Today Was…A Day.

I won’t go into the specifics, but today was a difficult day for me, because it was a difficult day for one of my students. All I will say is this:

If you are a parent, part of your job is to protect your child. To shield him or her from the injustices and tragedy and struggle that is such a part of adult life. To allow him or her to feel completely safe in his or her own home, and to know that there is an adult who cares about them, and would do anything to help keep anyone else from protecting this safe, nurturing bubble.

Adulthood will come when it does, revealing the unfairness, the ugliness, the sadness of reality. It will come sooner for some children than for others, even despite their parent’s best efforts to shield them from it for as long as possible.

There are parents who have somehow missed this memo. Who see their children as possessions, playthings or burdens. Who allow, through their own selfishness or stupidity or ignorance, for their children to witness great harm and great ugliness and then don’t give them any of the emotional tools necessary to deal with this.

As a teacher, I need to do more than just ensure my students leave my classroom with the skills and knowledge mandated by the state board of education. I need to help give them the tools to be good citizens, good friends to one another, and the best person they can be. If a child has behavioral or emotional issues because of what is happening in their home, I can only do so much to help put the pieces back together.

Parents: your children are watching you. They are listening. They are understanding more than you could ever know, and feeling more than you could ever comprehend. They are vulnerable templates of human beings, each capable of greatness in his or her own way. Put away your pride, your anger, your selfishness, your own emotional deficits and show them what it means to be kind, to do the right thing, to make good choices. Please allow them the chance to be as great as they can be.