― Henry Adams
One of the most amazing journeys in life is that of
parenthood. It's not just about
parenting your children, it's also about navigating and advocating on their
behalf. One of the areas most
challenging to negotiate is that of schools and everything school-related,
including teachers, administrators, other children and other parents. Because no one and nothing matters to us as
much as our children, the stakes always seem pretty high.
Having several children, I have dealt with a number of
teachers and a few administrators. It is
interesting to me the differences in approach to parents. I always greatly appreciate the school
representatives who can extend kindness.
They tend to be the people who get the big picture.
There are many instances of kindness that stand out for me in the school setting, but there is a very simple one that I will always remember. It happened about five years ago when one of my children was in elementary school. There was a visiting day in the classroom for parents, which was actually a two-hour time slot in the morning. My husband was juggling a number of meetings and appointments, so he ran to one first thing in the morning and was trying desperately to get back to the school before the end of the visiting time. He texted me to say that he was parking at the school at the same moment that the announcement was made over the public address system that the visiting hours were over. I was so disappointed and knew he would be, too. As I was leaving the classroom, I told the teacher that I felt badly that my husband had missed the visiting time by a few minutes. Without hesitating, the teacher said to me, "Send him up! He came to see his daughter. Have him come and see her." I was so surprised -- although I shouldn't have been given the kind of person this teacher is. But it struck me that she understood what made sense. And she opted for kindness.
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