Close Your Eyes, Clear Your Heart, And Let It Go

The girls first day of school

With a new year there are new struggles. And each of my girls have their own. For my youngest she doesn't understand why she has to go to school. We have tried to tell her that it 's the law but that doesn't seem to go over very well. Her first few mornings at school were difficult, so difficult that I felt bad enough to run out and buy a "prize box" filled with toys for her to pick from each day she went to school without crying, yelling, or making any kind of scene. It has worked very well so far. As for my middle one she has a hard time waking up in the mornings, although she is in second grade I am still having to physically put her clothes on her body, put the toothpaste on her toothbrush, and brush her hair. We have tried the whole approach of her doing it by herself but it ended up with me persuading her into brushing her hair with the back of the brush to "smooth it out" and her swishing around mouthwash in place of brushing her teeth. So needless to say, we will stick with me doing it all, because if she did it herself, she would go to school disheveled and her teeth would never get brushed, ever. And as for my oldest, her struggle this school year is school in general. At first it was the academic part but now it seems her biggest battle is with the social part. She started middle school this year and she like 95% of us who have experienced middle school, is having a hard time.

On her first day of school she was bombarded with homework and a project that she would be working on for a quarter of the semester. To go from a hour of homework a night in elementary school to over two hours a night was hard for not only her to believe but for myself and her parents as well. Every night she comes home with different assignments and every night she, myself, and her parents divide up who can help her with what. I always take english and history, her mom gets math and french, and her dad settles for science. We don't help her unless she needs it but we do check over her work, and I can honestly say middle school english is not what it was when I took it 12 years ago. Once we made a plan about how to help her not feel so overwhelmed with homework, things have been easier for her as far as her studies go. But unfortunately she is a middle school girl and like most middle school girls she faces the problems of "standing out" and "fitting in."

A new raincoat from the prize box

As for "standing out," she got a new pair of Hunter rain boots last week and wanted to wear them to school to show them off to all her friends. When I picked her up from school that day I asked her what her friends thought of the boots. She said they liked them but no one made a big fuss over them. She said she wanted her friends to say how much they loved them and how they wanted a pair like her, but that wasn't the response she got. I told her that she shouldn't expect them to rant and rave over them, considering it was just a pair of boots. A couple days later I pick her up from school and before she even got in the car I can see she was clearly upset about something. Before I can even ask her, she breaks down in tears and tells me that a little girl in her grade has the same boots and she had them on at school. Although this was what she originally wanted, it was from the wrong person. These boots were not worn by one of her friends but by the one girl who she has disliked since first grade. My initial response is to tell her to get over it because it is only a pair of boots and things like this will occur throughout middle school and continue into high school, she can't let something so small upset her. When we get home her parents and I talk to her and tell her that she can't be mad at her over something so small and she doesn't know if it was done in malice or just because she liked the shoes. She decides to argue and tell us that none of her friends like this girl because she constantly does things like this all the time. Our best advice is to ignore her and be flattered that she stood out so much but instead she took her advice and decided "fitting in" was more important.

When she came home from school the next day, everything seemed back to normal, she was no longer upset about what had occurred the day before and we didn't bring it up because we figured she had moved on. However, after putting the younger two to bed that night the phone rang and on the other end was the mother of the little girl with the same boots. She was calling to tell us that our oldest had ostracized her child during lunch today. Having no knowledge of this, once the phone call ended the oldest was called downstairs to tell her parents and I about what occurred during lunch. She told us that her and her friends were discussing before lunch how they had all been manipulated by this girl and wanted to put an end to it, and my oldest wanting her friends to think she was cool decided she would be the one to do it. She told the little girl that she was not allowed to sit with them at lunch and when she tried to sit down all the girls at the table got up and went to another table. Having heard this story her parents and I were outraged that she could be so cruel. Her parents began telling her that she was not raised this way and she must apologize to the little girl. Once they were done punishing her and making her see how poorly she behaved I went with her upstairs to help her finish her homework. When she finally spoke she asked me if I thought what she did was wrong. I told her it was wrong and that she knew better, but I understood where she was coming from, however her approach was wrong. I told her there are better ways to tell someone that what they did made you mad and that doing what your friends say may make you look good to them, but you are the one who has to defend your actions in the end. She was upset that we were making her apologize because it would make her look worse than she already did. I told her that saying your sorry doesn't make you weak, it proves that you have the strength to admit you are wrong, which is not something everyone can do. However she did not want the little girl to think she had won by her saying she was sorry. In that moment I knew I needed to tell her something that would make her feel as if she did not lose a battle this small. I reminded her that it wasn't about winning a battle it was about making what she did right and if she needed to see her apology as having the last word than she could look at it that way. It was with that final advice that she made the decision to make amends for what she did.

She told me the next day at school was difficult because she knew she had to apologize for her actions but once she fully grasped that she was wrong and she herself would never want that to happen to her she told the little girl she was sorry. As we drove home from school that day I asked my oldest if she felt better knowing she did the right thing. She responded with "sorta." She knew she did what she was supposed to but she couldn't understand why she was still mad. I let her know that just because you do the right thing doesn't mean you will be happy, and the reason she was still mad was because she hadn't forgiven the little girl for getting the boots, nor had she forgiven herself for her actions. As we sat at the kitchen counter I reminded her of a saying that I not only tell myself daily but live by, "close your eyes, clear your heart, and let it go." It was with those words that she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let everything she had been holding inside for the past few days go.