I lost my shit last week.
It was bound to happen, and it didn’t actually include any swearing or yelling at anyone. But In the span of 3 hours I somehow managed to ugly cry on three different calls with two different teachers and a para. I was overwhelmed and frustrated and couldn’t see through the clouds. I don’t always have it all together when it comes to school stuff- in fact, there’s an unspoken kind of joke anytime there’s an IEP meeting we have to sit in- nobody says it but they just always set the Kleenex box near me. I’ve accepted it and they in turn have all accepted it also. But this was the kind of overwhelmed frustration that comes from charting new territory- with ridiculous self-made expectations.
This stuff sucks. The pandemic and the way it has turned the world upside down, the crowd-less sporting events, the businesses that have been lost, the division of the world and society? It’s NOT fun. But for the most part, we have soldiered on since March- even enjoying the bonus of “forced” family together time. It’s been, dare I say kinda fun?
Enter remote learning. And not just remote learning, but remote learning with an incoming sixth grader who’s never set foot in her new middle school, and a third grader with autism who has had the phrase “lacks joint attention” written about him on every evaluation since his very first one at eighteen months. After I celebrated the fact that we were on time to his first call of the day, it was downhill from there. My unraveling happened when I watched him sit there, wholly disengaged with a teacher he doesn’t know, and a class of kids he mostly has never met. Trying to finish the assigned class work for the day was when he unraveled. He yelled at me that this was TOO HARD and he just wanted to be all done. Me too, I thought. Me too.
The thing about all of this when it comes to schooling? It’s SAD. We didn’t know when they left school on a Thursday in March that they still wouldn’t be back. And yet here we are, a week into a new school year with the same scenario playing out. This isn’t the way middle school is supposed to start for brand new sixth graders. It’s not the way to hone social skills that make up 80% of a kid’s IEP goals. BUT, this is the way things have to be- and I 100% believe in our PSD Board and admin who made this decision. But that doesn’t make it any less stressful- for parents, for teachers, for EVERYONE. And dude, I want to be flexible. I want to be carefree and not stress about it. But the thing I’ve realized over the last week? I have put the pressure on myself to make exactly what happens at school during the day, happen at home. Our teachers are exceptional in our district- I’ve known that all along- it’s one of the reasons we chose to buy a house here. And I love what they do for our kids SO MUCH- I don’t want them to miss out on that. I want them to have dynamic lessons, to come home excited about magnets or sharing awesome Social Studies lessons they learned. And maybe in a few weeks when they’ve gotten to know their teachers, that will happen. But for now- I’m going to stop putting pressure on myself to recreate that. We’re going to continue to give grace to everyone around us- but, from here on out I’m going to remember to start with myself.
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