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Adapting to School

The Journey Is More Than a School Sidewalk,
More Than a School Bus,
More Than a Test,
More than Internal or External Chemicals,
More Than a Single Path.

The school bus carries the little people you love most. You kiss them goodbye and hope they are happy, developing and progressing in their academic work. Instead, at times, they seem carried off to a dark place. They are not themselves. They have troubles and they cause troubles. As parents we feel fearful, angry, or sad when we observe the challenges and disappointments our children face at school. We want to make things better for them, but we don’t always know how. Today’s students are presented with many challenges. Can I fight off the bullies for her? Should we medicate? Will he be able to resist the peer-pressure pot parties? Is there something that could make learning easier? Does my child have a neurological disorder? We continue to ask: Will I have the wisdom and stamina to be the advocate my child needs and the patience and compassion to help him through the school years? Is my precious child defective in someway?

Many school challenges are difficult to sort out. We want to help our children. Seeking a deeper understanding of a child’s needs, personality, cognitive functions, and learning style is a concrete way to go about helping a child. Children are born and programmed to thrive. They call for our most creative parenting and societal intelligence. They do not ask us to label them or view them as the child with a roving attention span or a malformed personality. They suffer pain, and we suffer pain when we see their journey only as the sidewalk leading to the school door. They too seek a wider path. Our children are primed to journey with joy. Their bodies guide them to health, and their spirits soar above our own. Sometimes, all we need is the right intersection to cross paths with them. In therapy, your concerns might be met with some academic coaching, some mindfulness practices, or mood and behavior activities that decrease acting out. We may also look at the patterns in your family history and in society that contribute to childhood troubles and pain.

In the therapeutic setting with your child, we will do concrete things to create change. We will frolic on a playful path and learn to know the unique human gift you brought into this world. Our work together is to help create a joyful life.

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The whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. - Shakespeare — The whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school.
– Shakespeare

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery — Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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We are all creative, but by the time we are three of four years old, someone has knocked the creativity out of us. Some people shut up the kids who start to tell stories. Kids dance in their cribs, but someone will insist they sit still. By the time the creative people are ten or twelve, they want to be like everyone else. - Maya Angelou — We are all creative, but by the time we are three of four years old, someone has knocked the creativity out of us. Some people shut up the kids who start to tell stories. Kids dance in their cribs, but someone will insist they sit still. By the time the creative people are ten or twelve, they want to be like everyone else.
– Maya Angelou

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Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement….Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. - Abraham Joshua Heschel — Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement….Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
– Abraham Joshua Heschel

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The faculty of voluntarily bring back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of the judgment, character and will. - William James — The faculty of voluntarily bring back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of the judgment, character and will.
– William James

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