My son started kindergarten 2 weeks ago. He is thriving and well, mommy is surviving. Honestly, we are both doing a whole lot better than I expected. He participated in a camp at the beginning of August which ended up being a really great experience despite my hesitation about it in the first place. As we drove home from camp, one afternoon, I asked him if there were any times at camp that he felt sad. He said “no.” Bored, “no.” Hmm.. by this point I thought that he was tuning me out. I said, “happy?” He said, “yeah Mommy, I felt happy the whole time.” Let me tell you something about my son. He is always “okay,” even as I watch tears fill his eyes and his lip quiver. It’s hard for him to say that something is wrong. Now, in that moment, I didn’t believe that anything was wrong. He seemed happy, but I know that we are not always happy and things aren’t always okay.
The conversation continued. “Buddy, it’s great to feel happy and I’m glad you are enjoying camp. Can I tell you something though?” He gave me permission to continue. “Mommy has lots of days when I feel really happy all day but there are always times that I feel frustrated and bored and tired and angry. All of those feelings are okay and it helps me to talk about all of those things with someone.” He said, “okay mommy.”
Fast forward a couple of weeks and he has started school. We were chatting before bed, the night before he would have his first full day, and I asked him how he was feeling about his first full day of school. He had already gone half days for a week. He told me that he was nervous that he wouldn’t find a best friend to play with at recess. “What if I don’t see my best friend from camp?” We talked about the possibility that he would not see his best friend from camp and talked about what his choices would be if he did not see his friend. He went to bed satisfied, from what I could tell.
Last example, I promise! He was sick just a few days after his first day. It wasn’t anything that would require my keeping him home although I totally wanted to do that! He kept asking, “Mommy why can’t I stay home?” We looked at the school handbook together and I read him what was listed as reasons to stay home. We confirmed together that he did not have any of those ailments. Our conversation continued:
“What if I have a big sneeze?” –> “Yep, that’s a worry huh? Well, I gave you Kleenex so keep it next to you, cover your mouth when you sneeze, wipe your nose and anywhere else where you have to and then you can ask to wash your hands.”
“What if I throw up?” –> “Hm, yeah that happens sometimes. Well, usually if you throw up it’s because you had your medicine and it upset your stomach. You had your medicine early this morning so that should not be a problem, but if you feel like you are going to throw up, you can just run to the bathroom like you do at home. I remember when I was in kindergarten and threw up at school!…” (of course I had to tell him the story and he got a kick out of it).
My point in sharing these stories is that we cannot talk our kids out of their feelings, nor should we. We all need to know that it is okay to feel angry, to feel sad, to feel jealous, to feel happy, to feel excited, to FEEL..” If my response to my son, in these vulnerable moments, would have been “it’s fine.. you will be fine.. don’t worry about that…” he would have felt unsettled but because he processed it and we created a plan in moving forward, he handled it all very well. I want to always demonstrate to my boys that I will listen and I have your back. When we don’t honor what they are going through, at some point, they will talk to someone who does or just won’t talk at all.
And when we do respond “it’s fine… you will be fine.. don’t worry..,” it’s not because we don’t care. We do it because it pains us to see our children uncomfortable and we just want to help them to feel better, right? But they, even as little as they are, are learning big lessons at this point in their lives.
Lauren