PART 2
“Hi Mom, it’s OK I’ll take it out for you,” Kathy said as she bounced into the room. Good grades, nice friends and well-adjusted at home, Kathy was almost the exact opposite of Josh. She was involved in activities at school and was progressing nicely with her dance classes. Josh too had been so much better behaved just 18 months ago, but that was before these new “cool” friends. His mother knew that part of Josh’s acting out was inevitable due to normal adolescence, but she worried that it was getting beyond the usual boundary-pushing. She also worried about the example he was setting for Kathy, but thankfully there were no signs so far that she was following her brother’s lead. If anything, she was much more mature and seemed happier and more stable. Again, Gwendolyn wondered what it would take to get Josh to be more like his sister.
As she watched Kathy walk out the door with the bag of garbage, Gwendolyn was struck by how much her daughter had grown. While Josh was on the shorter side and the teen growth spurt had not really kicked in, Kathy was shooting up and now she and her brother were nearly the same height at about 5’2”. Kathy already showed every indication of being tall like her mother who stood at almost six feet. While Kathy was prone to be a girly-girl at times she was also athletic and graceful. Dance and other physical activities like gymnastics came easy to her. Josh’s father had been a petite man of 5’7”, and Josh showed every indication of inheriting those genes. Josh had so far exhibited no interest in sports and was frankly sort of scrawny and soft. No wonder he was so easily influenced by those other kids. Gwendolyn feared that Josh had other bad traits from his father lurking in his genes. As she realized how similar her children were physically (for now) but so different in their demeanor, a vague idea crossed her mind. Perhaps she could get Josh to… follow his sister’s lead?