Thursday was scary.
It wasn't a drill. It wasn't far away.
It was real. It was here.
As I look around my neighborhood now, I know how lucky I am. Not a single object out of place, every lightweight kids' toy still sits upright in my yard, but one hundred seventy-six yards away from my front door, there's devastation.
The tornado cut a path through the neighborhood, leaving shattered glass and splintered wood in its wake.
But it didn't leave broken spirits. I saw people in the streets. People talking. People helping. People leaning on each other for support. It's times like these that bring people together.
Though it's unfortunate, happiness doesn't bind people...tragedy does...vulnerability does. Those emotions solidify humanity. Those moments create relationships and showcase the human spirit. In tragedy, humanity shines.
I could go on here, but I won't...at least not about that, not now. Something else weighs on my heart as I write this. My children.
My house may only be one hundred seventy-six yards away from the path of the tornado, but it was empty and is just an object. My child was about 700 yards away...less than a 1/2 a mile. She was under a table, sheltering in place with a couple of hundred other elementary school kids.
She was crying. She was afraid. I wasn't there.
I desperately wanted to go to her, but I knew better. I knew she was in the safest possible place. And besides that, I had a job to do.
I teach, and as a teacher, my job is to protect my kids at school. I love teaching. It is my passion. It is the path God always intended me
to follow. But in moments like Thursday's, my job isn't about being an educator, it's
about being a protector. I am charged with watching over every single child in my care, even as I worry about my own two, who are even closer to the storm.
_______
It all started when the announcement to shelter in place came over the loudspeaker. From the emotional tone of the announcement, we knew it wasn't a tornado warning for something 30 miles down the road...this was something close.
My students and I sat in an internal room watching the live stream on KBTX. And yes, many were scared and worried, but they were able to process what was going on. They had phones to call and text their parents. They could access social media to stay up to date on the latest developments, so there was never an emotional breakdown for the class as a whole.
Things seemed to be calming down as the meteorologist let everyone know that the tornado warning for Bryan-College Station had lifted...but then...in almost the same breath...he said that funnel clouds were forming over Austin's Colony.
My heart dropped.
The lights were off in my room because everyone was working on laptops and preferred it that way after we lost electricity earlier. I was thankful for the darkness, for silent tears were running down my face.
My son was in daycare in Austin's Colony.
Everything in me wanted to jump up and go, but that would've been both unsafe and irresponsible, as the children surrounding me were my current responsibility.
Then they started talking about the tornado's path. It had moved through Wheeler Ridge.
My neighborhood.
My daughter's school.
Finally, things might be over, and we emerged from the first shelter-in-place, and new students filtered into my room with the period change. We continued to watch the live stream as more details poured in.
Water was rising. The weather was deteriorating again.
A second shelter-in-place was issued, and we returned to the interior room. This time didn't seem as scary as the first, less of an immediate threat, but my nerves were already shot.
This time, we were released from the shelter-in-place around 3:20...a good 40 minutes after elementary schools typically release...which meant buses would be late since they run dual routes.
The school day ended, and most faculty moved to the bus area to assist with the masses. I wanted to run to my car, but I waited a little longer to make sure everything was okay.
All reports indicated that it might be difficult to gain entry to Austin's Colony and Wheeler Ridge, so I headed to get Mason first.
As I turned onto the road his daycare is on, I immediately noticed the flooding. I parked two houses away and stepped into ankle-deep water as I walked toward the house Mason was in. In the few minutes I talked with the lady who keeps him, I could tell she'd had a long, stressful day. I understood. She will forever have my gratitude for keeping my baby safe.
Other than the flooding on her street, getting my son was relatively easy. Getting to his sister proved a different story. Reports indicated that Briarcrest and 30 were closed, so I headed for Wildflower to cut through back over to Highway 6. Cars were backed up for a few miles, but I was able to turn off. Reports also indicated that the Copperfield entrance off University was closed due to flooding, so the only way in was down University to 30, then Copperfield from the other direction.
By this time, my husband was ahead of me, and I told him if he could get to Reily first, do it. Traffic on University came all the way out to 6.
As I crossed the bridge over the usually trickling creek, I was in awe of the massive torrent of water sweeping just feet below the bridge. While inching along University, my husband called, frustrated because the police turned him around at 30 because of flooding.
At this point, I experienced a moment of panic...the three access points to my neighborhood seemed to be inaccessible.
I met him in the parking lot of the Physicians Center on University because we wondered if I could walk through the water that was across Copperfield to get to Bowen. If it was just high and not rushing, that seemed like an option, but thankfully, it didn't come to that. We were able to take a cut through the road over to 30 and come in the back way. It took about an hour and a half after picking up my son to get my daughter, but we made it.
All the weight I had been carrying around immediately slipped away when I saw her. She was okay. She was safe. She was with me. She was even in a pretty good humor, all things considered, and didn't seem worried about me picking her up late, which I credit to the teachers.
Almost all of the teachers were still there, and I will be forever grateful to them for the job they did on Thursday. Though my 2-year-old doesn't know what a tornado is and that it is a truly terrifying force, my 9-year-old does. On top of that, she's a worrier. And those teachers had a building full of little worriers on Thursday.
The elementary school teachers were charged with protecting my child while I protected someone else's, and they did. And though my daughter cried for the entire first lockdown, I know that the teachers did their best to comfort the kids and let them know that they were safe. I know they probably struggled to outwardly display emotions that their minds were rejecting, but they did a great job in a crisis.
My family made it home safely Thursday evening, and though there was no electricity, we were together...and that's all I needed.
______
Though I wrote this because it helps me process and digitally vomit my thoughts, I also wrote it to add an aside...I want parents to know that teachers understand...most of us are parents, too.
These situations are high stress for everyone involved. School personnel understand that parents want to protect their kids...we want to protect their kids too.
Administrators, teachers, custodians, secretaries, and all the other people on campus have loved ones they are concerned about...houses that are damaged...issues they are dealing with, but we also have a job to do...keeping every student safe.
Parents, please know that administrators and teachers make decisions to keep kids safe, not to make things more difficult. Student safety is the number one priority.
Hopefully, there won't be a next time, but if there is...know every adult in your child's building will put your child's safety first. After all, we love them like they are our own.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Monday, May 9, 2016
Testing fails students
Over the last 13 years, I have watched students take standardized testing as a teacher and never once felt it was worth their time. That sort of testing does not give an accurate representation of student learning ability or even what they currently know. It's a single test, on a single day.
When I was in school, I took the TAAS test, which evolved into TAKS, and then STAAR. As most people are aware, educators, or at least the people who govern them, enjoy acronyms. By somehow changing a few letters for the test name, education administrators promised to make the test better and more rigorous, but to what avail? Same creature...different name. Are we helping the students at all with this system? I argue no.
There has been a shift since I was in school that has only added more stress to the test. I could blame the teacher. I could say that if they would just teach and not emphasize the test, that everything would be okay, but the truth is...teachers have been painted into a corner, too. How can they not push the test? Their livelihood depends more and more on it with each passing year as education agencies tie teacher pay to the performance of 8 and 9-year-old kids.
I could argue a thousand reasons why, as a teacher, I do not support standardized testing, but it means so much more to me now. Now I'm a parent of a third grader. I sat in my daughter's bedroom until she fell asleep last night because she couldn't calm herself enough to find rest. Tears ran down her cheeks as a sense of panic kept overwhelming her as she worried that she wasn't smart enough, that she would be held back, that she wouldn't finish in time. She truly has nothing to worry about. She has been labeled GT, made straight As, and finished the benchmark practice test in about an hour, but all those things don't seem to matter when something like this is looming over her head.
STAAR will never be a measure of my child's ability or how well her teachers taught her. People complain that schools don't have a high enough passing rate and that schools are failing students, but have those same people looked at the material third graders are required to know? They are being introduced to algebraic concepts that her grandparents didn't touch on until high school. Rigor has replaced ubiquitous as the educational buzzword of the moment, and children are paying the price.
This test, and others, are part of my daughter's life, and it's my job to teach her how to cope. As a parent, I must be intentional in how I teach my child and relate things to her in a way she will understand...so we talked about facing the difficult math problem where she didn't understand what it was asking and how that was like missing the target with her arrow or hitting the wrong note on the piano. We talked about how that next arrow and how the next note had to still come, and how she had to refocus and let the last one go.
I will take this challenge she currently faces and turn it into a lesson that will impact her life with a skill that couldn't be matched by any number of Scantron bubble sheets. Instead of looking at the test as a way to measure her math and reading skills, I will use it to teach her how to surrender to a God who loves her. A God who will take all her worry and fear and throw it far, far away if she can only open her little hand and release it to Him. That's the skill she needs to know. Because, while this test, in the big picture of her life, is just a blip, I can use it. I can use it to equip her with a skill for later in life when there are even bigger obstacles that she must face.
But I still ask why. I still wonder what we are doing with education, because a child who loves learning, and reading, and school, shouldn't be consumed with fear and doubt because of a test.
When I was in school, I took the TAAS test, which evolved into TAKS, and then STAAR. As most people are aware, educators, or at least the people who govern them, enjoy acronyms. By somehow changing a few letters for the test name, education administrators promised to make the test better and more rigorous, but to what avail? Same creature...different name. Are we helping the students at all with this system? I argue no.
There has been a shift since I was in school that has only added more stress to the test. I could blame the teacher. I could say that if they would just teach and not emphasize the test, that everything would be okay, but the truth is...teachers have been painted into a corner, too. How can they not push the test? Their livelihood depends more and more on it with each passing year as education agencies tie teacher pay to the performance of 8 and 9-year-old kids.
I could argue a thousand reasons why, as a teacher, I do not support standardized testing, but it means so much more to me now. Now I'm a parent of a third grader. I sat in my daughter's bedroom until she fell asleep last night because she couldn't calm herself enough to find rest. Tears ran down her cheeks as a sense of panic kept overwhelming her as she worried that she wasn't smart enough, that she would be held back, that she wouldn't finish in time. She truly has nothing to worry about. She has been labeled GT, made straight As, and finished the benchmark practice test in about an hour, but all those things don't seem to matter when something like this is looming over her head.
STAAR will never be a measure of my child's ability or how well her teachers taught her. People complain that schools don't have a high enough passing rate and that schools are failing students, but have those same people looked at the material third graders are required to know? They are being introduced to algebraic concepts that her grandparents didn't touch on until high school. Rigor has replaced ubiquitous as the educational buzzword of the moment, and children are paying the price.
This test, and others, are part of my daughter's life, and it's my job to teach her how to cope. As a parent, I must be intentional in how I teach my child and relate things to her in a way she will understand...so we talked about facing the difficult math problem where she didn't understand what it was asking and how that was like missing the target with her arrow or hitting the wrong note on the piano. We talked about how that next arrow and how the next note had to still come, and how she had to refocus and let the last one go.
I will take this challenge she currently faces and turn it into a lesson that will impact her life with a skill that couldn't be matched by any number of Scantron bubble sheets. Instead of looking at the test as a way to measure her math and reading skills, I will use it to teach her how to surrender to a God who loves her. A God who will take all her worry and fear and throw it far, far away if she can only open her little hand and release it to Him. That's the skill she needs to know. Because, while this test, in the big picture of her life, is just a blip, I can use it. I can use it to equip her with a skill for later in life when there are even bigger obstacles that she must face.
But I still ask why. I still wonder what we are doing with education, because a child who loves learning, and reading, and school, shouldn't be consumed with fear and doubt because of a test.
Monday, February 1, 2016
Stengths, weakness...same thing
(I originally started writing this in December of 2012 when Reily was in kindergarten.)
Empathy. Internalization. Compassion. A capacity to understand. Such a precious gift. A gift I know God has bestowed on my heart to utilize in connecting with others. But it's dangerous too. Dealing with your own feelings can be overwhelming, but dealing with 2, 10, 30 other people's emotions can be incapacitating.
It's a double-edged sword. It is one of the things that allows me to care so truly and deeply, but sometimes it's too much. Too much pain. Too much sorrow. Too much brokenness.
I've always had a need for information. A need to know what's going on. I was 15 when the Oklahoma City bombing happened, and I was glued to my TV. I was 21 when September 11 happened, and I was once again glued to my TV. I was 32 when the Newtown shooting happened...I refused to turn on the TV. It was too much.
I could only view it in the periphery of my mind, never head-on. It was just too close. I'm in school each day. I've gone through procedures and practices, but what if it was real? What if my kids were threatened? What if they had to face that terror? And then, worse, what about Reily? Just five years old. Why should that be something that should even cross her mind?
She's had practice lock drills, and though the teachers assured her they weren't real and just practice, my baby cried. She was scared. The idea of locking the door, huddling in a corner of the classroom with her classmates, waiting for the all-clear signal was a lot for a five-year-old to take in. She wanted her mommy.
She's just starting to glimpse the opportunities and the richness of life. To even imagine losing her or having her experience that trauma is almost too much. She's just now figuring out how death works. How do you not come back? And it makes her sad. In her head, she believes I will die before her because I am older...and I hope I do. A mother having to bury her child is a cruelty beyond measure, but looking into the eyes of your child and seeing nothing but terror reflected is almost worse. You are their entire world. As much as I can't imagine living without her, I know she can't imagine living without me because she never has. I've always been there, and I promise her that I always will be.
But how much control do I have over that? Who knows. I am not a daredevil. I don't go jumping off buildings attached only by a bungee or go deep-sea diving, but I live. I live in a world where devastatingly cruel things do happen, but she's not ready for that much honesty. She's not ready because it would become the point she fixated on and not just an outside possibility, a huge fear looming over her head.
And that's how I found myself after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I felt like a child. It was all too much to handle. The idea of babies cowering in a corner as a gunman approached them to flippantly take their lives. Adults protectively sitting with them, virtually helpless. How? Why? There's no way to comprehend. There's no rationalization or other perspective that makes sense. Oklahoma City and September 11, while both horrible and tragic, could be traced to a way of thinking, a twisted path of logic, disturbing as they were. With the Sandy Hook case, there was nothing to be understood.
The most difficult part of the Oklahoma City bombing for me was the daycare that also experienced the fallout across the street. At the memorial, small chairs mark the life of each child who died that day. At 15, it was difficult to watch people search through the rubble, but I processed it as best as I could.
September 11 was different. There was just so much information. And, having watched the second tower get hit, I felt connected to the entire event. It was a moment in history like no other. A moment where an entire country experienced an immediate paradigm shift. The idea of an invincible America crumbled under the weight of those two towers, and we mourned as a country, unable to comprehend how someone would commit such an atrocity.
In both of those cases, I felt information was helping me, though others would disagree. I felt it was giving me data. It was letting me see the spirit of humanity fight back against something so wrong. It was, in all honesty, giving me something to do in that helpless moment. But with the school shooting...information wouldn't help...there wasn't this collective feeling of strength pouring from the country...instead it was a feeling of weakness and vulnerability. It wasn't giving me any data to process, other than the knowledge that family dinner tables would forever be set with one vacant spot.
I cannot claim to come close to internalizing the terror or sorrow of anyone who experienced those events firsthand, but I know my limits. I view my capacity to empathize as one of my greatest strengths, but I am forever cognizant of the fact that it can be my Achilles heel, and I must apply that to my daily life.
As I said, I'm in school every day. A place where the majority of people are scared, or confused, or lost, or all three on any given day. I know they need someone, and I believe with my entire heart that God placed me there for that exact reason - to be a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on. But over the years, I've also had to learn that I can only do so much and, though I wish I did, I have no magical powers.
So I listen. I internalize. I try to do what I can to help, but I'm learning to step back, just a little...just enough so there's room for me and my husband and the two children I gave birth to. I'm not always successful at distancing myself from the emotions of others, but I'm attempting to be alert to my tendencies and protect myself just a little bit. Above all else, I know I must continue to work on placing my own troubles on God's shoulders because He can carry the burdens and the pain I cannot. He will carry my fears, and I must learn to rest in that. And that's where I must find strength in dealing with all the other turmoil that swirls and blows around me. It's not mine to solve or fix, but instead I pray to allow God to use me as a tool where he sees fit, trusting that he will carry me when it all gets to be a bit too much.
Empathy. Internalization. Compassion. A capacity to understand. Such a precious gift. A gift I know God has bestowed on my heart to utilize in connecting with others. But it's dangerous too. Dealing with your own feelings can be overwhelming, but dealing with 2, 10, 30 other people's emotions can be incapacitating.
It's a double-edged sword. It is one of the things that allows me to care so truly and deeply, but sometimes it's too much. Too much pain. Too much sorrow. Too much brokenness.
I've always had a need for information. A need to know what's going on. I was 15 when the Oklahoma City bombing happened, and I was glued to my TV. I was 21 when September 11 happened, and I was once again glued to my TV. I was 32 when the Newtown shooting happened...I refused to turn on the TV. It was too much.
I could only view it in the periphery of my mind, never head-on. It was just too close. I'm in school each day. I've gone through procedures and practices, but what if it was real? What if my kids were threatened? What if they had to face that terror? And then, worse, what about Reily? Just five years old. Why should that be something that should even cross her mind?
She's had practice lock drills, and though the teachers assured her they weren't real and just practice, my baby cried. She was scared. The idea of locking the door, huddling in a corner of the classroom with her classmates, waiting for the all-clear signal was a lot for a five-year-old to take in. She wanted her mommy.
She's just starting to glimpse the opportunities and the richness of life. To even imagine losing her or having her experience that trauma is almost too much. She's just now figuring out how death works. How do you not come back? And it makes her sad. In her head, she believes I will die before her because I am older...and I hope I do. A mother having to bury her child is a cruelty beyond measure, but looking into the eyes of your child and seeing nothing but terror reflected is almost worse. You are their entire world. As much as I can't imagine living without her, I know she can't imagine living without me because she never has. I've always been there, and I promise her that I always will be.
But how much control do I have over that? Who knows. I am not a daredevil. I don't go jumping off buildings attached only by a bungee or go deep-sea diving, but I live. I live in a world where devastatingly cruel things do happen, but she's not ready for that much honesty. She's not ready because it would become the point she fixated on and not just an outside possibility, a huge fear looming over her head.
And that's how I found myself after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I felt like a child. It was all too much to handle. The idea of babies cowering in a corner as a gunman approached them to flippantly take their lives. Adults protectively sitting with them, virtually helpless. How? Why? There's no way to comprehend. There's no rationalization or other perspective that makes sense. Oklahoma City and September 11, while both horrible and tragic, could be traced to a way of thinking, a twisted path of logic, disturbing as they were. With the Sandy Hook case, there was nothing to be understood.
The most difficult part of the Oklahoma City bombing for me was the daycare that also experienced the fallout across the street. At the memorial, small chairs mark the life of each child who died that day. At 15, it was difficult to watch people search through the rubble, but I processed it as best as I could.
September 11 was different. There was just so much information. And, having watched the second tower get hit, I felt connected to the entire event. It was a moment in history like no other. A moment where an entire country experienced an immediate paradigm shift. The idea of an invincible America crumbled under the weight of those two towers, and we mourned as a country, unable to comprehend how someone would commit such an atrocity.
In both of those cases, I felt information was helping me, though others would disagree. I felt it was giving me data. It was letting me see the spirit of humanity fight back against something so wrong. It was, in all honesty, giving me something to do in that helpless moment. But with the school shooting...information wouldn't help...there wasn't this collective feeling of strength pouring from the country...instead it was a feeling of weakness and vulnerability. It wasn't giving me any data to process, other than the knowledge that family dinner tables would forever be set with one vacant spot.
I cannot claim to come close to internalizing the terror or sorrow of anyone who experienced those events firsthand, but I know my limits. I view my capacity to empathize as one of my greatest strengths, but I am forever cognizant of the fact that it can be my Achilles heel, and I must apply that to my daily life.
As I said, I'm in school every day. A place where the majority of people are scared, or confused, or lost, or all three on any given day. I know they need someone, and I believe with my entire heart that God placed me there for that exact reason - to be a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on. But over the years, I've also had to learn that I can only do so much and, though I wish I did, I have no magical powers.
So I listen. I internalize. I try to do what I can to help, but I'm learning to step back, just a little...just enough so there's room for me and my husband and the two children I gave birth to. I'm not always successful at distancing myself from the emotions of others, but I'm attempting to be alert to my tendencies and protect myself just a little bit. Above all else, I know I must continue to work on placing my own troubles on God's shoulders because He can carry the burdens and the pain I cannot. He will carry my fears, and I must learn to rest in that. And that's where I must find strength in dealing with all the other turmoil that swirls and blows around me. It's not mine to solve or fix, but instead I pray to allow God to use me as a tool where he sees fit, trusting that he will carry me when it all gets to be a bit too much.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Visions of sugarplums danced in her head
How do you explain dreams to children? The difference between reality and imagination. The difference in the things we pretend to be true and the things that actually are true.
Children soak up everything around them. The things we say. The way we act. The mood we set.
Adults seem to take that for granted, making the assumption that children won't pick up on something or that they are too young to figure it out. In reality, though, children are often more astute than adults.
When Reily was younger, she would tell me about dreams she had, convinced that they were true. The events and images she described would seem vivid enough. How was she to know that they were only in her head?
At first, you pass off the idea that not distinguishing dreams from reality as silly because, as adults, we know that when we wake up from a dream, we have never left our bed and have simply been sleeping, but for a child, it is far more complex. When faced with detailed images and story lines, how is a child to understand that none of it actually happened? How are they to know that they have been nestled within their bed instead of off on some fantastical adventure?
It's difficult to explain because you can't demonstrate a dream, you can't show an example, you can't even share the same experience, but you desperately want to put your child's fears at ease.
You want to keep your child safe. You want to protect them from all the bad things of the world, but you can't freely step into their dreams and combat the monsters that await them. So instead, you do your best to explain that when they close their eyes and drift off to sleep, the pictures and scenes that play out before them are merely dreams - imaginary tales that unfold as they slumber.
Thankfully, the understanding does come, and a child's dreams no longer paralyze them as they once did before. They begin to have an understanding of the sleeping and waking world and a grasp of what reality truly is.
Though with that realization comes another type of terror. Because of that understanding of reality and imagination, other dreams are crushed, and new fears arise. Children begin to recognize the fairy tales we embrace, and they no longer believe. They grow more independent and must be cautioned about the dangers and difficulties of the world around them.
The balance of discussing the things out there that can actually hurt them while providing an environment where they still feel safe is exceedingly difficult. You feel like you are replacing fictitious monsters under their beds with real ones lurking behind playground monkey bars. So, how do you keep your children safe without providing them with years of fodder for therapy?
Like everything else that comes with being a parent, we do the best we can. We tell them what we feel they need to know while withholding the darkest parts of humanity. We try to figure out how to protect them while preserving their innocence and purity for as long as possible because the reality of it is...most human terrors are far worse than anything fictitious.
It's my job to protect my children from things that cause them harm, whether they are real or not, and I will do my best to live up to that task. As for the nightmares, both real and imagined, I will be there. Because in the end, I will hold my children when they wake up. I held her when she was three years old and afraid of the Rumor Weed from Veggie Tales, and I held her again when she was eight and woke up after having a dream about something bad happening to her little brother.
Her dreams may change and morph as she gets older, but I will always hold her. Always wipe away her tears. And always be there for her, no matter what nightmares she faces, because that's my job. And though it breaks my heart each time she wakes up with her heart racing, it is a privilege to be there to comfort her and tuck her back into bed. She will never be too old for me to help carry the burden of her nightmares.
Children soak up everything around them. The things we say. The way we act. The mood we set.
Adults seem to take that for granted, making the assumption that children won't pick up on something or that they are too young to figure it out. In reality, though, children are often more astute than adults.
When Reily was younger, she would tell me about dreams she had, convinced that they were true. The events and images she described would seem vivid enough. How was she to know that they were only in her head?
At first, you pass off the idea that not distinguishing dreams from reality as silly because, as adults, we know that when we wake up from a dream, we have never left our bed and have simply been sleeping, but for a child, it is far more complex. When faced with detailed images and story lines, how is a child to understand that none of it actually happened? How are they to know that they have been nestled within their bed instead of off on some fantastical adventure?
It's difficult to explain because you can't demonstrate a dream, you can't show an example, you can't even share the same experience, but you desperately want to put your child's fears at ease.
You want to keep your child safe. You want to protect them from all the bad things of the world, but you can't freely step into their dreams and combat the monsters that await them. So instead, you do your best to explain that when they close their eyes and drift off to sleep, the pictures and scenes that play out before them are merely dreams - imaginary tales that unfold as they slumber.
Thankfully, the understanding does come, and a child's dreams no longer paralyze them as they once did before. They begin to have an understanding of the sleeping and waking world and a grasp of what reality truly is.
Though with that realization comes another type of terror. Because of that understanding of reality and imagination, other dreams are crushed, and new fears arise. Children begin to recognize the fairy tales we embrace, and they no longer believe. They grow more independent and must be cautioned about the dangers and difficulties of the world around them.
The balance of discussing the things out there that can actually hurt them while providing an environment where they still feel safe is exceedingly difficult. You feel like you are replacing fictitious monsters under their beds with real ones lurking behind playground monkey bars. So, how do you keep your children safe without providing them with years of fodder for therapy?
Like everything else that comes with being a parent, we do the best we can. We tell them what we feel they need to know while withholding the darkest parts of humanity. We try to figure out how to protect them while preserving their innocence and purity for as long as possible because the reality of it is...most human terrors are far worse than anything fictitious.
It's my job to protect my children from things that cause them harm, whether they are real or not, and I will do my best to live up to that task. As for the nightmares, both real and imagined, I will be there. Because in the end, I will hold my children when they wake up. I held her when she was three years old and afraid of the Rumor Weed from Veggie Tales, and I held her again when she was eight and woke up after having a dream about something bad happening to her little brother.
Her dreams may change and morph as she gets older, but I will always hold her. Always wipe away her tears. And always be there for her, no matter what nightmares she faces, because that's my job. And though it breaks my heart each time she wakes up with her heart racing, it is a privilege to be there to comfort her and tuck her back into bed. She will never be too old for me to help carry the burden of her nightmares.
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