Our elder daughter started a new school in September. On the plus side, Lucy isn’t the only new kid. On the negative side, it is middle school. And well, since you asked, she’s not loving it.
In fact, she left us a note at curriculum night two weeks into school that read something like this: “Dear Mom and Dad. I hate middle school.”
Truth be told, I’m glad.
Not that I would wish pain on my own offspring, but Lucy’s past 11 years have carried relatively little disappointment—notwithstanding that whole iPhone thing.
So when she gets teary at being uncomfortable with new kids, harder subjects and teachers she doesn’t know, we want her to find her own way. Moderate adversity helps children develop problem-solving skills, and that resilience often begins around the cafeteria lunch table.
“It’s a good philosophy to allow your children to struggle and to feel uncomfortable—loneliness, sadness and anxiety,” said George Sachs, a Manhattan child psychologist specializing in children with ADHD and poor social skills. “The benefit is that eventually the child will hopefully pull himself up and understand he is powerful. He can change his life.”
It seems the recipe for making a hearty child is not to inoculate kids from bad things but to arm them so they don’t crumble when life tosses bowling balls their way.
“What’s happening a lot now is parents really want to go overboard in making sure everything is OK,” says Lynn Lyons, social worker in Concord, NH, and co-author of Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous & Independent Children and Playing with Anxiety: Casey’s Guide for Teens and Kids. “It’s not about making sure everything is OK. It’s about making sure your child is equipped to deal. If a child is never allowed to fail a test or forget their homework and get a zero for the day, they’re never going to learn how to recover.”
That goes for social life, too, especially because the mean kids don’t go away as you get older, they just move up the corporate ladder.
“Disappointments are necessary preparation for adult life,” writes Wendy Mogel, parenting expert and author of The Blessing of the Skinned Knee and The Blessing of a B Minus. “When your child doesn’t get invited to a friend’s birthday party, make the team, or get a big part in the play, stay calm. Without these experiences she’ll be ill-equipped for the real world.”
Now that we are halfway though the school year, Lucy seems more comfortable. There are still rough days, but hardly any tears. She’s stronger. And while we would prefer to have those life lessons behind our children, we have to help them be OK when the wounds are still fresh. They’re not the only ones who need to learn this lesson.
“Parents have to be comfortable with the uncomfortable,” Sachs says.
Heath Mosko is the pen name of a Manhattan writer.
