Brave, Anyway

Tag: firstdayofschool

  • First Day of School

    First Day of School

    It’s the first day of school and I’m up before the sun, hours before any alarms go off, excited about your year ahead and praying for your year ahead.

    Each year of school brings so many new milestones, from new kinds of math to discoveries about yourself to lessons about people and relationships. As your understanding grows, the world gets bigger and bigger – the number of people and things you impact gets bigger and the number of people and things that impact you gets bigger.

    And so I pray for your growth, in height because I know that’s important to you and in knowledge, faith and spirit because that’s what’s most important to me.

    I pray for your protection, from all forces and people that would harm you physically, mentally or spiritually. And I pray for your discernment to recognize those bad forces that you’ll undoubtedly encounter, and that you will steer clear of them.

    I pray you’ll be intentional about your choices. That you won’t expect opportunities and jobs and friendships and relationships to just happen to you. Sometimes the things in your life that seem easy or seem to just fall in your lap are not right for you, and if you’re living intentionally you’ll see that they are distractions from your best choice and your best life.

    I pray that you’ll be intentional about your thought patterns and your peace. That you make choices to discard negative thoughts about yourself and others, that you seek friendships that add to your peace and positivity and joy and happiness, that you set boundaries to enable peace to thrive in your life, and that you actively hold on to your peace.

    I pray that you will not forget who you are and Whose you are. And that when you make choices that aren’t the best, that you never forget that you are always loved and forgiven.

    I pray you will be kind, to others and to yourself. Everyone you encounter each day struggles in some way, and I pray you will have empathy and patience and that you will see what God wants you to see in each person and in yourself.

    I pray that you will see you as God sees you.

    I pray that in the big scheme of things you will put greater focus on how things look on the inside of you than how your hair and makeup and outfit make the outside of you appear.

    I pray you will have fun. That you will enjoy your life, that you won’t take embarrassing things that happen too seriously, that you will find the funny in all things, and that you will make the fun when you or others are struggling to smile.

    I pray that you will love learning, and not just the stuff you’re going to read in books or online resources. I pray for your passion – that as your knowledge of subjects grows you’ll want to know more and more, that as your knowledge of the world grows you’ll want to go out into it more and more, and that as your knowledge of injustice grows you’ll want to act more and more.

    I pray you will surround yourselves with friends of all different kinds and perspectives. Kids who will introduce you to different kinds of thinking and music and art and play and faith. And I pray you will see the value in every single difference and person.

    I pray that you will not give up. You will sometimes want to, after a long hour or day or week, or when you’re halfway through a project and realize you need to start over. At those moments you’ll feel frustrated and you’ll cry, and maybe you’ll scream inside or have an actual shouty tantrum. It’s OK to embrace all those feelings and even to get sucked into them for a little while, but then I pray you’ll shake it off and get back to the task at hand or to simply living.

    I pray that wherever you are, you will always know that you can call me or text me to help you or to help your friends or to help your enemies. I pray that while you may fret that something will make me mad, that that fear will be overridden by the truth that I love you and I want what’s best for you. That the fear that something will make me disappointed will be overridden by the truth that nothing you do could make me not love you and that I have been in your shoes and have made the tough call you’re dreading to my own parents.

    And finally, on your first day of school I pray for me. That I will have the courage to face my fears and let you fly further. That I will give you just the right amount of space and room to grow. That I will not do too many things for you and I will allow and encourage you to do more yourself. That I will remember that most people and kids are good, and that you are not actually in danger the vast majority of the time. And that I will successfully resist the urge to smother you with kisses at the bus stop.

    I also pray that I will remember this day specifically. I’ll remember that Ella Facetimed with her best friend at 5:30 am so they could “get ready together.” I’ll remember that big-girl Audrey set out lipstick and perfume along with her shoes.

    And I pray I’ll remember that as I walked around the house turning off all the lights before going to work, I realized that girl bathrooms don’t change much with the generations – countertops are covered with makeup and hairspray and devices that are absolutely required for us to look just right for the day.

  • So, are you excited to go back to school?!

    If I could remove one line from every single person’s list of things they say to kids, it would be this: So, are you excited to go back to school?!

    Because let’s face it – most kids are not. Even the kids that are really good at school and who love education aren’t sitting around thinking ‘Gosh, I can’t wait to stop sleeping in and eat mediocre cafeteria food midday then go home and do homework for 2 hours.’

    School only seems exciting to people who are no longer in school – real adults. Young adults early in their career miss the freedom of college schedules. Somewhat young adults who are now parents love school because even though they don’t want to suffer through their kids’ homework for 10 months of the year, they love the structure and schedule that the school day brings for the entire household. Not-so-young adults look back on school fondly as the good old days – the heyday time when they played sports and secured the county/district championship, before responsibility then bills then diapers then AARP.

    But the real reason I want to remove this line from every person’s kid-friendly repertoire is because for many kids, school and all thoughts related to school are an absolute nightmare. That might be for a dozen different reasons – because they are bullied, because they have a learning disability, because they are an introvert, or because their parents put too much pressure on them.

    I have two children who both do well in school, as measured by grades and not pulling fire alarms. One of those children is an extrovert who can’t wait to see all her friends and start using an overly complicated calculator. This is the child you all imagine when you ask, “So, are you excited to go back to school?!”

    My other child is frightened of all the coming change – new teacher, new kids, new room, new noises, new crowds. She’s spent the summer surrounded by family and church family and friends and in a cocoon of consistency, and she loves that. She thrives in that cocoon. And probably a solid 4 weeks ago she began internally dreading the first day of school. It has disrupted her sleep and her thoughts, and made her edgy.

    The real-real reason I want to remove this line from every person’s kid-friendly repertoire is because some kids are anxious about school. And one of those kids is my daughter. And every time a smiling adult with the absolute best of intentions asks her if she’s excited about going back to school, they have no idea of the tidal wave of feelings they’ve set off.

    And all the things I’ve desperately done to make her life and her days the absolute best they can be are just washed away in that tidal wave of unsettledness. I’ve read dozens and dozens of articles about how to make it better. I’ve tried everything I can think of to make it better. We draw. We stay busy. We make crafts. We read. We pick out clothes. We buy light-up shoes. We choose folders and post-its. We hate those colors and we return them and pick different ones. We meet the teacher. We find the room. We drive the bus route. We prepare lunch menus. We buy our favorite pudding cups and fruit cups. We pray. We even talk about how to be brave.

    Those things sometimes help momentarily, but they are no panacea. And part of me wants the last 24 hours of summer to last forever, while the other part is hoping to wake up and find it’s next weekend and we’ve all already survived the first week. But that’s not very brave, and it’s my job to set the brave example.

    And so I ended today with a list of modified questions to try to get her to refocus her anxious thoughts about school: Of the kids you know in your class, who is the funniest? If you get to pick what the art teacher focuses on first, will you choose clay or paint? Which teacher are you most excited to see and hug when you walk in on the first day? Let’s make a bet – will the first pizza day be cheese or pepperoni?

    In the coming couple of weeks when you see other children, or your grandchildren, or your nieces or nephews, or kids at church or in your neighborhood, please do lean in and talk to them. Show them you love them and give them a hug and ask questions that confirm for them that you are interested in their life. But instead of ‘how was your first week of school?’ you might consider asking who was the most fun to play with this week or what was their favorite part of this week or what is the most exciting thing they are learning about right now.

    Nelson Mandela said, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

    There are a lot of little ones out there looking to us – the big ones – to show them how to be brave. And showing kids how to be brave is more than just telling them you have to face your fears or pointing to helpers that wear uniforms and save lives. Part of showing kids how to be brave is simply helping them focus on positives.

    If anyone in the 757 sees us in the coming few days and asks my daughter what was the best thing about this week, she is likely not going to mention school. My guess is she will say the bungee trampoline. I thought this would be a chance for her to be brave, but as it turns out she couldn’t wait and she loved it and she squealed with delight – and the whole ordeal was actually a chance for me to be brave, because when I saw how high the jumping got it took everything I had not to tackle the way-too-laid-back-in-superhip-overpriced-sunglasses-man that was running this thing and demand he get her down right that instant.

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