9 lessons from a 12-year-old
Subjects at school, friends, activities, and when she grows up
She’s bubbly and so matter-of-factly. She knows what she wants, but not really. I asked: “Why did you want to do the interview with me?”
“I like talking about my life. This way, people would know what I like and what I know.”
Instagram, Netflix, and WhatsApp. Yes. Facebook? Not quite. At school, she likes French, Arabic, and math because they’re not dull. She understands and speaks two other languages. With me, she stuck to Lebanese. Spoken Lebanese is not classical Arabic (that’s for another story altogether).
She insisted on talking. Her innocence and purity sent my way, to us adults, a reminder message of fundamental principles that we might have forgotten.
Lynn and Arabic
She likes Arabic grammar and parsing (اعراب). It’s easy and gets her good marks. Arabic comprehension? She has trouble with it.
“If you give me any sentence right now, I would know how to parse it. If you give me anything to read, it takes me months to finish.”
She does not understand the text: “I think I’m not good at Arabic vocabulary. That’s why. My friends and I don’t speak classical Arabic.”
She jumps into topics, speaking fast: “I have a big test coming up next Monday, and I’m studying a lot for it.” With a confident smile: “I’m sure I’ll do well.”
Lesson 1: Keeping a positive attitude gets you places.
Mathematics
Photo by Dawid Małecki on Unsplash
She loves math and is never bored studying it. Algebra is easy. Geometry is challenging and takes a lot of time to solve.
She considers herself a good student. Lynn would be the only one participating when the whole class is sleeping. “What do you like about math?” I ask.
“The teacher is amusing. She makes me laugh a lot. Math is not difficult. It feels amazing when you understand it immediately. And… the teacher is brilliant.”
I noticed a mischievous smile and probed further. Lynn likes her teacher, but she doesn’t explain well. Then, the teacher becomes not horrible: “If I focus more, I probably would be able to understand. She [teacher] talks way too fast.”
Lesson 2: Sometimes, the messenger and how she delivers are as crucial as the message.
When all fails for her, she asks her teacher again, and then she might revert to her father or older siblings.
Lesson 3: Ask for help. One more time. And one last time.
She has the persistence of a successful adult. At the same time, she’s still a 12-year-old who can spend time ranting about some incident she had in class.
Lesson 4: It’s okay to act our age.
Flowers? No. Nutrition? Not really. Physics? Yes.
She really hates science and English but loves physics. She’s learning nutrition (what’s good and what’s bad for you). She’s learning about flowers.
“What difference is it going to make in my life? That’s what I don’t understand. I don’t want to be a doctor.”
She understands everything in physics. The calculations are just like math. She likes how the teacher controls the class. Memorization is not her thing, and she’s not a big fan of history and geography. However, she reads, understands, and gets high marks in French.
Lesson 5: Find the “why” in what you do. It keeps you going.
Lynn’s school routine
She does not like to wake up early (6:20, 10 minutes before the bus picks her up), but she likes everything else. She goes to bed at 9. She sleeps at 10.
What happens between 9 and 10 pm?
If her parents aren’t home, she’s on her phone.
If parents are home, she stares at the ceiling until she falls asleep. Sometimes, she reads or draws. Anything that distracts her.
When parents are home, they don’t take away her phone. She just doesn’t use it.
“It’s a little hard when I’m online, and my mom is too.”
Lesson 6: No matter how old we get, we don’t want to disappoint mom.
Lynn with mom (Rima)
On reading and movies
Photo by Georgia Vagimon Unsplash
She’s currently reading an autobiography in French. “A book about a man who isn’t good with women. I don’t think that I’ll finish it,” she says. She doesn’t like reading lots of books. She loves movies instead.
“Why do they make books if you could make movies?”
She’s on Netflix and likes watching with her siblings. She watched Friends with her 16-year-old brother. She does not like horror but action movies, not those her dad watches. Lynn likes teenage FBI agents and films that make her cry. Currently on her list: The Loud House and Airplane Mode (A girl got into a car accident because of Instagram and stayed in a village with no phones.)
And then she jumps into, “I really like watching Rachel in Friends. She’s hilarious. So is Joey. He’s random and makes me laugh a lot.”
“You wanted me to write a story about you. Why?”
So that people can know more about me. For example, I never lie. I won’t lie to my friends, so no problems occur. I know what will happen if I do this. If I lie, I get in trouble, trouble with my friends.
“If there’s something I shouldn’t say, I keep it to myself.”
Lesson 7: See the quote above.
When she grows up,
She wants to become an actress because she likes to make people laugh. She would also love to become an interior designer. She thinks she won’t be good at it because geometry is challenging. She knows when something is isosceles, though. Everyone has their own taste, and she likes showing her taste. Her mother doesn’t buy into her design ideas, her friends do. They ask her to pick clothes for them. She has a tall white wall in her room that she would like to fill with pictures of her friends and maybe posters of her favorite singers. When she was younger, she wanted to become an Arabic teacher. She still tries to teach her cousin. She doesn’t think that’s going to work out for her. She would be scared to give the wrong medication if she was a pharmacist. Maybe eventually, she’d like science and become a doctor?
Lesson 8: Consider your options.
If you give her the option between going out with her friends and reading a book, she will go out with her friends.
If it was between Instagram and an Arabic book, haha, Insta.
Whether it is a French book or social media.
In her spare time
She into street hip hop and gymnastics. Football and basketball, too.
“I play with my friends at school, and when I shoot, it goes in without even touching the rim, swish.”
Basketball will make her taller, as tall as an electric pole. Just like what happened to her brother. Did he grow taller because he played basketball? She’s unsure, but maybe it will get more apparent as she learns more science.
She likes to get together with her friends at Starbucks and Pinkberry in the mall. Original pomegranate with fruits and a lot of gummy bears, anyone?
Lesson 9: There’s always enough room for comfort food!
Lynn enjoys a tall Starbucks chocolate frappuccino with whip cream and a vanilla cookie with chocolate.
Lynn’s enjoying a muffin for a change. Here’s her Instagram.