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I’m a guest blogger on www.pinkhairedgirl.net today

September 17, 2008 at 8:40 am, by Rich Kirkpatrick

The Words of a Father Must be Spoken…especially to daughters

My daughter:  “Dad, high school is just so hard…”  She says this with tears welling up.

Me:  “God has made you for something special.  Unfortunately, special is not going to mean easy.”

My daughter:  She smirks and laughs through her swollen eyes.

This interchange comes after what to my daughter Emilie was three
weeks of learning what it is like to go from small town Christian
school to a freshman class of over 700 peers in a suburb of Southern
California. Her first weeks proved tough.

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Categories Christian Life, Family | Tags:

  • http://www.skiescolliiide777.blogspot.com Sean Pritzkau

    nice guest blog!

    That really stinks she’s having a hard time. My high school of 1400 was never that bad!

  • http://churchaudio.blogspot.com/ JB

    Don’t worry Emilie,
    I remember why my freshman year was so rough; transitioning into hight school. The work load. The responsibilities. The high expectations. The limited freedom. And being a freshman football player only compounded those issues (as any freshman football player would know). I had few friends my freshman year and was a borderline social outcast. I was Ralph from The Simpsons, the total nerd. The only thing that saved my neck was the jersey I wore on Fridays. Which didn’t really help, honestly.

    I know the small school experience, but trust me in high school it is your worst nightmare. My senior year had the highest student population the entire four years: 247 students. You couldn’t go pee without everyone knowing the color and everyone knew your most embarrassing darkest secrets to use against you. At least at a large school (college) I could disappear a bit into the crowd; but I had it rough being the pilgrim in a foreign land. (An American in Europe)

    The worst part was my high school dating experience. I think it was 9 consecutive condescending “no I don’t want to date you” responses that really did me in. And if I was totally honest, that probably one of the reasons I still don’t really date.

    Oddly enough my sophomore, junior, and senior year I hung around, wait for it… five girls and one other boy. Why? If I couldn’t date them at least I could be their friends and comfort them as they crashed from their relationships. And high school relationships were torture. Getting emotionally involved with teenagers who are little more than hormones on two legs is a dangerous thing. You need to know what you’re getting into otherwise it has all the smoothness of nitroglycerin.

  • http://benandruthkane.com Kane’s

    Dude! That’s totally not cool! When I went to high school in the Valley I don’t remember any of ‘that’!

    This world sure isn’t getting better!

    -The one word of advice that I have…
    The weirdest thing happened to me once. High school ended and everything was different over night! Seriously, It didn’t take long before everyone thought, “wow, that’s so high school” in a bad way. Yes, high school is this big weird popularity contest and a place to just survive at time like prison. But at the end of it all what counts are a few good friendship and your grades. The ‘grades’ part is hard for me to say but it’s true.

    So hang in there Emilie. Keep up your life/faith in what you know to be right, make some good friends & keep your grades up and it’ll all be over soon.

    Grace & Peace,
    Ben

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