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It Takes A Mouse Trap To Motivate A TeenagerBy
Deb DiSandro
You’ve heard the wise, old saying, Tell a teenager to slow down and they’ll be sure
and get a speeding ticket. Or Give a teenager a curfew and they’ll give you twenty
thousand elaborate reasons why they're late. Or my newest, favorite, “Tell a teenager
their junior year is the most critical for grades and college admissions and they’ll
do their darndest to mess it up.”
No amount of threats, restrictions, bribes, or bets seemed to keep our daughter’s
grades from slipping. So what’s a parent to do? It may be as simple as building
a mousetrap car. A mousetrap car is a physics project assigned on the first day
of school and usually due only a few short hours after your kid begins building
it. A mousetrap car is what I refer to as a teacher’s "passive aggressive" project.
It’s one of those projects they dream up to get back at us, I mean, to thank us,
for the pleasure of teaching our children.
A handful of students will be excited about such a project and not only possess
the capability to build it on their own, but improve it. The rest of the class will
require some assistance, most likely in the form of a dad. Of course, in many homes
a mom works just as well, but if a project has anything to do with mice, I’ll gladly
let Ward take the lead and provide cold drinks and snacks while wearing my best
June Cleaver smile.
So, after my daughter’s failed, solo attempt to prove the basic propulsion theory
with a mousetrap that propelled, I propelled her father. Today’s parents have little
time to relax in the evenings. If it isn’t a project, there’s a basketball game
to coach, or a Boy Scout meeting to attend. To my husband’s credit, he didn’t ask
all the usual questions, “How long have you know about this?” “Why didn’t you begin
a month ago?” “Why don’t you ask your teacher?”
Instead, he sat down and began to help. It took a trip to the hardware store, a
few trips to the basement where I heard some pounding, some sawing and I think some
crying. Then back to the kitchen, where with heads bowed together, they murmured
and mumbled over some scraps of wood, pencils, string, computer discs and of course,
the dreaded mousetrap. The contraption was supposed to move seven meters. According
to the directions, I glazed over, the mousetrap must be located the right distance
from the drive axle to allow enough force to propel the car forward.
At 10 p.m. I went to bed. No propelling. At 10:30 p.m. I heard more pounding and
no propelling. Somewhere in the next hour, I drifted off to sleep, only to be awoken
by a loud, “WOOHOO!”
It must’ve propelled. The next morning the finished contraption sat on the counter,
all ready for its big debut and next to it was a folded piece of notebook paper
with “Dad” written on it. With my daughter’s permission, I opened it.
Every now and then, a teenager will surprise you and do something wonderful, which
is how they manage to live long enough to see their twenties. My daughter did something
wonderful. She wrote this note, and gave me permission to share it:
"I wanted to say thanks again for helping me dad. I wanted to give up once or twice
last night, but you really taught me the importance of sticking with something.
Because we finally got it to work! I think there are some other things with school
that are going to be easier to tackle now that I realize the kind of work it takes
to earn an “A”. I always knew, but last night really put it into focus."
Turns out it’s the tiny spring in the mousetrap that allows it to propel. Sometimes
it’s the little things we parents do that propel big changes.
Read more humorous stories by author and speaker, Deb DiSandro at
http://www.slightlyoff.com
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