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We signed Graham for violin practice this year. He’s expected to practice for at least six minutes five nights a week. Most of those nights we endure an half-hour or more of anger and tears before we can even consider practicing. It breaks Amie’s heart, but she wisely gives Graham and I space to suffer through the feelings.

For example, tonight Graham went straight to anger. He said that he hated the violin, that he wished he’d never been signed up, and later that he hated me too. He didn’t want to hear my encouragement or suggestions about where to begin his practice. Then he wailed for twenty minutes so pitifully that Amie couldn’t resist and came down to see if she could help. Graham ran away to his room to be alone, shouting all the way that he was never going to practice again.

Amie and I bolstered our resolve by talking through Graham’s perspectives and how we’re helping him to persevere. We noted that we’re not forcing him to play the violin and that this is about persevering through difficult emotions, like despair that he’s not perfect as he wants to be and fear about performing in front of his peers.

Graham came back to practice after the four of us played soccer and Amie went to work. He tackled the song with zero hard feelings and beamed with pride that he was getting it, even spending extra time to play it through a few more times and to talk about learning the Star Wars theme song I’d written down for him.

Tomorrow we’ll go through the same thing again. And again and again and again, because this is what it means to persevere in a hard thing. And if Graham is learning to persevere, truthfully I’m learning just as much about perseverance along the way. There’s so much I can learn from Graham in expressing all the pent up fears and disappointments, then getting down to the work anyways.