My oldest child transitioned into middle school this year, and I was worried about a lot of things: anticipation he might get, or feel ill-equipped to manage a schedule that required moving from classroom to classroom in bustling hallways on his own. All my worries were about him and his ability to succeed in this big, new, much-more-independent environment. What I never worried about was how my role would change. And of course, that’s been the hardest part.
The problem is that once your kid walks into that middle school building, you’re not just less involved in the classroom — they tell you way, way, less too. And the change came at me hard and fast. As awho became friendly with some staff members of the elementary school, I was used to over-communication on all fronts. I never needed to wait for conferences or report cards to get a detailed report on my little student’s progress.
So when the bandaid was ripped off so suddenly and without any warning, I was shook. I spent the first couple of weeks of school gearing up for a personalized check-in email that never came. So naturally, I reached out myself. I crafted a friendly and informative email about all of my son’s potential academic issues and asked upwards of 20 questions about how the transition was going for him in all the major areas — social, emotional, academic.
And since then, it’s been a lot of the same. The end-of-fall report card brought basic information about his performance and some pretty generic statements about his in-school behavior. We get weekly team emails about things the “team” is working on and some questions to ask your children to promote at-home engagement about school happenings. But as you can imagine, my 10-year-old is less than interested in providing a full debrief every day.
But maybe this just what I need. Maybe my firstborn, whom I have hovered over for the last 10 years of his life, needs a bit of independence to figure things out on his own. So what if he misses and assignment or forgets his locker combination? Life is about learning the skills necessary to navigate those difficult moments on your own. And under the guidance of caring and equipped staff and teachers in a safe place, I think he is probably okay without me.
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