This lady right here...I'm so dang proud of her and love being able to say that I am her mom. She is another great example of grit.
School never came super easy to Katelyn. Reading and math, you know the core components of the educational process, were her biggest hurdles. There were many tears and long nights of homework from middle school through high school. We provided a lot of scaffolding around Katelyn in order to keep her going. Through her hard work and our support, she graduated from high school with a decent GPA (above a 3.0) and headed off to college.
Unfortunately, college wasn't a great experience. The classes were overwhelming and she didn't have the close support from us. After her first semester of college, and not understanding why she was having such a difficult time with learning, we took her to have some testing done. Turns out she has a learning disability that affects her working memory and processing speed. Oiy, if there were do-overs for parenting, I would take one on this. I would have had her tested much earlier so we would have been better prepared sending her off to college.
At the start of second semester, Katelyn took her test results and did get a 504 plan to get accommodations for testing and assignments. We were hopeful that this would be helpful and Katelyn would be able to find the success we knew she was capable of. It turned out not to be quite enough. The second semester finished not much better than the first and Katelyn felt pretty defeated.
She took an 18-month break from school and served a mission for our church.
Once she returned from her mission, and not wanting to completely give up on her college dreams, she returned to school. She was there for only a month or so when the stress became too much and she wound up very sick. We brought her home to re-group.
During the re-grouping time, she got married and moved back to Logan. She worked as a waitress and wrestled with what her long-term education/vocational plans were. After about a year, she and her husband moved to Spokane (yay!) so Katelyn could go to massage therapy school.
And in massage therapy school is where success happened. Katelyn was totally in her element. She was doing something she really loved (and she is super good at doing massage!). She found her confidence again and got her mojo back. It was so awesome to watch her begin to shine again!
She excelled in her hands-on classes as well as on her written exams. She was often the student people requested when they came to massage clinic.
She graduated as one of the top students in her class.
The only hurdle she faced was the state licensing exam. The teachers and other students had talked about how the statistics for successfully passing the test on the first try weren't great. Ugh, that is the last thing that Katelyn really needed to hear. And then Katelyn's study buddy failed the test on her first try. Again, not what Katelyn needed.
She sent me a text saying she was really freaking out. I knew she would be because she has suffered from test anxiety in the past. But my return text didn't say anything validating the freak-out mode. I encouraged her to start saying positive affirmations to herself, meditating and picturing herself being calm and confident on test day.
And then I started offering up many prayers on her behalf.
Well, I haven't received a play-by-play on how exactly the test went, but she did send a text saying that she passed it without a problem!
This girl is now a licensed massage therapist and she is going to do great things. The words "give up" aren't in her vocabulary. She knows how to work hard and she knows that the best results come from working hard.
I am so proud of the woman she has grown up to be.
