morning, his head had cleared and by that |
| science lover working on his first science lab report of | | | | afternoon, I had my son back. He had been able to |
| the year two days before it was due. He had written | | | | re-do the experiment during lunch ( my son who is |
| formal science lab reports before, so it should have | | | | hungry as soon as I put away the food had given up |
| been a fairly straightforward assignment. But he | | | | his lunch period to do this!). He confidently came home |
| panicked - the all-out, I-can't-think-straight- and-I'm | | | | and with a renewed sense of purpose diligently |
| not-even-sure -of-my-name kind of panic that renders | | | | worked to complete the paper. |
| one incapable of coherent thought. | | | | The whole episode reminds me of those VISA |
| He couldn't get a graph of his data to look right when | | | | commercials: |
| all of a sudden it dawned on him: his lab group had | | | | Cost of trying to write a lab report with incorrect data:1 |
| done the experiment backwards and all of his data | | | | night of tears, 2 stressed parents, and 1 missed lunch |
| was inverted. Because they were using some new | | | | period to re-do the experiment with the teacher |
| high-tech equipment to perform the experiment at | | | | Value of redeeming his self-confidence and knowing |
| school, there was no chance of us replicating it at | | | | that he overcame one of life's many hurdles on his |
| home. Gone are the days of science experiments with | | | | own: |
| simple household supplies. | | | | Priceless. |
| We let him have a good cry, assured him that this | | | | |