The Long Goodbye, Again

our twins:  two kids, two approaches to separation

As I write this, fall is certainly in the early morning air.  We've been surfing in the 90s for days now, negotiating another drought, but I can feel fall on the cool breeze and hear it in the rustling popple leaves.  I can also feel fall in my bones, my tired bones.  This week, my own kids went back to school, started middle school in fact, and I am totally exhausted, just bone-weary.  Why?  Waking up early and running around to after school activities certainly takes its toll, but the stress and anxiety exact a larger pound of flesh, I think.  Those dreams are back:  late for class, naked in class, can't find a pencil, can't find my glasses, am blind in class, failed an entire college course and didn't know it... you know the dreams I'm talking about.  And now my kids are having them.  Change is certainly good, but nobody said it was easy.

Look around.  The birds are agitated, flocking together.  The air is throbbing with insects.  The prairie is humming with bees.  Bears are covering long distances to gorge on acorns.  Everybody and everything it seems is busy, busy, busy, getting ready for a big seasonal transition.  Our own legacy of agriculture has given us a cycle that lines up, in some ways, with the natural world.  I suppose harvest time used to excite and exhaust kids the same way the start of school does now.  And here we are at Dodge Nature Preschool, shepherding the next generation through a new rite of passage:  back to school anxiety, and the beginning of the Long Goodbye for parents.  Yes, The Long Goodbye was a Chandler novel and an Altman movie, but here I'm talking about the Long Goodbye of the parent/child relationship.  Each year brings a new variation on this theme.  My husband threatened to ride our twins' school bus this year.  I spent an afternoon drilling my daughter on how to open her locker and then dreamt that I was trapped in a locker in my old high school.  High school!  That's only three short years away...and they already want phones and in four years they'll be learning to drive...and where are they going to go to college?  And what, dear God, will we do, what will we talk about, when they go off to college and leave us?

Going to school means stepping out into the world, away from the familiar, safe context of home.  It means taking risks.  Kids step out into new territory and get to decide who they are going to be when they are out in the world.  Risky business.  And mostly, they don't really know, and that's the beauty and anxiety of this transition.  Identity seems to come through experience.  Some kids seem immutable, but really, I think (and hope), that they are shaped by what they encounter and how they react in those encounters.  So children walk into the classroom and begin to meet peers from similar and dissimilar backgrounds and this is how community is formed, and how society forms:  through mixing it up with a lot of different people.

When kids come to Dodge Nature Preschool, as at any other school, we ask them to adjust to the norms and expectations of school.  It's probably a lot like home, but it can be radically different too and all the stakeholders in this new community have to exercise patience as we get to know each other.  New parents may be just as, if not more afraid of separating from their child.  Children may be sad, or happy to separate from their parents at the classroom door.  Sometimes it is the most enthusiastic child, the one who skips away from Mom or Dad at the door without so much as a backward glance, who totally unnerves parents.  Why isn't my child crying?  Doesn't she love me?  Teachers of young children have seen just about every variation on the theme of separation there is, and, speaking on behalf of my colleagues, I have a short list of observations about the beginning of The Long Goodbye:

--Your child may cry or fuss when you say good-bye, and they might, to your dismay, do this when you reunite too.  Try to think of this fussing as a love letter.  Your child is telling you how much they will miss you, or have missed you.

--Short & Sweet is a good rule of thumb.  By "Long Goodbye" I mean, separating from home life is sort of a life long process; some might say you don't really separate from your parents until you have your own kids, and even then, when your mother's words fly out of your own mouth, you realize you never really left home.  When taking a child to school, though, long good-byes are generally hard on everyone.  Keep it short and very definitely positive, declarative even.  Questions like:  "Should I leave now?  Are you going to be okay?  Would you like me to stay?"  seem to be unnerving for the child as she wonders, Who's the parent here anyway?  If you ask, "Should I leave now?"  You might be making your child nervous, and kicking the ball right into her court too.  "You are going to have a fantastic day!  See you later!  I love you so much!" Hug, kiss, exit stage right.

--Separation is a process because it requires trust.  Kids have to trust the new situation, the new teacher, their parents.  Parents have to trust the new situation, the new teacher, and they have to trust their kids too.  Teachers want you to trust us.  Most of us teachers are kind and caring, to the point of selflessness actually and we want the best for your child.  Maybe parents and teachers won't agree about everything, but we probably agree about one big thing:  we want the best for the kids.  We trust that you know best about your kids, and we ask you to trust us to do what's best for them in your stead.

--Parents should not hesitate to tell teachers how they feel.  Don't have the stomach for handing over your precious cargo when she is kicking and screaming?  Want to stay?  Want to leave, but don't know how to get out the door?  Want a phone call to tell you how it's going?  Is this good-bye thing ripping your guts out?  Just say so, a big part of our job is to listen and accommodate.

--School is a diverse place, full of different people from different backgrounds.  Not only are we required to tolerate differences in each other, we have a lot of fun celebrating them.  Your child might come home playing Star Wars, or pointing her finger like a gun.  Take a deep breath.  Before you rend your garments and pull out your hair, consider how your child's world is broadening.  You might feel uncomfortable with new modes of play, new stories, new tastes and even new words (!), and you should say so if you are, but keep in mind that school is generally a very safe arena for experimentation and new modes of expression.  Your child may try on many new hats, and before you snatch the latest one off his head, take a deep breath.  Childhood seems to be a series of phases, where we learn who and what we want to be.  Parents and teachers help guide kids and keep them safe.  At school we practice safety and inclusion.  Inclusion means that everyone is welcome, provided they are kind to each other.  Inclusion means tolerating and/or celebrating differences.  TV, computer games, light sabers, Disney princesses, gluten, meat or veg, candy or carrots, remember, it takes a village.  I think safe experimentation and self-expression make for smarter, more adventurous and more tolerant people.

We are really lucky that we are all so different.  The world would be a very dull place otherwise.  Once your child is comfortable at school, I encourage all families at Dodge and elsewhere, to take part in their child's school life to the extent that they can.  If you can share something of yourself-- your talents or your time--you get the chance to see your kid in another context and you enliven and enrich your school community.  Life seems to get commensurately busier as kids grow and sometimes we can't find the time or energy to be in the school community, but when you can squeeze it in, I think you'll find that you learn something and you stake a claim on your kid's childhood.

Here's to the beginning of a bittersweet lifetime process!

Good-bye...