A Letter to My Son on his First Days of School

Many of you know that I idolize Glennon Doyle Melton from  Momastery. One of my favorite posts of hers is titled The One Letter to Read Before Sending Your Child to School. After reading it and re-reading it, I decided to take her up on her offer to modify to share with my own child. Here it is. I wish someone read me this or told me this regularly when I was a kid. I'm thinking of wall papering his room with it. Subtle huh? Good luck with the back to school hustle everyone. Remember: we can do hard things. XOXOXO, R

 

Rowen,

This has been a big week – your first week of Kindergarten – WOW!! Seeing you trudge up the hill, line up with all of your classmates, hold the sign for Ms. O’Leary’s class & file in to your classroom fills me with so much pride and wonder at the awesome boy that you’ve become.

When I was in Kindergarten there was a boy named Anthony. He looked a little different and talked a little bit different. He never played with the other kids or talked in class. He got teased a lot. I would eat lunch with him and when I did the kids teased me too and that made me sad and not want to sit with Anthony or ask him to play. I still think about Anthony. I wonder if he remembers me. Probably not.

I think that people come into our lives as lessons to us and as gifts to us. The kids in your class this year – they are your lessons and your gifts. The fun ones, the mean ones, the shy ones and the crazy ones. So treat each one of them like a lesson and a gift. Every single one.  

If you see a child being left out, hurt or teased, your heart will hurt a little. Trust that heart-ache. Listen to that your entire life. That heart-ache is called compassion and it’s a signal for you to do something! It’s a voice that says – Rowen, wake up – someone is hurting! Do something to help!

Compassion might make you step in and do something right away like ask the teased kid to play or invite them to have lunch with you. This may be hard to do but you can do hard things. You might not be able to or want to step in right away and that’s ok too. Maybe you’ll tell your teacher or tell us – we’re all on your team – we’re on your whole class’ team. Asking for help for you or for others is always the right thing to do if someone is hurting. If someone is hurting, tell me and we will make a plan together.

Dad and I don’t care if anyone else thinks you're the  smartest or coolest or funniest ( we always will, regardless). There will be lots of contests at school and you won’t win them all and that’s ok! We don’t care if you get straight A’s, if the girls think you’re cute or whether you’re good at sports. We don’t care if you are your teachers’ favorite or not. We don’t care if you have the best clothes or flattest hair or an Xbox 360. We love you just the way you are and that’s that!

We don’t send you to school to become the best at anything at all. We already love you as much as we possibly could. You do not have to earn our love or pride and you can’t lose it. That’s done.

We send you to school to practice being brave and kind. Kind people are brave people. Because brave is not a feeling that you should wait for. It’s a decision. It’s a decision that compassion is more important than fitting in, than following the crowd. Trust me love, it’s much more important.

Don’t try to be THE best this year honey, try to be YOUR best and that’s a Rowen that is grateful and brave and kind. Take care of your classmates and of your teacher too. You belong to each other. You are one lucky boy to have all of these gifts and they’re lucky to have you too!

I love you more than I could ever express. Thank you for being the best gift I’ve ever received. Mamma