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Isn’t there an award for that?
It is hard for me to believe, but this week my daughter is finishing kindergarten. It seems like it was just yesterday we were nervously accompanying her to the first day of school. Now, we are...
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Babies Don’t Keep
As the end of the school year approached in late May, I readily admit that I couldn’t wait for summer. This past year was my daughter’s first year of school and while it was a new, wonderful...
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You’re more than a parent!
“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world… would do this, it would change the earth.” – William...
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Growing Up, Up and Away
When school resumed this year, I was surrounded by parents whose children were either entering kindergarten or beginning their college career. What fascinated me was how similar these experiences were...
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Don’t Let Your Fear Control You
“Being disabled should not mean being disqualified from having access to every aspect of life.” – Emma Thompson Fear can be a nagging voice and hard to ignore. It often inhibits others from doing...
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First Grade Blues
My experiences in elementary school were wonderful, and I think this in no small part due to the great teachers I was lucky to have. Most vividly, I remember with affection my third grade teacher, Mrs....
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Best Friends Forever
Finding a best friend is a rite of passage for most children, and my daughter is no exception. I met my first best friend, Debbie Miller, when I was in kindergarten and we were inseparable until third...
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Are You Guilty of Garboflage?
Garboflage: the act of camouflaging your kids’ art in the garbage. Admit it. You’ve hidden a drawing or two underneath the junk mail and leftovers. I commit garboflage weekly. It’s not that I don’t...
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The New Kid
We moved this past summer, and while our new house is only one mile from our old house, that one seemingly insignificant mile was all it took to cause a major shift in my daughter’s world. Our new...
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I Don’t Know How They Do It
“I don’t know how they do it.” I often hear this phrase when the conversation turns to my previous employment as a preschool teacher, or even just talking about early childhood educators in general....
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The first day of school
“Making the decision to have a child—it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ” —Elizabeth Stone As a mother, I know this to be true. From the...
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Will my child succeed in school?
Well, the time has come to see my little boy off to kindergarten. This is a time of confusing emotions, unknown expectations, and feelings of loss of control—but I’m not talking about how my son feels!...
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Make the Choice NOT to Choose for Your Child
As a mom, I haven’t always made good choices parenting my children. I’ve sometimes been somewhat of a helicopter mom, dictating to my children rather than allowing them to make their own choices. Since...
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Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
It’s been a few weeks since Schmee started kindergarten and in that time I have seen a lot of behavior changes from him that I wasn’t expecting. As it turns out, we are all trying to deal with new...
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You Want to Wear WHAT?
It could be 15 degrees outside and my younger son, Jansen, is wearing shorts and a hoodie. Covered from head to toe and still shivering, I ask him if he’s cold. His reply? “No.” Original photograph...
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Perfection
When is perfect not a good thing? How do you help a young child know that “perfect” is sometimes just too much? How do you handle the emotions that are attached to wanting to do, write, draw, speak or...
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Another shooting in another school—and this time it’s close to home.
Watching the news coverage of the shooting at Madison Junior Senior High School I am struck by the re-occurrence of similar themes and images—parents racing to the school to find and hug their...
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Homework Can Be Stressful for Parents, Too!
Have you heard about the no homework letter one teacher sent home at the beginning of the school year? The letter was first shared on Facebook by Samantha Gallagher, whose daughter is in Mrs. Young’s...
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