Respond versus React

I once had a professor who told me he wasn't interested in hearing another excuse from his students and I remember thinking, "Ok. But what about a reason?" I try to remember that when talking with my students. Sometimes they give excuses, but sometimes they give reasons. And here's another distinction that I've been thinking about today: When I became a mom, I was knocked on my butt by how hard it was. It took me months to come to terms with it (not that I completely have). The loss of personal freedom was the hardest thing for me, but I try to recognize that personal freedom isn't always the best goal anyway. Isn't a better goal to work for others in general - and not just one's children? I read a lot these days bemoaning the fact that parents focus too much on parenting and that maybe we should just step back and (the way I read it anyway) just go and live our lives with our kids over there in the background or something. That doesn't seem to me to be the solution, because why have kids if that's what you're going to do? But I read a comment today that moved me to write this. It said that a lot of the problem was that we as parents are viewing ourselves as fully formed adults who are supposed to be "in charge" with the goal of shepharding our children into the status of fully formed adults. When in reality, we aren't finished. None of us are. Becoming a parent shouldn't be the moment we become adults, full and complete. It should be the moment we realize just how much we still have to grow. And one of the things that I and that anonymous commentor have in common, is that I need to learn empathy. I need to learn how to respond instead of react more often. So many of the times that I lose my patience with Penny, I find myself reacting, which does nothing to resolve the situation. She needs empathy, not my anxiety or anger. That's definitely an area that I'm going to work on. And just like school isn't about what students learn, so much as it is teaching them how to learn, I think that rather than trying to turn Penny into a person, I want to teach her how to become her own person.