needs: first week of school can be a kick in the head.
Is it the delicious smell of a new pack of paper or rows of coloured pencils, or the news shoes or the new lunchbox? The night before a new school year comes with a tingle of anticipation, a few nerves and some excitement. I find lost essentials, label, contact, take uniform out and down and finally tuck them both in. I feel like we were ready.
Monday: they hit the car full of new news, mostly good and some not so good. New friends, new class, new teachers, so much information. And the bits of paper – that I need to sign, organise, volunteer for. The lunchboxes and the uniforms are needed again! I am fielding the information like the starship in Galaga. The laser beams are weaving around: school photos, swimming lessons, meet the teacher, the new lunch box can’t be opened, my teacher says I need fruit, that sharpener doesn’t work, I want to sit with Annika, my shoes hurt my feet, camp is soon and I am trying to catch it all. There is so much to report, because after being together all summer, we have been apart.
Tuesday: I missed the supermarket but planned to call in after school. That would be fine, we had been shopping all summer. But its not summer any more. They get in the car, and the bags won’t go and the hats are tight and the faces are tense. Something happened in class, a misunderstanding, a frustration, a not funny joke, some hot flash humiliation. Something happened in class, a new concept, a new lesson, a misunderstanding and a hot flash of humiliation. I cooed and soothed. We skipped the supermarket and headed home. There were tears before we got out of the car. I tried to push away some feelings of my own that I vaguely remember from last term.
Wednesday: How did I forget there was testing. There is always testing! Every year, schools take the sun drenched and the beach kissed babies and put their minds through a battery of tests to group them. How did it come from nowhere? Day 3 and they already feel stupid. All the gains have faded and the feeling of not knowing, not understanding and being behind has crept back in. How do you convince them to begin when they feel licked from the start?
Thursday: But I thought she was your friend. Didn’t we just spend the summer days with her? Somewhere over desperate sobs and a jarring uncooperative seatbelt, there was a problem with desk allocation and a missed chance to be with friends, leading to an inevitable end of friendship, solidified during PE when there was no partner. How did the pencil case, we loved become hidden in shame, or not the right now hair tie? How did this happen?
Friday: It’s my turn today as I sit at assembly. I hear mother chatter peppered with what was coming up, what we needed to plan for, what they were prepared for. My breath shortened. I didn’t know where to get the right thing, for the right task, at the right time. I had forgotten this feeling as well.
means: a useful reminder going into the first week of school.
It is a cataclysmic adjustment from summer holidays to school. See that week for what it is – a jarring change of space, sound and light. A shift from the predictable domestic space with limited social interaction to a circus of peers, teachers’ instructions and tasks. It is a sudden move, dressed in contact and tupperware, wrapped in sunshine and uniforms. The first week is a departure from comfort. It is the sudden arrival of expectations. It is not the time for me to dish out resilience pie. It is the time I lean in, nurture and love them. I remind them we do our own kind of wonderful.
The things I do:
- I remind the dudes, it wont feel so new this time tomorrow, this time next week, this time next term. Breathe, it will not feel like this soon.
- I don’t ask how the day went. I pause for them to get in the car, off the bus, out of class without rush or hurry. I pause and that’s hard for me. I tell them I am so happy to see them.
- I avoid after school errands- No shopping or post office, not a quick couple of anything. Just space to come down from the day.
- I plan for flexibility. After school brings urgent unforeseen needs for the next day.
- I get rid of whatever is not working asap. If the new lunchbox can’t be opened or the sharpener doesn’t work or there is some other focus of why everything is not working. I listen. I act.
- I take them to the water. If we are near a lake or beach, pool, bath, or shower, I put them in the water. It washes away the day.
- I leave their rooms open, for quiet-alone-play. I am nearby, and they wind down.
- I make sure the food is yummy. The kind of food, that just the smell or the name of it says, “You’re home and it’s all going to be our own kind of wonderful”.
- I follow a strict bed time. We all have less reserves to navigate change when we are tired.
- I make quick phone notes for anything that might need to be included in the new ILP- catching random crap like- smaller pencil case, move desk, maths shit.
- I make sure I am one step ahead of the next day so I am there when they need me. It’s just the first week after all.
