Parenthood: Week 490 - The First Week Of School

The start of the school year means a lot of different things to parents and their children, especially in the past couple of years of this pandemic. 

It's complicated.  

The start of a school year is a fresh start. If things didn't feel right or didn't end poorly in the previous school year, now is a chance to make things better. But, on the other hand, if something was great in the last year of school, there's fear that it might not feel that good again. Add into all this the fact that the beginning of the school year for the past couple of years has been filled with the anxiety of not knowing what the school year was going to be like to the pandemic has made it hard as a parent to know how to feel.  

I think about my children and how different their experiences of starting school have been. Ollie was chill about returning to school, but he started reacting to the newness and anxiety of it all toward the end of the week. Ethan, my second child, was pretty good once school started. However, the week before school started, he was a mess and expressed his fears and anxiety by being difficult and cranky. Lucas, our little one, got into the week okay, and I bet the second week will probably be harder as he slowly gets into the groove.  

I think about my hopes for my children this school year. I want them to learn stuff, but more than anything else, I want them to continue to grow as curious learners. I want school to be where they feel excited to learn and explore and feel the support of teachers and peers as they engage in work that they find meaningful.  

We try to understand what school is like for our children, but it's really hard. school has changed a lot since our childhood. Our lens as adults often fails to see and feel our children's experiences, but we do the best we can with the seemingly little information we get about what our children do in school.  

Going from having your child be a baby when you know what they are doing and experiencing the vast majority of the time to having your child be away from you for most of the day is a transition that all parents go through but is challenging to process. I don't know what they are doing for a good amount of the day, and I wonder. Part of me wishes I could be with them more, but I also know that it is good for them to have a life away from me and their own experiences.  

Part of how I process the start of the school year for my children is mixed up with the fact that I'm a starting school too. One of the ways that I process the school year is by not making a big deal out of it. This is a way that I deal with my anxiety and the fact that the start of school is, in fact, a big deal to me after all these years. Maybe I should lean into how momentous the start of the school year is for my children and myself.  

My first day with students is tomorrow. I'm not nervous, but I am excited. I want a chance to start fresh, and I've got some good stuff from last year. So maybe I'll remind my students of this: you can start fresh this year and take the good part of last year along with you. You can and should have both.