Modeling Emotional Honesty With Your Kids During Back-to-School Weirdness
Maybe you've already sent kiddos back to school, in some form or fashion. In the upper Midwest, we've still got another week of summer, but regardless of date, we're all living in back-to-school weirdness, finding ourselves navigating through unwanted, uncharted waters.
After a summer of emotional and political intensity (verging on insanity?), I think it's safe to say we all feel a little jarred. I imagine our kids do, too. And they're watching us for cues about how to feel as we approach school re-entry.
The vast experience of emotions streaming through our everyday lives can feel overwhelming. Fear, excitement, hope, anxiety, dread, and relief commingle, creating overwhelm, exhaustion, and frustration.
This stuff is hard.
A friend texted me last night saying she's essentially in emotional lock-down. It's a 5-alarm fire inside her soul, and it feels like there's not enough water in the world to quench it.
So how do we walk our sweet kiddos through this weirdness, while we're hanging on by a thread?
The answer, my dear friend, is emotional honesty.
Today, I simply want to offer a few thoughts that might guide you in your own experience, as you try to help your students navigate these exhausting days in which we live.
Going back to school is usually an exciting time of year, but this year it feels like a weird mixture of emotions: maybe there's excitement, but also fear and anxiety. It's okay to feel two different emotions at once. God created us as emotional beings, in His image, and he is with us in all the emotions. There are no bad or good emotions. Let them all be "legal" to feel. There's freedom to be found in this.
This is a SEASON. Seasons come and go. Just when it feels like winter might last for eternity spring begins to pop in and say, "It won't always be cold!" This is an excellent opportunity to talk with your kids about flexibility. Flexibility is a skill that will serve your kids well for the rest of their lives. We have two options in difficult situations: we can stop and sit down on the floor in our own little tantrum, or we can flex, or pivot. (Sometimes we have to have our own little tantrum before we can flex, and that's okay, too!). Just be real. No one likes what's happening right now, and it's good and healthy to let your kids know that. They don't have to be emotional soldiers. (Neither do you.)
It's okay to be sad. Or angry. Or disappointed. Or depressed. Or whatever. There is grace in this season for all of us.
Ask your kids what they're thinking and feeling about school. Maybe they don't know, and that's okay, too. Offer them some language: It's okay to have lots of feelings about this... to hate wearing masks... to miss being in school with your classmates in person... to be happy that you get to go back in person but sad that your friend is homeschooling, or vice versa.
There are so many question marks. We don't do well with the unknown, do we? God gave our amazing brains the ability to look out into the future to discern the possible outcomes of our choices, but that's not where we are to live. The present moment is all we have, but many of us are living out in the future somewhere. Reigning in our imaginations can be a daily, even hourly challenge. But it's worth it. Anxiety decreases when we're present to what's right in front of us. Is it time for lunch? Focus on the ham sandwiches and lemonade. Is the bread soft? Is the ham salty? Does the lemonade need more sugar? Is there leftover jam on your 4 year old's mouth from breakfast? What's happening RIGHT NOW? Focus on that.
Adopt a new mantra: One Day at a Time. Let your kids know you'll get through this weirdness together, one day at a time. Don't worry about next week, or the what-ifs. Chances are, if we plan for the what-ifs, something's going to change before we get there and our plan will be out the window anyway.
I want to leave you with this quote by CS Lewis: "For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which God has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them."
I almost can't wrap my mind around that, but I believe Lewis is right. We can't live in the past or the future. We get the NOW, and I invite you to be your real, messy, confused, overwhelmed, overjoyed, exhausted, and bewildered self in it.
~August 19, 2020