A Parent and Teacher Reflection: Sharing Some Grows and Glows

Assume Nothing

My daughter has been an unreasonably easy teenager. I assumed that senior year would be basically the same. I couldn’t have been more wrong. There has been drama, tears, power struggles and lots of misunderstandings. My poor stressed-out daughter has not been “herself” as we know her. She’s always taken grades in stride, never obsessing, and staying in the low 90s. However, once college applications and scholarships were in constant conversation, she began to question everything. I’m happy to say that she did get many scholarships and awards, but my normally confident girl was filled with self-doubt. If I have any recommendations for parents of “happy” teens, I’d say to remember why we don’t assume things! Every year can be different. 

Along the same lines is my son Oliver. We assumed he’d like the same things in high school that he had in middle school—coding, math, cubing, gaming and chorus, to name a few. However, as a high school student, he’s finding other avenues that interest him, and my husband and I have had to let go of the paths we had begun to plan for him. He’s excited to take psychology next year and has even started talking about being a social studies teacher (yeah!). 

Create Traditions

As I mentioned, we have the Friday coffee tradition. Ice cream after every concert. Wear pajamas to the movies on Thanksgiving afternoon, and go to cut down our Christmas tree on Black Friday. My daughter Zoey has made Christmas Eve dinner since she was 9, and Oliver, my freshman, helped this year. We fly a kite at the beach on the last day of school. I could go on and on, but then I’d have to stop and cry for a while, so I’ll just say that we’ve created many traditions for our family. This was very intentional on our part, and even when I really just wanted to go home after a chorus concert and finally sit down, we would go out together for ice cream. These traditions were beneficial this year when all of the changes loomed over us. Knowing that some things were staying the same was comforting. 

We will need to recalibrate as my daughter heads to college, and I know it is going to take some getting used to, for sure. However, I know how important these traditions have been, and I am certain that they will help Oliver finish navigating high school as well.  I’ve been writing about my kiddos for a long time (see “Nana Pre-School”), but nothing could have prepared me for this. Hope these tips help!

Be the Grown-Up

My daughter is a hustler, go-getter, leader and all those other nouns from her college essay. It wasn’t surprising to us when she simply did all the work for her applications, scholarships, and pretty much everything else. Retrospectively, however, we should have given her more support. By the time her offers were rolling in, she was a hot mess. We’d actually let her do so much that we felt lost in the process. As we tried to step in, she was too invested in doing it herself. We found a happy-ish medium in the end, but not without tears from every side. 

Today’s students have stresses that teenage Amber could never comprehend. They need to check their email, keep up with social media, work, and more difficult classes; and the modern family doesn’t always provide a whole lot of oversight. As you read “keep up with social media,” some of you might have smirked thinking “as if that is a real responsibility.” It 100 percent is a part of being a teenager right now, for better or worse. My daughter had to back-channel through the college social network to find a roommate who was a good fit, and many of her scholarships communicated entirely through email. Information, even at the high school level, is often posted on social media accounts with paper being a thing of the past. I’m excited to say that she is going to school to be a teacher, so learning all of these things now will help in the long run. Check out “So, You Think You Want to Be a Teacher? if you have a kiddo interested in our calling. 

Next year, I’ll be facilitating a “Doing Life” unit with my eighth-grade students based on what I’m seeing from my own kiddos navigating high school. I say “facilitating” because it is going to be student-generated. I’ll ask them what they need help with, in terms of “doing life,” and I’ll help them come up with solutions. Make sure you follow me on Share My Lesson and on Twitter @MsAmberChandler so that you’ll know when to look for my “Doing Life” unit, which is coming soon. I know it will include how to manage an inbox, write emails, make a phone call and organize their files. For example, my son has hundreds of emails right now because he gets an alert for every update to Google Classroom. There are many “adulting” organizational skills that I can teach through an English language arts lens. 

As teachers and parents, it is hard to know if we are doing “it” right. Early summer is a good time to reflect on the past school year and make changes. The same is true of parenting. I know that next year my son needs to do his math homework at home, not at study hall, because I need to keep a closer eye on it. I know that he needs color-coded folders instead of a binder. He recently told me that we should work out a better lunch plan because he had “a lot” of brown bags in his locker, never eaten. I don’t even want to think about that! Next year, he needs to always have his clothes ready for the next day because that is a huge source of morning stress. The fact is, as a mom and a teacher, I need to let the dust settle; but as of right now, I have 78 days to think about next year!

If you are looking for some blogs for and about summer, check out “Three Ways to Recharge This Summer” and “Last Day of School: Dear Future Me.” I’d love to hear how you recharge and reflect, so follow me and leave a comment!