That which does not kill us makes us hurt a lot.

Our family has a policy that even if something is really hard to do, we do it anyway.  I’ve always shared with my children the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.“

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche 

Whether you agree with Nietzsche’s philosophy or not you have to admit that he makes you think. 

Our son, and we think our soon to be diagnosed daughter, have learning disabilities.  They both have dyslexia.  Our son’s is a little more profound.  We’ve known since pre-k and finally had him tested in first grade.  It’s been a rough go of it for him but he has prevailed.  He went into 2nd grade reading at a kindergarten level, if you call that really reading.  I’m happy to say he is now reading at grade level (kudos to the public school system).  Before we got to this point there were so many struggles.  Crying over homework, reading, writing, and at times just getting him to go to school.  We’ve always told him that he can do anything that anyone else can do, it just may mean more work.  He knows his brain is special and with that comes hard work on some things that other kids may have an easier time at.  He also knows that he is more creative, thinks outside of the box more freely than most, knows more about animals and history than most of his teachers and really is a stronger person because of it all.

His dyslexia often causes him to get quotes or words mixed up.  For example, we saw an Independence Day display at our local super market.  I said to the kids, “Do you know who that is?”  My son piped up, “That’s Uncle Steve.” There are no Uncle Steves in our family so this was not a case of mistaken identity of the guy in the red, white and blue suit with a silvery gray beard and top hat looking like one of our relatives.  After a corrected “no that’s Uncle Sam”, with as little chuckling as possible, we moved on.   

Our daughter has already had her fair share of tests and trials.  At 2 and 1/2 she had open heart surgery to correct an ASD heart defect.  She is doing fine today as well but has had to endure a lot of unnecessary shots, tests and over all poking and prodding than her brother.  Again, we have always stressed the fact that this will make her stronger as a person.

This week we had to take our children to the dermatologist.  They are in the sun a lot and there were some birthmarks/moles that I was concerned about.  We warned our children that they may have to have something removed.  After a lot of questions about what may be involved with that procedure I said to our children, “What do we always say?  That which does not kill us” and I waited for them to finish.  “Makes us hurt a lot!” said my amazing son!  How right he is!

var addthis_pub = ‘Joy105′;

Tags: Add new tag, dermatologist, dyslexia, family, Humor, Life, more work, Neitzsche, philosophy, public school, special brain, stronger, That which does not kill us makes us stronger, uncle sam, uncle steve