Kindergarten Courage

 I have mad respect for my children. I am sure most parents do. It is a common enough sentiment. Being my kid cannot be the easiest childhood on the planet. I think of myself as tough but fair. I am probably just a hard case because I expect these girls to be better than me. They are too.

Tegan started Kindergarten this year. I do not think there is anyone that knows me who has not been made amply aware of this fact. You would think after a few years of Pre-K that I would be accustomed to the kid going to school. There are differences and those are important. 

Last year I drove the kid to Pre-K, we got out of the car together, and I walked her to her classroom and deposited her safely with her teacher. Same thing happened for picking her up. Taila or I would be waiting outside that classroom where Teagan transitioned from being watched by the teacher to us. I did not really have any big feelings around dropping her off or picking her up. 

I did what I could to get us ready for Kindergarten. Clothes, shoes, supplies, and even a bit of intentional getting the kid excited about school went into this preparation. We made a concentrated effort to follow the suggested reading time. I went into the first half day feeling pretty ready. Teagan seemed to as well. That feeling continued into the second half day. She seemed to be having a good time and came home with the appropriate level of exhaustion to indicate a successful start to the school year. 

Flash forward to the first full day of school. No that is not really accurate. Flash forward to the Sunday night before. I am stretched out on the bed reading something written by Donald Westlake under his sobriquet Richard Stark. I am subconsciously chewing over the next day. That is how my brain works. Forebrain is ingesting narrative. The rest of my grey matter is running over checklists and keeping all the balls in the air I am juggling at any given moment. 

These rogue, chilling thoughts slime their way across my brain and intrude upon Parker and his heist. I bet Teagan doesn't know her Teacher's name. I bet she doesn't know where her classroom is. I walked her to class the three times she has been there. Was she paying attention to the directions or was she just following me? Would she be able to pick her teacher out of a line up? How is this child going to react when she has to get out of the car and find her own way? 

I have no logical defenses for these sudden and likely irrational thoughts. I completely lose focus on the book. I am turning these things over in my mind and manage a modicum of calm by telling myself that this is not the first time that her school has dealt with Kindergartners. It is not just Teagan's first day. Tons of kids are starting their school career. The school must have practiced this enough to have plans for lost little ones who feel out of place and uncomfortable. 

That line of logic held me right up until it was time to drop Teagan off. The fear of the unknown hit her. She whined about it a little bit. I reassured her as best I was able. She got out of the car and with a little steering from the safety patrol made it into the building. I totally did not hold up traffic to see it happen. I am a cool Dad after all. 

Those little parting fears kept up for most of the first week and a bit of the second. When I dropped her off at school on Friday, Teagan was just excited to see her friends. She genuinely seems to enjoy school. The fear should give way to excitement. It all feels very normal. I also do not lose sight of the fact that it takes a fair amount of courage on the part of the kid to face these fears. I suspect strongly based on the memories of crying like a baby while sitting in the gym at Oakwood Elementary School that Teagan is a more well adjusted kid than I was. 

I had a moment of existential crisis when I realized that there are first time Kindergarteners who not only learned school for the first time but also rode their very first school bus to get there. Some of those kids did this without an older sibling to help guide them. I never had to go through that and neither have my kids. I wonder how much of that courage helps to steel their resolve for later things in life. 

I found myself explaining courage to Teagan in the middle of that first week. I found myself reflecting upon things I have faced that required me to do things even when I was scared. I thought of myself starting school as a Kindergartner where I would develop a strong love of naps and Oscar the Grouch. I liked his whole vibe except for the living in the trash can thing. 

I thought about recent things like getting a Covid-19 vaccine even though I am averse to needles. The first dose was scary because I was not sure how I would react to being stuck. Nothing feels more pathetic than a big grown man passing out in the floor because of a little needle stick. The needle was no big deal (they usually aren't) though the week of needing a nap and feeling short of breath made the second shot another test of courage. Knowing you are likely to get a bit sick and getting stuck anyway takes some courage.

I thought about walking into courtrooms at various stages of my life to fight for custody of my kids. Some people cannot face those things. It is easier to run away and give up than it is to stand and fight. Things rarely work out exactly as you'd like them to. It is also a rare thing to end up in a courtroom because you wanted to be there.  

I thought of learning to ride a motorcycle. I thought of getting on a plane for the first time. I thought of learning to rappel. I thought of overcoming a near crippling fear of heights. I thought of lots of times when I was too excited to be scared like learning to drive, my first kiss, my first other things, first solo road trip, and learning to swim. Life requires a lot of courage and even more than courage it requires courage's double first cousin trust.  

Trust is courage second hand. I trust Teagan to be able to find her way in Kindergarten. I think trust is so much more difficult than courage because it requires the surrendering of control. You cannot trust someone else while protecting them from everything. It was hard to let Teagan out of the car knowing she could become an unraveled ball of tears sobbing on the sidewalk outside the school. Still, I trust that even if the worst happened there that she could recover from it and find her way with a little help. I also trust the systems and people the school has in place to help her find her way. 

That got me thinking about times in my life that trust was important. While I was busy jumping off rocks my parents were watching and trusting that I knew enough of what I was doing not to break my head open in a spectacular fall. They trusted me to drive my '72 Chevelle responsibly as a new driver and then when I proved that trust was misplaced they got me into a four cylinder Buick Century. I rewarded their trust by not getting caught that time I decided to flee from the cops for absolutely no reason. God, I was a dumb teenager. My parents watched and guided me a bit. They also rescued me when I got in over my head. 

Thinking about the courage it took for Teagan to adjust to school has been a good exercise. Realizing that my job is to be the safety net and trust her to grow up has been even better. It is a good reminder of how healthy relationships are supposed to function. 

As our kids get older their choices get more impactful. Trust becomes much more important so you can maintain a healthy connection and be allowed to still be the safety net that even adult kids sometimes need. It isn't hard to trust Taila to make good choices. She is a smart young woman. It is tough to realize I do not get to give the same input into her choices. That gets a lot easier when I remember the trust being important and keep my fears and opinions to myself. My Mom was not good at that and neither am I, but I am learning.