The Boy Genius

Our son Asher, at the age of 2 ½ , came to me with a toy he needed fixed.  It was a car that went around a track, controlled by a remote.  It was a child’s toy, and not very sophisticated. 

The usual culprits in such a situation are weak batteries.  I started with replacing the ones in the car.  Four double-A alkalines.  No response.  Then I went for the remote.  A single 9 volt.  Still no luck.  I beat on both objects a little, hoping to jar a loose wire back in place.  That trick produced no result either.

I had taken the car apart previously with the boys when some hair got tangled in the wheels.  It was a laborious process.  The wheels had to be taken off to get to some screws in the wheel wells.  I had no desire to repeat that process at this particular moment.  So I told Asher daddy could not fix it now.  He was not happy at all. 

The next day I came into the boys’ room.  Asher was sitting on the floor with the remote in one hand and a Phillips head screwdriver in the other.  He was trying to either take it apart or put it back together.  Apparently he had already gotten the cover off, perhaps with the help of his older brother, but a tab on one side of the cover was not in place.  I took it away from him and told him with great authority and some irritation that it was broken, and could not be fixed.  He was extremely unhappy, and after much fussing on his part, I caved in and consented to working on the car.  I put the cover of the remote in its proper place.  Asher had also gotten the cover off of the battery compartment of the car.  I replaced it as well. 

Once I got it all back together, Asher started pushing buttons.  And then the unbelievable happened.  It started working.  I had no idea why.  I only know that my 2 ½ year old son, with a little help from his 5 ½ year old brother, had managed to get the car running.  It was a feat even their intellectual, mechanically inclined, super-dad couldn’t do. 

Outsmarted by my 2 ½ year old.  Now that was not something I was accustomed to.  Sometimes a 2 year old does something so befuddling, so unexplainable, so … “How’d he do that?!” that the only explanation that makes any sense is to chalk it up to just plain luck.  Or, on the other hand, perhaps it wasn’t luck.  Perhaps my son is a genius.

On the same day he fixed the car, our genius son, who was at the time in the midst of potty training, had an accident.  My wife marched him into the bathroom.  Soon I heard her laughing.  She had commented to Asher “We need a little boy who doesn’t have these accidents.”  Asher quickly assessed the problem and devised a solution.  He came back with … “We need a different boy.”

Yea, genius it is.

Now the only problem is knowing that a boy genius is following us around, soaking up everything we say and do.  It would be a lot easier raising a pet, which would probably be easier to potty train too.

Admittedly, I am a biased parent, and I may portray our children as extraordinary.  But the thing is, all parents have these little geniuses following them around, watching their every move, listening to every comment they make, and replicating that behavior perfectly.  I often hear one of our children say something in a peculiar way, and wonder how they came up with that.  Oh, wait… that’s exactly how I say it.

The good thing about this is that it is an easy and effective way to teach our children, provided that we are perfect teachers.  The trouble with this system is obvious… we are not perfect, and they learn the bad things too. 

As parents, what are we to do?  A healthy dose of awareness of the little eyes situation helps some.  But here’s the rub.  I can be as aware of this as possible. But it doesn’t change much.  I am going to be who I am, and live that out before my children, especially in those moments I don’t think anyone is noticing.  And our kids are going to duplicate that to a degree that would surprise all of us. 

The bottom line (I am a bottom line kind of guy) is this… in the big scheme of things, all this serves to cause me to run to Christ.  And when I get there, out of breath and at my wits end, I say to Him “You know what is going on here.  Only Your life is worthy to be duplicated by my children.  And for that to happen, You’ve got a lot of work to do in my life.  So please, do it.”

First appeared in the December 2008 edition of the Manna. http://readthemanna.org