Achievement Unlocked

Take the time to count all the little wins

Last week, my oldest son was feeling a little down. He’s been applying for jobs without too much luck. He confessed that the summer felt like a huge loss.

Nonsense, I said. While he didn’t find his dream job this summer, he learned a bunch of new things, went new places, and generally improved himself. I reminded him that he went to Montreal for the first time. He organized his own vacation to New Orleans with his girlfriend and friends. He learned how to apply for jobs online and to SEO his resume. He went on first real job interview. He started lifting weights at the gym. He got back into running. He has reformed his college-style sleeping habits. I listed another half dozen achievements, and he felt a bit better about things.

Back in 2008, one of my favorite ways to procrastinate when grading midterms was a video game - Achievement Unlocked. The object of the game was to send a blue elephant through a series of mazes, while collecting achievements for doing crazy stuff, like dying in creative ways.

While the game itself was extremely silly, its message is important: Winning isn’t always about the one obvious big goal. Sometimes winning is doing a bunch of little things for the first time and earning an achievement point.

Over time, I’ve leaned into that mentality often, especially as my career goals were sometimes put on a back burner when family needs took precedence. My many achievements this summer include visiting Quebec City for the first time. I met two fascinating people last night at a running club party. I wrote an article about a new topic. I did a podcast for the first time. For the first time, I hired legal help to get additional services for my autistic son. And won!

Pat on the back for myself.

And my youngest son also racked up a series of small wins. Without telling us, he road his bike into town and deposited cash at the bank. When he came home, he told us that the ATM didn’t want all his small bills, so he filled out a deposit form and gave it to the cashier. That whole adventure required a lot of social skills, but he managed. Woot. Big win. And there were lots more.

When we went camping last weekend, he made the fire, set up his own tent, and made the bacon for breakfast. He went to his first anime convention. He stayed at home by himself all day and ordered dinner for himself with DoorDash. He started making spare cash by feeding neighborhood pets when the owners are on vacation. He totally mastered making frozen food in his air fryer. He took one more college class and got an A.

And those are just the achievements that I know about. He does a ton of stuff on the computer that are beyond my understanding.

The autistic kid may not be going away to college like other 20-year olds. He doesn’t have a driver’s license or a girl friend. He doesn’t have a pack of friends, who drink beer in parking lots. However, he keeps learning and achieving new things.

And, as a parent, I am insanely proud of Ian’s bank deposit adventure. Honestly, I’ve told everyone about it. Sometimes outsiders feel sorry for special ed parents, because our kids aren’t winning in the same way as their kids; no AP classes or track trophies for them. But that’s all wrong. Our kids have plenty of achievements, all of which give us shameless joy.

One of the gifts of being a parent of someone who is different is learning how to recognize the small wins. It helped last week when talking with my typical son, and it is helped me put my own career in perspective. What achievements did you unlock this summer?

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LINKS

More pictures from our camping trip on the blog.

I continue to follow the student loan debate. Lots of interesting commentary from Dynarski, Leonhardt, and McArdle. I said my share on this blog post and comments. I have also been tweeting about better reforms for higher education.

Chaos, Calm, and Crunch: The Three Levels of Summer - A personal post on my blog

A background information about my last article for Edutopia at my other newsletter.

The Meltdown Year