The Trust Issue: One Teen's Perspective

Last month I was doing a show called Roberto Zucco; it was down to the last weeks and I had rehearsals every day, and was stressing out about how few people we had to perform the show. My schoolwork was piling up by the hour: 200 pages to read for history, lots and lots of math, and then all the classes I was doing regularly. On top of that, a really close friend of mine was moving across the country and in those last few weeks I had to hang out with her I was trying to see her as much as possible. As you can imagine, I began falling behind on my schoolwork, didn't get that much done, so when the end of that week came I sheepishly told my mom that I hadn't gotten a lot of stuff done. Of course this made her frustrated and she made me feel really guilty so I would do my schoolwork the next week. I was still stressed, but I was able to work harder, since by then my friend had moved, and I maintained her trust in me to get my schoolwork done.

Trust is a big deal in homeschooling as in all relationships. Life is a lot easier if your parent has faith in the fact that you will do your schoolwork, or, if you do something bad, that you will learn from your mistakes. My mom has lots of trust in me; she knows that I will turn my schoolwork in on time normally, and that I learn from her, and I learn from my mistakes. Some kids don't have a good, trusting bond with their parents, and that isn't so good. If your mom doesn't trust you much, its not as fun to homeschool, or be around your parent.

Trust is a weird concept. Annoyingly it's not black or white, mostly it's gray. And that's how it is in every relationship. You can trust your child and still not let them do certain things because of their age. For example, when I was five Mom wouldn't let me go around the corner by myself. When I was eight I asked her if I was old enough yet, she decided I was, but that I couldn't walk downtown. Some parents have a habit of restricting their kids, because they don't realize that their kids are growing up, and that they need more responsibility.

Some of the mothers I know are very protective of their kids and don't trust in them. Moms are overprotective on different things, and in different levels. For example, my mom doesn't like soda at all, so I hadn't had a soda until I was nine. When I did I had no idea what it was, and when I asked, I called it a brown, sweet, sticky water that tasted amazing. My friend's brother pointedly said that it was Coke. Parents have to decide what they are comfortable with and what they think their child is ready for.

One of the big things about trust is that neither side is asking for unreasonable things. I haven't asked to go out to a movie with a group of boys I know drink and smoke (I don't know anyone who does that, by the way) and stay out with them until the early hours of the morning. Mom hasn't forced me to do ballet or something that I would never want to do. Trust is a two way street. I trust my mom to have my best interests in heart, and she trusts me.

Some ways to get that trusting bond is to do what you say you're going to do. In other words, be trustworthy and people will trust you. If I was at Studio East and Mom said she was going to pick me up, but she didn't, after a few times I would stop trusting her to pick me up, and then slowly I would stop being trustworthy to my mom. So if you become trustworthy the other person will slowly turn trustworthy too. If you want to homeschool, or you already are and don't have such a good trusting bond with your parent, or child, it will make life so much easier if you tried to have one, since it is quite a big deal.