Don't fear feelings
It was the last day of school. It had been a bittersweet morning full of summer sunshine and goodbyes.
One of the last remaining students began to cry. “It’s over!” she wailed to her mother. “I don’t want it to be over!”
“It’s okay, honey,” her mom said. “You can have sleepovers with Emma and Sarah — you’ll see your friends! You’re going to camp! Remember how excited you were about that? And we’ll be back here again in just a couple of months!”
The girl departed with her mom, weeping all the while.
As an outside observer, I could see it very clearly: The girl was grieving.
The truth is, the last day of school is the end. Things will never be the same. And an eleven-year-old may never have experienced this kind of loss before.
The girl’s mom thought she was simply sad. She tried to cheer her daughter up, when it might have been more helpful to take a moment to validate the child’s emotions and help her to name them.
Not all families talk about feelings. In fact, many kids don’t know what some of their frequently-felt emotions are called.
Emotions are not a part of the standard school curriculum either, but maybe they should be. Kids often find themselves experiencing intense emotions like disappointment, anger, confusion, and fear as they process unfolding dramas in peer relationships, all while sitting in class. Meanwhile, the actual learning process requires students to work through frustration, boredom, more confusion, and in some cases, despair or helplessness.
When adults help kids to identify and name the emotions they may be experiencing in a situation, students can let go of the shame, anxiety, fear, overwhelm, and confusion that may be layered on top of other feelings. They learn that it’s normal and expected, for instance, to feel both apprehension and anticipation about an upcoming event, or to have mixed emotions about reaching a milestone that a friend did not.
During times of transition like the last days of school, adults can guide children and adolescents through the emotions they’re experiencing and give them a chance to identify, process and express them. Instead of turning on a movie to fill time or dull the discomfort, we can design activities that offer opportunities for self-expression, connection, and closure.
All the while, we needn’t fear “negative” emotions like grief and melancholy. We don’t have to try to rush to the other side. We serve children far better when we simply acknowledge the feelings they are having without trying to fix them. Nothing’s broken, even when there is pain. It’s one of the most important things we have to teach.