Stressed-Out Kids

My son doesn't like school. Very few kids really do like school, but it seems to bring a particular amount of stress and anxiety to my boy. I often imagine the school day as a medieval labyrinth or haunted house, with stressors lurking around every corner, ready to pounce from alcoves.

• Here a writing assignment.
• There a real need for focus and concentration.
• Here a tricky social situation.
• Here a demand, there a demand, every where a demand a demand.

When he is off from school, he is a much happier child. And I don't mean that in a flippant way, in that he is more cheerful. He is happier.

So today I made a choice that some parents might disagree with: I let my son take a day off from school. He is not ill. No contagious germs here. But the prospect of going to school today was just too stressful. And so he stayed home and spent the day with his grandparents.

The back and forth involved in making this decision has had me thinking all day.

• What eternal lesson will he take from being let out of his only real responsibility, to go to school?
• What precedent have we just set?
• Should there be negative consequences for him?
• Is this the ultimate in "giving in"?

In truth, I spent a good deal of the morning beating myself up about it.

And then, I had an epiphany.

• The eternal lesson is that sometimes you really need to take time out to care for yourself.
• The precedent is that we care about your needs, and missing one day of school isn't the end of the world.
• The negative consequences for him are...none. Not all consequences are negative. The positive consequence is that he has a chance to prepare himself for tomorrow, which is, after all, another day.
• I this "giving in"? Perhaps. Giving in to that loving and adoring side of myself toward my son, which doesn't win too many battles.

A friend recently posted the top 5 regrets of the dying. Here they are:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

I hope to put my son on a path where none of these 5 regrets are his. He had the courage to express his feelings, and I had the power to make it so he didn't have to work so hard, for now. And, for today, he is happier... 3 out of 5 ain't bad.