August 30, 2022
Sometimes it’s hard to balance my act between a preschool director and a mom.
Ms. Jess the preschool director? She knows what kids need developmentally, can spout statistics about when hand muscles form and why we focus on social and emotional learning to the nth degree. Ms. Jess knows how to speak to children to help them manage their big feelings and how to calmly redirect behaviors. She emphasizes the benefits of a play-based preschool over an academically-focused one and, most importantly, is pretty good about talking to parents to calm their fears, to reassure them about their children’s development, and to offer strategies and “best practices” for children this age.
Jess as a mom? Oh boy. For someone who knows what they are doing here at school, I often forget to translate it back to my own children and my parenting. While I KNOW I should speak in a calm voice to my children, I can’t help but listen to the volume of my voice increase when I ask AGAIN why their socks are not on their feet (and we should have been out the door 5 minutes ago) or (trigger alert!) why they left a slew of toys all over the room I literally just cleaned. While I know how to talk to a child who is processing a big, ugly emotion, I can’t help it as a mom when my big, ugly emotions become intertwined in my children’s, making all our emotions spill all over the place in an awful mess. Oh, there’s so many ways I could parent better knowing what “I should know”. [Insert: I am writing this as I ignore, ahem…listen, to my kids argue about a toy].
As we get ready to start school this week, I’ve been thinking about an incident that happened this summer with my son, Luke. It was such a reality check in my world, in which my professional role as a preschool director knew exactly what I should do, but as Luke’s mommy…man, it was hard to execute.
Luke attended a week of camp this summer with his sister – a drop-off camp close to our house. He had a few friends in his camp group, so I was reassured (and reassured him) that he would not be alone and he would have tons of fun. Luke was pumped. He is a brave boy and, as many of you know, has necessarily ventured into situations without mommy or daddy being able to be with him. But you know what happened? This momma, who has never worried too much about “drop-offs”, was dealing with a little boy who did NOT want to go to camp.
On the second day of camp, Luke got a stomach ache right before we got in the car. The next morning? Full on tears, in my lap, stomach ache, and telling his momma he did NOT want to go. “I don’t want to be away from you for that long, mommy”, is what he told me. Now, I don’t know about you, but it was all I could do to keep the tears coming from my eyes during this early morning struggle. I talked him through it over and over again, telling him that Mommy would be back for him, how much fun he would have at camp, how excited his friends would be to see him, how if he was really sad there, his counselors would call me, etc.
Y’all. I pulled every trick out of my bag.
It worked – I got him in the car. And then, at the carpool drop-off, he started bawling and I just could not let that child out of my car. Instead, we parked. I got in the backseat with him and we talked. We talked about why he was scared, what his options were, and who his support system was around him. After another 10 minutes, he got out of the car, I walked up to the main counselor, talked to her about Luke’s needs, and – very, very reluctantly – let go of his hand so she could take it. I watched him walk away. I did not do a quick goodbye, even though literally in my head I kept saying to myself, “You tell the parents at the preschool to do a quick goodbye! Quick goodbye!”. But I lingered and kept shouting, “Bye, Lukey, I love you!”, because my momma’s heart got in the way of what I knew I should do.
Mommas, daddies, grandparents, nannies, and all the rest of there – here this when I say to you: parenting is way harder than knowing better what to do as an early childhood professional. We all know what we should do. Our souls fill for our children, though, and that is all-encompassing. We follow our instincts and sure, we may lead with our hearts more than our heads sometimes, but only because our love for our children dictate our next moves.
Just know, though, as you enter the preschool doors or carpool lane tomorrow and prepare to drop your child with us – your preschool teachers’ hearts are also filled with love for your children. We will wipe those tears. We will sit and rock and cradle and give hugs. We will do everything to earn your children’s trust as we build an environment in which each child knows that they are safe and loved. And above all, please know that the hardest thing to do as a parent is to turn around and walk away. We got you, tomorrow and the days after. We can’t wait to welcome those kiddos.
“Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’ ”
Matthew 19:14
Get a good night’s sleep and we will see you tomorrow!
Until next time,
Ms. Jess