by Lara Lawson March 11, 2019
This year is a year of big numbers for our family. There are multiple big birthdays being celebrated 13, 21, 30, 40, 60, 65 and 70. We’ve also started the year with some major milestones for our children who are entering Primary school from infants (grade 3), Starting high school (grade 7) and Starting senior high school (grade 11). Three from three, all with a new experience at school. The little one having to brave the playground on her own without her sister there for support, the middle one having to start over at the bottom of the ladder in a new school on her own, and the big one starting at senior college having to make new friends and take on the pressure of what the senior years bring.
The first couple of weeks were, as expected, a little challenging as everyone found their feet and as they’d all settled in I thought things would cruise along for a little while. I was wrong….
I was a little unhappy when I was told that my middle daughter had been placed in a class without any friends she knew from primary school as it took her a little while to form those friendships and it is such a big transition from primary to high school without being the one on the outs in a classroom full of buddies. Having no one to sit next to or share with, it just didn’t seem fair but I tried to instil in my daughter that it was a great opportunity to potentially meet her new best friend. It took some time but she got there and was very proud that she had taken the steps to get out of her comfort zone and connect with someone she didn’t know.
Then I got the text message….’Mum, I want to change classes! There are some girls being mean to me’. I was devastated, it really is the time when you want to swoop in and save them but I had to remember that we all have to deal with people we don’t like or that perhaps don’t treat us well and that although this was not an ideal time, it could be an opportunity to grow and gain some resilience.
I reassured her that we would work on the issue together and that she and I would notify the school to help. The school were very helpful and spoke to these girls about how their behaviour may affect other class members and do you know what? The next day she got home and I asked how she went with ‘those girls’ today and she proudly replied ‘I made friends with them!’. As difficult as it was, I’m glad that I chose to let her feel her way through it and gain resilience.
Next up was the little one, also having issues with friends eating her lunch. She was bothered by it because, although she is a very giving person, she had had enough of being ‘pushed around’ and not being able to enjoy her own food. As we sat down to dinner we were discussing how we resolve issues of conflict with friends and she relayed her story to be included in the conversation and show support by relating to her sisters. I asked her, what do you think we should do about the situation? She said ‘well I think we should first try asking them to stop. If that doesn’t work I will tell the teacher’, we went around the table to brainstorm some other ideas and Dad suggested perhaps we could just make an extra lunch box and see if that resolves the problem and that if all else fails we will speak to the child’s mother and go from there. She felt empowered to choose her own path, like she had tools to handle the situation and a support team behind her if she needed back-up and do you know what she sorted it out, all by her 8-year-old self.
Finally, we come to Miss 16. She got into the car after a long day at school, she finishes at 6 pm one day a week as she has a late class. She was tired and overwhelmed and as I asked how her day was the flood of stress-filled emotions streamed into the car. I stopped her! Don’t get me wrong I am all for expressing emotions but she was all worked up and we are only at the beginning of her first year of senior school. We still have to get through the HSC and progress to Uni where she wants to study law. Now is the perfect time to learn some skills to deal with the pressure and obtain some ways of dealing with the overwhelm.
I spoke to her calmly, ‘Can I just bring to your attention the way you are thinking, and speaking? The words you are using are a reflection of your thoughts and the words you choose to think and speak make you feel the way you are feeling. If you change the words, you will change the emotions’. Miss 12 spoke up, ‘Mum, just let her let it out first’ at which point the lights came on and Miss 16 realised that, no, now is the time to deal with this not after the emotions had built and gained momentum from allowing them to spill out everywhere.
By changing the words she used to describe how she felt about all her assessments, and one in particular which was bothering her, she was able to feel more capable. She changed her words from ‘I can’t do it because I don’t know how and the teacher wouldn’t help me and I only have four lessons left until it needs to be completed’ to ‘I just haven’t YET learned what I need to complete this, the teacher wasn’t able to help me TODAY but I STILL have 4 more OPPORTUNITIES to get the help I need.’ At this point we arrived home, she took the dog for a walk to shake off the leftover fight or flight hormones, took a moment to do a meditation and chose to start the first assessment which she had clear in her head and was excited to do, so that she could tick one off the list at a time.
Building resilience in a world where many people choose not to take responsibility for their own choices and actions can be difficult. It is easy to take the ‘easy’ road and feel sorry for yourself or your children, to wrap them up in cotton wool and save them from the big bad world. We have chosen not to mollycoddle our girls, this won’t serve our girls in the big wide world. They know that they have a safe place to be with people who love them, but they also know that they will be held accountable for their choices and that we will help give them the tools they need to navigate the world themselves.
The words that we attach to our experience become our experience.
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