Challenge Day at Cupertino High Brings Surprises for Parents

I swore I wouldn’t cry during Challenge Day this year, but I did. The tears started welling up in my eyes when the girl with the scarf on her head told us that people called her a “terrorist.”

This sweet, mild-mannered child was called a terrorist just because she wears a religious head covering. I’m still shaking my head over it. It still hurts her.

Two kids in my group had lasting memories of the divorce of their parents, and another teen spoke of what it felt like to be a new kid in a new school in a new state.

I participated in my second Challenge Day at Cupertino High School on March 19, and as I had been told, it was different than my first one in 2012.

Different, but the same.

There are still the same exercises, the same awkward exercises designed to break down barriers. Trust me, after a hundred high-fives, hugs and goofy dance moves, mentally I’m thinking I was born naked, grew up naked and will forever be naked, and it simply doesn’t matter.

For those unfamiliar with Challenge Day, it’s a paid-for program designed to show young people that there are people in the community—teachers, their parents, other parents, strangers like me—who care about them no matter what. There are people who are safe to talk to about anything, really, anything.

Read more about my first Challenge Day in 2012, and how it works, why Cupertino High does it and more...on Patch Editor Spends a Day Hugging and Crying at Cupertino High and here on LOTS of Hugs at Tino's 'Challenge Day': Part 2.

What struck me most this year was the parents who participated like I did, as adults in the room with a hundred teens. I was interested in what they, as parents, learned in the process. It convinced me that more parents out there need to do this, for your sake and your own child’s sake even if she or he does not participate in Challenge Day.

One dad I talked to throughout the day, I’ll call him Mark—I won’t use his real name because in Challenge Day, it's like in Las Vegas, you keep names and details to yourself—had never been through Challenge Day and wasn’t really sure what to expect.

I prepped him as best I could in a conversation that involved no coffee in my veins.

We connected throughout the day during breaks, and it was during these times that I learned something new, something different from last year. Last year it was about the kids; this year—to me—it was about the parents.

There are points in the day when we are put together in small groups, family groups if you will, with one adult to about five students. We each take turns completing the sentence “If you really knew me, you would know … ”

Typically this is where you might learn that a child was mentally scarred by being bullied, or internally torn by trying to please a demanding parent, or terrified to “come out” to what is perceived as an unforgiving and religious parent. Sometimes the teen might share that she was teased for wearing glasses or braces; something that an adult might not understand as a reason to get upset because it seems like innocent teasing.

Mark was surprised by those types of things the kids in his group shared. When we chatted during a brief break he said those things seemed trivial to him—please keep in mind that I’m paraphrasing and the examples may not be ones that he shared with me. But by the end of the day, trivial or not, Mark said he would listen to his own teenage son differently. He got it. He understood.

So did a mom whose own daughter was in Challenge Day. In the debriefing she said she was struck by the seeming unimportance of what bothered the students in her family group. She was not being unsympathetic, nor was Mark, it’s just that as adults we get past the nuances of teenage angst. We grow up, mature.

And as parents who listen to their own teen complain or whine or mutter about things we adults find insignificant, it became clear to me that Challenge Day, for at least some of the parents in this group, was a reawakening; a rebirth of their own teen years.

Challenge Day ended as it always does, on an upbeat note. With one young male standing up telling his self-described “very shy” friend Steve—again, name changed—that Steve was his rock, the one who he leaned on in difficult moments. And another exchange of love and friendship brought a group of students together for a group hug. And on it went with cheers, hugs and more high-fives.

Challenge Day always ends on a high note, but it comes after wading through a box or two of tissue and lots and lots of hugs.

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