It's the First Day of School!

Dear Parents,

Let’s talk about something on the very near horizon…

The first day of school!

The first day of any school year is a big day! Whether it is kindergarten, fourth grade, freshman year of high school, or even college, saying goodbye and heading into a new classroom and meeting new friends and new teachers is a nervous, exciting, much anticipated, much-worried about event. (I’m thinking about both students and the parents here!) All of these feelings are probably even more true, and more exaggerated, when that first day is the first day of preschool.

How can we make it a successful and easy transition?

First, let’s think about what your child is going through. School is a new and different place than they have ever been before. They don’t know what to expect, and they don’t know what will be expected of them. As parents, we know that preschool is a low-stress, fun and happy place to be. But the children don’t know that yet. They simply know that they are going to have to say good-bye to mom and dad and be independent for a while. For some, this is the very first time they have ever done that. For others, they may have been apart from you, but for a short time period like church or a class at the gym. For yet others, they may have had babysitters or day care, but usually in a home and with few other children. The preschool that seems so small to us, with its miniature chairs, low tables, and tiny sinks seems enormous from someone who is only a couple of feet tall. The little class of 10 other kids seems sweet and fun to us, but to your child, there are 10 strangers in a room, and they are being asked to enter that room! The teacher, that you know has worked at the school forever and knows preschoolers like nobody else, is still a stranger to your child.

Soon enough, all of this will be second nature and fit like a comfortable glove to your child, but for now, keep in mind that it is new, big, and maybe even scary.

The best thing you can do for your child is to prepare them with as much information as you can. Tell them their teacher’s name and repeat it often. Remind them that you will be dropping them off to have fun, but that you will be back to pick them up in just exactly the same place you left them. Bring your child to our meet-the-teacher night. Show you child that you know and like the teachers at school, and they will understand that these new adults are friendly and can be trusted. Show your child exactly where his or her cubby is, which door is their classroom, and where the bathroom is. Let your child play with toys in his or her new classroom, to get comfortable in this new space. Let your child explore our outdoor area, and enjoy the space with them.

On the first day of school, do your best to keep things calm and happy. I know you will be stressed. I remember well my first day of dropping my kids off at Christ Lutheran Preschool. I still get nervous and jumpy on the first day of school for all of my kids, and they are now in fifth, 7^th, and 10^th grades! But TRY TRY TRY not to let your kids see how worried you are. You are only worried about how they are going to feel and adjust, but they don’t know that. They just sense your nerves and they know that if mom and dad are nervous, they probably should be too.

Wake up early enough that you have plenty of time to get ready without rushing. Pick out clothes the night before, and have a good breakfast. I know you want to take lots of pictures of the first day of school, and I don’t blame you! I love looking back at my kids’ first day photos. Some kids, though, are so nervous and don’t want to take pictures. Take a couple, but don’t worry about it. Some of my biggest stresses as a parent of preschoolers was wanting pictures to come out just right. I wanted perfect hair and perfect smiles to look back on. Honestly, looking back on their little nervous smiles is the best thing ever. But really I most treasure seeing how they felt and how they looked, rather than seeing a perfect portrait. Goodness knows my kids aren’t perfect, so prefect portraits really don’t capture them! Consider this too: You can get first day pictures at the end of the first day as well. By then, nerves are much calmer, you aren’t rushing, and you have a happy smile in your photos! Just don’t put yourself or your child in tears by forcing him or her to squint into the sunshine and take hundreds of pictures with various first-day signs that you found on Pinterest. No one needs to add that to their morning!

In everything you tell your child about school and what will happen, keep things positive. Your child really will have fun! Your child will meet new people and hear new stories and learn new songs and get to play with new toys and explore new spaces. Those are the things you should tell your child! Please don’t apologize for dropping them off. I cringe whenever I hear a parent tell a child “I am so sorry I have to leave. I will be back as soon as I can.”  That tells the child that you wish he or she wasn’t here and that you will rescue them from school as quickly as possible. That simply isn’t true! You are providing your child an amazing experience. You researched and got recommendations and chose this school. Your child is so fortunate to come to preschool, so keep that at the forefront of what you say about school!

When you get to school, tell you child that you will stay for a short while. You can walk them in, help them put away their share toy and snack, and remind him or her which cubby is theirs. Say hi to the teacher, and make sure your child knows where his or her teacher is on the playground. Remember, your child’s specific teacher is his or her safe place, and the teacher might seem hard to find to someone who is so little, and on such a big playground.

Then, stay for only a short while! Tell your child when it is 5 minutes before your departure, and then truly leave in 5 minutes. Remind him that you will pick up at the classroom door, give one last hug and kiss, and cheerfully say goodbye. Even if your child isn’t so cheerful, and even if your heart is cracking inside as you walk away from your baby, smile and act cheerful. Your child doesn’t need to worry about you on top of everything else!

Some kids will cry as you leave them. Some will do it on the first day only, some will do it for a few weeks, some won’t do it at all. All of this is normal. It helps to remember, though, that the sad thing is saying goodbye. Staying at school is not the sad thing. The kids really do have a wonderful time at our school. They just don’t like to say goodbye to mom and dad. Almost always, the kids who cry when you drop them off, are done crying within a few minutes. Once they recover from saying goodbye, they look around and see exciting things to do and to try. If you are worried, call the office later and ask how your child has recovered. But truly, trust that we know how to comfort sad kids, we are here to engage them in interesting activities, and there are plenty of things at our school to help your child focus on discovery and activity. We're pros at stopping tears and finding smiles. If your child doesn’t cry on the first day, keep in mind that he or she might start to cry after a few weeks. Some kids reach a point where they see that this process of saying goodbye is continuing, and they get to a point where that realization sinks in and they grow a little weary. This is normal too. My daughter was fine every day of her first year of preschool, and then cried when she started her second year. Your children are safe and happy at school, and this process is something most (but not all) kids go through.

Finally, be sure to be on time to pick up your child. Once school is over, all of the parents will be gathered around the classroom door. Your child will see all of the hugs and kisses and greetings that the other kids are getting, and they will be searching for you. Even if you are a minute late, imagine how long that minute would feel if you were the last child left without a parent.

My last request to you is this: Please please do not bribe your child to come to school. First of all, school is its own reward at this age! They have such a fun, wonderful time at school. Secondly, when you promise a reward, you are essentially saying “I know you don’t want to do this, but if you suffer through it, you will be compensated.” I hear parents saying “If you stay at school without crying, I will take you to get ice cream when I pick you up.” I even remember a parent who took her kids to the Disney Store every day after school for a new toy! I love taking my kids out for treats after school, but a treat is a treat, and not payment for doing their job. School is fun, and doesn’t need a reward.

Now, to talk about you, mom and dad. Saying goodbye isn’t easy. I know you are a little proud of your child, a little melancholy about saying goodbye, a little worried (okay, a lot worried) about how your child will fare at school, and how your child will behave at school, and perhaps a little relieved (dare we say elated?) to have a few hours to yourself. You are so normal! (and I can write pages and pages and pages about the range of feelings that a parent has within an hour, let alone on such a monumental occasion as starting preschool).  Take it easy on yourself. Don’t try to make the first day… or the first week, month, or year perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect child, a perfect childhood, or perfect parenting. You will kill yourself trying. Keep things simple… comfortable play clothes for your child, a nutritious snack, and a happy, loving, goodbye are the best things you can give your child for their first day of preschool. Once you walk away, let your tears come, jump for joy, or run home to clean as much house as possible while nobody leaves fingerprints and crumbs in your wake… that part is up to you.

See you on the first day… we’re ready for you!

Let's Do Lunch

Ahhh, it comes as regularly as Christmas… this back-to-school time of year. I start seeing the little signs everywhere I turn. Suddenly, there are socks in the laundry again. There are pencils all over the house, on every table and counter. The sharpies all go missing, and I have to set my alarm. The shopping list changes, too. Instead of buying popsicles and ice cream, suddenly I realize that we need peanut butter and jelly, apple sauce, baby carrots and cheese sticks.

I googled “Back to School Lunches” and I got 86 million hits. Woah. Back in my day (sending my kids to school for the 13^th year in a row makes me feel old enough to say “back in my day,”) my mom gave me a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and apple, two homemade cookies and a granola bar. Every. day. That would amount to one little, single, solitary entry on the first page that google found for me, “50 Back to School Lunch Box Ideas and Recipes.” I know my mom didn’t have google, but if she had, I doubt she would have read up on lunch box ideas and she certainly wouldn’t have tried 50 different lunches.

If you want, you can google it too. You can read all 86 million pages, and look at the 50 ideas they each present you. I’m sure there are lots of fun ideas and cute ways to make lunches that look beautiful, consist of healthy foods, keep your child from getting tired of repetition, and impress your neighbors. They probably make you feel great about the balanced meals, fun presentations, and love that go into putting each one together.

Warning: If you are anything like me, you won’t be able to sustain this for very long. (and by very long I mean longer than a week). I have tried. I have made sandwiches into cute shapes. I have purchased several different types of bento boxes and lunch boxes and fitted Tupperware and ice packs. I have made pasta salads and green salads and fruit salads. I have looked up ideas and cut sandwiches into various shapes and packed different dips and wrapped tortillas, lettuce leaves, and cabbage leaves around everything you can imagine. The first year I joined Pinterest, I even printed out holiday-themed notes to tuck into my kids’ lunches for the entire year, before school even started in the fall. (I’m sure those notes are lurking in my kitchen somewhere, if you want them. I certainly didn’t ever put anything after “welcome back to school” into their lunch boxes.)

The school year is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t wear yourself out finding different ways to make your child’s lunch look like a panda bear under a rainbow. At best, your child will love it for the two seconds in between opening the box and devouring it. If your kid is like my kid, though, he will look around the table and really wish he that Twinkie that the other kid got. And if you’re in elementary school, chances are your beautiful rice and vegetable ball will get traded for that Twinkie. (Yes, I know the rules in elementary school are “no trading.” In the preschool, we make sure the kids don’t sample each others’ food. However, from all accounts, my daughter traded her fresh blueberries for fruit snacks every single day of first grade. I can’t control what happens on the playground at my kids’ school, and you won’t be able to, either. And that’s a good thing.)

So, let’s run this marathon of a school year. Like a real marathon, you need to be sure the fuel you’re running on is proper nutrition, but also like a real marathon, it isn’t going to make or break the race if you choose water or Gatorade at mile ten.

Think positively, plan meals that are balanced and yummy, and throw in a simple pleasure now and then.

I always start with thinking about a couple fruits, a veggie, and a protein. I figure that:

1.     My kids are captive audiences while at school. They have no choices, so they will eat the healthy foods I pack. This is a great chance to get some of the servings of produce into my kids. (Unless they find someone who will trade their cucumber slices for cookies, which truly isn’t very likely. Kids are savvy enough to make lateral trades).

2.     They need some protein to sustain them through the afternoon. They are going to crash if their whole lunch is bread products, and they will be hungry if the bulk of their lunch is vegetables and fruits.

I give them the fruits that are in season, which helps me to make sure they are getting some variety. For veggies, there are only a few choices my kids will eat, so they get those over and over again. Then I make sure there is either peanut butter or meat in a sandwich, some cheese, or another protein-filled choice.

After that, it doesn’t make a lot of difference what else goes into the lunch. I fill the rest of it with a granola bar, some goldfish crackers, a muffin, or some other little snack item. Sometimes, I give them a fun treat, like a brownie, cookies, or a small candy. Sometimes I give myself the treat of really easy things to pack, like an apple sauce cup for the fruit, an individual bag of pretzels, or a pre-wrapped string cheese.

There are so many easy choices of foods to put in lunch boxes. Don’t kill yourself making every item individually, and wrapping it beautifully. Pick one or two things to make, and find the rest in the grocery store. You don’t need to do anything to an apple, an orange, or some baby carrots for them to be lunchbox-ready. Bake some muffins, make your own granola bars, roll some peanut butter balls, and have them ready to pack. Let the rest of the items be easy things to pull out of the fridge and into the lunchbox. Just don’t try to do it all and make it look like those pictures you see online. You’ll burn out.

Finally, one thing to consider, is that your child will be eating at a table with lots of other kids, and not lots of adults. Your child will be much more independent and successful if he or she has things that he can open himself. If your child can’t peel oranges yet, peel it for him (or at least get it started). If those little bags of pretzels or chips are too hard to tear open, consider repackaging them into a Ziploc bag, or even better, a reusable small Tupperware container. For very young preschoolers, even a Ziploc bag might be too much to open. Even the littlest hands can unfold tinfoil. I truly do love bento boxes, because they seem to have just the right size compartments for kids’ food, and they force me to pack a variety of options. They are easy to clean, and cut down on so much waste.  They are easy for little hands to eat from, and the sides of the compartments are great for kids just learning to use utensils. Plus, the rigid box ensures that nothing gets smashed in transit.

Take a deep breath, go to the grocery store and wander the aisles, and find some great, easy foods that will sustain and please your child. This is only the beginning of the school year, so keep your eyes on the horizon. Your kids need healthy foods, and reasonable lunches. They don’t need artistry now, and a lunchbox filled with 8 packs of fruit snacks and two granola bars when you (and your pantry) are running on empty in June.

Thank you just isn't enough

As we come to the end of a school year, I was thinking about my own kids and their amazing teachers. In the elementary schools, it is pretty common for the room parent to organize a gift and to collect money from the rest of the parents in the class. The national PTA rules (or at least the way my school seems to be interpreting them) have developed to a point, though, that the room parent can’t accept cash, or checks. Contributions must be in the form of gifts or gift cards, and the card that accompanies the gift must include all the names of all of the children in the class, whether they contribute or not.

I think it is wonderful that the class will give a generous gift to the teacher. Both of my sons have teachers I adore, and that have gone above and beyond their duties this year, and both of them deserve the world and more. I will gladly contribute generous gift cards to their end-of-year gifts.

I know that the teachers might not receive anything, if it weren’t for the room parents organizing this. It is such a busy time of year, and it is easy to forget a little thank-you for everyone in your child’s life.

However, this group gift, while thoughtful usually quite generous, and very appreciated, seems to have become so impersonal! The teacher will receive a gift or gift basket or set of gift cards that she very much deserves. She won’t know which gift came from which child, though. The card that comes with the gift will be exactly like her class roster… all the kids’ names. It is generous and thoughtful, and I understand the reason for the rules, and I want to contribute. But I also want to do something more.

My youngest son is in fourth grade. His teacher is the only teacher, so far, who has had all three of my children in her class over the years. She is amazing. I have requested that she teach my second and third children, after seeing what she did when my first child was in her class. The other day I was volunteering in my son’s classroom, and the teacher mentioned that she had had a bad day recently. She said that when she’s having bad day, she gets out the letter that I wrote for her, five years ago, when my first child was finishing fourth grade in her class. She said she likes to re-read it whenever she needs a pick-me-up.

I had almost forgotten that I wrote the letter. My daughter switched schools between third and fourth grade, and she entered her new school nervous, timid, shy, and reluctant. Her teacher was one of those amazing people, who understood my daughter right away. She saw her strengths, she knew how to develop her weak areas, she made my daughter feel like she fit in before the first week was over. By the end of the year, my daughter was feeling confident, had great friends, had learned tons about writing, math, and all the other subjects. So, I wrote her a letter to say all that. I can’t remember any more what the exact details were, but it was more or less to thank her specifically for all the things she had done for my daughter and by extension, for our family, during that school year. The teacher had appreciated the letter so much that she has saved it for five years and still pulls it out to read now and then.

There are so many things that our children’s teachers do for them.

They teach the subject matter. (That’s their job description.)

They teach children to learn to get along, follow rules, and cooperate. (That’s for their own sanity as much as anything else). 

But there is so much else that a teacher does in the course of a school year:

They wipe noses, wipe faces, tie shoes, and apply bandaids. (And plenty of TLC along with all of that). They take your child’s temperature, and even occasionally check for lice.

They counsel children who are having a sad or angry day. They usually know what is going on at home, and understand why the children might be upset, and how to help. They teach the children how to be good citizens, how to have good sportsmanship, and how to be fair. They also have to teach children that sometimes life isn’t fair, and that might be the hardest part of all.

They help us, as parents, to understand our own children better. They see a different side of our children than we see, and they help us to see it too. They give us parents perspective.

They help our children not only learn the topics, but they also help our children learn how to learn. They learn how to question, to explore, to wonder, to test, to think. They learn how to check their own work, to try again and again, to fight frustration and persevere.

Teachers spend countless hours outside of the school day. They plan lessons, review student progress, and think about what is going on in their classroom. They review what is working and what isn’t. They think about what the children aren’t quite getting, and what other ways they can try teaching it differently. They spend their time at the teacher supply store, the dollar store, and the grocery store, purchasing things you never thought of as educational tools. (Not to mention the money they spend). They spend time in faculty meetings, at conferences, and in classes. They spend their time on Pinterest and teacher forums, learning from each other and sharing with each other, because they know that together we can all do more than we can alone. And then they teach the children that they can do more together than they can do alone.

They answer to: the school principal or director, the parents, the children, and the requirements of the state standards. If they are in public school, they also answer to the superintendent, their team leader, their assistant principal.

They manage to interrupt their own lessons to get the children to assemblies, performances, picture day, PE, and extra curricular classes. They do so without a grimace or a sigh, because they support the development of the whole child, even though the part they are currently developing might be having to take a back seat. Again. 

They watch for signs of abuse and report anything that concerns them, but at the same time they try to make sure they are not prying into family matters, or pre-judging a child based on his home, or being biased.

Teachers help children catch up when they have been sick, or on vacation, or took a family day at Disneyland. They help the children make sure they aren’t behind, but they try to make sure they don’t feel stress about catching up.

They teach the parents. They help the parents understand children and appropriate developmental stages. They give advice and direction. They help parents who need help in raising their children.

For all of this, the teachers don’t really get paid much. They certainly don’t get paid what they deserve! And they are rarely appreciated in a way that is commensurate with what they give us and our children.

So let’s change that. I know we can’t pay our teachers a better salary on our own. (I wish we could). But what we can do is appreciate these people who have willingly taken a job in this field where the requirements are so hard and the pay so little.

Think honestly about what your child’s teacher has done for your child this year. Write them a very heartfelt letter. Let them know that you do see the things they do every day. Thank the teacher for all of their work. If they are in elementary school, send a copy of the letter to the principal as well. And if your child is in junior high or high school, be sure that you don’t forget those teachers. They are working just as hard, and they are often the most forgotten.

And when the room mom sends out that request for a gift contribution? Throw a little something in there too. Your teacher will likely spend it on school supplies, but she really deserves to treat herself.

Tonight I will sit down and write a note to each of my children’s teachers. The fourth-grade teacher will be getting a third letter from me, but somehow I don’t think she minds. The letter to the sixth grade teacher, who is running around like crazy getting ready for promotion, will be easy to write. And then there will be six more letters, to all of the high school teachers. Those will be a bit harder to do, because I don’t know them as well. But I have plenty to thank them for.

And so I challenge you: Write a heartfelt note to the teachers you appreciate. They might just save it in a special place for 5 years or more. It will mean more to them than you realize.