If you are worried your kids are falling behind right now let me tell you a little story to reassure your soul.

We’ve been adjusting to online school here…and by adjusting I mean winging it each day until winging it feels normal. I also like to call this living in the moment because it sounds super intentional.

We are managing all the math and reading and science and the social studies for all the people and I feel in control of about 7%. Roughly.

Anyway, I was checking my email around 9:00pm with only one eye open because looking at things through two eyes after 8:00pm is legit impossible during pandemic times.

But good parents check the parent portal once a day so I looked at the grades and assignments to try and decide which I needed to worry about. Also my second eye started to fall shut by the third kid check in so I had to move fast.

As luck would have it the third kid had a message from the principal about missing a class meeting that day and so both my eyes needed to open because that is of course a problem that requires parental interaction and a stern face with open eyeballs.

Plus my adrenaline was up because how did you miss a meeting when you only have like 2 a day? Also we wrote them on the big master schedule. And talked about them at breakfast. And explained this was a whole new world with attendance taken and real school things happening and for the love.

As I rued the passing on of my genes that don’t understand time I quickly replied to the principal that I was grateful he kept me in the loop and we would speak with the offender.

I received an almost immediate reply….said child had already responded to the message with a heartfelt apology and a plan for setting their alarm five minutes before each meeting time to ensure it didn’t happen again.

“I was impressed with your child’s ability to both apologize and advocate for themselves. “ was the closing line of the email.

And the mother and probably also the angels wept.

Our kids are learning. And they are learning all the right things.

To own up to their mistakes.

To use alarms.

To self-advocate.

To be independent.

To own their learning.

To keep going even when things are hard.

To be a human person that interacts with other human people respectfully.

To be resilient.

They are not falling behind and in fact I think they’re ahead of the game.

If the learning is in the struggle then darn it all there are so many opportunities to learn right now…so many great lessons that go way beyond reading and writing and math and science and social studies.

They are learning to live in this world in beautiful and amazing ways despite their circumstances. They are learning the lessons of life.

These lessons are not easy and come with sacrifice (which leads to even more lessons so there’s that). But today I don’t even see what they are missing because they are also getting some things they never would have gotten so quickly if the world just kept plugging along.

And even though I would change it if I could I am grateful for the gifts of these lessons.

The world will be better for what our kids have learned…and for what are learning right along with them.

Amy

(Please note: child pictured is not the child in the story. That child would like to keep you guessing. )