Sharing hard lessons

The other day Jessica let her mother know she had sold her I-Pod for $200.  She was very proud of herself for getting some good money for something she had never used.

 

When she came home from college last night we found she was depressed about the way her semester has been going so far.  School is much harder this semester.  The math class she is taking is being taught by a new instructor who doesn’t seem to have the knowledge transfer thing down too well.  Jess needs a tutor but has been too busy to get one.  The drama of dormitory life is present at her school just as in all other schools at all other times.  Still, it is a force to be dealt with at the most inconvenient times.  And the I-Pod sale:  E-Bay let her know the buyer was fraudulent and she wasn’t likely to get paid for her I-Pod.  Unfortunately she had already sent the device to the buyer on the assumption she was dealing with an honest person.

 

I could tell how bad Jessica felt about getting ripped off.  It didn’t seem like time well spent to ask her about why she didn’t use any of the safeguards E-Bay has suggested avoiding rip-offs.  The situation left me with a dull ache in my stomach.  

 

After sleeping on it I began to wonder about that dull ache in my stomach.  It certainly had something to do with Jess getting ripped off but I don’t wish we had raised her to be suspicious of everyone she deals with.  The naivety  Jessica possesses is a precious part of her personality.  As I lay in bed thinking about how bad jess must feel about losing the $200 she thought she had earned for herself I reflected back to my college years.  I had had a beautiful racing motorcycle I no longer used but didn’t want to let go of.  I had left it in the storage area of a house I had lived at.  When I went back to get the motorcycle (many months after moving out of the house) I found it was gone and the owner knew nothing about where it might be.  It was an expensive lesson for a nieve kid.

 

I think I need to find an opportunity to share the experience with Jessica and let her figure out the lesson part for herself.  I am confident she will take the lesson well and move on with life.

 

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