Sometimes Big Kid Problems Require Little Kid Solutions

When I was a teenager, I managed to both skip my freshman year of high school and gain entry into a dual-credit high school program. For every college course I took through the program, I would gain high school credit toward graduation and an Associate’s degree.

It was there, in my junior year, that I found my crippling weakness in academia: chemistry. Mind you, the college was aware of high schoolers being incorporated into their classes, and professors were notified at the beginning of the term; however, through a combination of expectations from the professor that EVERYONE had somehow HAD high school chemistry already (this was directly stated on the first day) and a definitive no on being able to drop or switch courses/professors, my peers and I were doomed to a class with no basic foundation.

With my dwindling grades in the course and the threat of probation from the dean came my equally dwindling confidence.

At the time, I was sixteen and my little brother was four. He found me sitting on the floor by my desk having checked my grades for my latest chemistry exam into which I had invested weeks of hard studying, tutoring time, and hours of practice, and I had still failed by a short margin. I was crying. My brother stopped, put his stuffed cat down on the floor, wormed his way into my lap, and started patting my face.

Brother: “Don’t be sad. I’m here to be a present for you so you can be happy.”

Throughout the mess of that chemistry course, that is the shining light I saw at the end of the tunnel. I ended up failing the class (as did all but four out of the fifty juniors), but my brother helped me see that there was an end to that nightmare. Sometimes little brothers know the perfect thing to say out of innocent love and concern.