Years ago, Rob and I read The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Books are available for both adults and children and I highly recommend them all. Rob and I have determined the love language of each other and our wild things and it has been an incredible tool in our marriage and in our parenting.
I won't go into all the details of how Love Languages work - I simply can't do it justice - but these are the 5 love languages:
1: Words of Affirmation
2: Physical Touch
3: Acts of Service
4: Receiving Gifts
5: Quality Time
That's a variety and considering we have seven family members, there are a lot of love languages going on in our home! One of the top three love languages for each of our children is Quality Time. As you can imagine, ensuring the love tank of each wild thing is full is a task.
Dylan has special needs. Jeremy ends up taking on the 1st born role much of the time. Savannah is the only girl and has a heart defect. Lincoln is the baby and loud...he's a GREAT kid, but he will be heard! Our Gregory is smack in the middle of all this.
After parenting these wild things for sixteen years, we know them. We know their strengths and weaknesses. We know what makes them tick - socially, emotionally, physically, academically, etc.
For sometime now, we've noticed that one of our wild things is needing more. Our Gregory is kind, loving, incredibly bright, inquisitive and creative. But he's also the quietest one of the pack. He's well behaved. He doesn't complain. He's always helpful. We can sense when something is up, but getting him to open up is like pulling an anchor out of cement. & when that anchor does get free, oh my, the ship sets sail and it's typically in the thick of a storm!
Over the course of the past year, longer even, Rob and I have come to learn a lot about our precious Gregory. He learns differently than his siblings. He also requires very deliberate interaction from Rob and I - a direct result of his nature, his disposition. Gregory's top two love languages, in order, are Words of Affirmation and Quality Time - and only 1 point separates them. In the midst of a large family, keeping Greg's love tank full takes a lot effort and energy. Rob and I do everything to ensure his love tank - each of the wild things love tanks - are full, but life is full of hiccups.
In recent months and weeks, as we've been evaluating and praying for the Lord to reveal what Greg needs, we realize he needs a certain level of attention that he simply hasn't been getting. Honestly, he probably needs me, his mom, specifically. In retrospect, our sweet red head demanded a lot of us during his three years of middle school. Now, he is happy and settled and thriving in high school. Jeremy is nailing middle school. Savannah and Lincoln have adapted beautifully to their environments. Greg needs something entirely different.
So a new journey with Greg is beginning. The journey of home school. Academically, Greg is very bright, but he's not a traditional classroom learner - he is a walk through the mud and hold the bug in his hand learner. He is quiet - he needs a few amazing friends to hang with and he's happy for hours on end. A classroom full of student's with varied personalities is overwhelming - distracting even. I could go on and on and on.
We've dove head 1st into this adventure and it will likely be nearly March 1st before we find our groove, but in just the first week of this journey, the shell around our sweet, quiet boy is cracking open. We may home school him for a year, maybe 3, maybe 'till the day he graduates high school. We've set no limits or expectations of how this looks. We just know that this is what Gregory needs right now, from us. This is how he grows and blossoms for this season of his life.
And his siblings? Dylan and Lincoln weren't really a part of the conversation when this discussion began, but Jeremy and Savannah were. It's breathtaking to see how well they know their brother and how they just "got it" - how they recognized that this is what Gregory needs, at least for now. No strange feelings or harsh words - they just encouraged him and even Rob and I. Jeremy and Savannah both had attitudes of "Oh, that makes total sense for Greg, cool!"
My wild things thrive in different ways, in different environments. I am so incredibly thankful for everything that makes them "them". It certainly isn't easy to navigate and out-of-the-box thinking is constantly happening, but with God as the captain, I can't wait to see how he uses them, let alone travel the path it takes to get them there!