I am kneading dough and lost in thought. It is our last
supper. Our youngest child is leaving
for college in the morning and has requested homemade pizza for her last dinner
at home. As she heads upstairs to pack up the final boxes, I work the dough,
wondering whether she has learned everything she needs to know before she heads
out into the world, hoping she’ll meet people who are kind to her and who
appreciate her for the unique and spirited person she is.
It’s funny, I remember as I add a little more flour to the
dough, I was worried about these same things eighteen years ago when we sent
our first child off to kindergarten. Was he ready? Would the world outside our
home receive him with kindness? Some things never change, I guess. At each
transition for all three of my children, I have fretted over the same things.
A few days after my daughter left for college we celebrated
our summer festival at LifeWays. During the festival, the children who are
going off to school for the first time receive a piece of rose quartz from
their caregiver as a symbol of love for their journey and they head across the
little wooden bridge adorned with rainbow silks and flowers. It’s a passage of
only a few steps across the bridge, but it feels like a significant voyage as
these little ones, some of whom we have cared for since they were babies, step
across and are off into the wide world of school. Their parents’ faces reveal a
mixture of joy and trepidation, and if I can be so bold as to presume to know
what they are thinking, I believe they are pondering the same thoughts: “Will
the world receive them with kindness? Will they make their way without harsh
people or experiences damping their spirits?”
The children, of course, are enamored with their crystals.
Each one takes his piece of rose quartz into his hands with awe, fingering the
smooth edges and the rounded corners. They have watched their older friends
cross this bridge for years, and now it is finally their turn!
A week before the summer festival each year, I take out the
big burlap sack filled with giant chunks of rose quartz. Any willing member of
my family is enlisted to break the chunks into child-sized pieces with a
hammer. The pieces of rose quartz that split off are beautiful, with shiny
edges, and pointy corners that are almost too sharp to handle. This will never
do as a gift for a young child, so the pieces are put into the rock tumbler,
where they spin for a day or two. The friction from the sharp crystals rubbing
against one another in the tumbler polishes the pieces of quartz until they are
smooth to the touch, yet each still unique and beautiful in its own way.
When I think back on all my fervent wishes as a parent
sending off my children to grade school, middle school, high school, college
and beyond, hoping their journeys would not to be too difficult, praying
they encounter kindness, in retrospect I’m
pretty glad those prayers were not answered – at least not in the way I had
hoped! Like the pieces of rose quartz, some of the things that have shaped our
children’s lives for the better are the experiences they had with other people
who “rubbed off their rough edges,” even (especially) their own siblings. As a parent, I hated it when my children
fought and argued with each other. Why
couldn’t they just get along? I realize now that their friction was necessary in
helping them become who they are, and who they are yet to be. They came here to
rub the rough edges off each other so they could each share their unique beauty
with the world without being too sharp or prickly for the people and
experiences they would encounter along the way.
As I watch the children at LifeWays tussle and argue over
toys or sticks, I see their caregivers carefully yet masterfully guide them along
the long learning curve of getting along with other humans. Sometimes this
involves a gentle suggestion of a thing to say or do, other times a swift
intervention is called for (when someone is in imminent danger of being hurt),
and still other times sitting back and observing to see if they can work it out
is just the thing that is needed. In “sitting back,” I am not advocating a
free-for-all where only the strongest survive and others feel unprotected, or
worse, bullied. Many of us unfortunately experienced this on our own childhoods
and know the pain of waiting for someone to step in and help, then realizing no
one is paying attention. In
relationship-based care, we pay attention. We are always observing and asking
ourselves how we can better help the children learn what they need to learn in
an environment that supports them at each stage of their development, while nurturing
those parts of them that make them unique and beautiful.
One thing I’m reminded of each day I am privileged to work
at LifeWays, watching these children grow and learn: The process of becoming who we are meant to
be really only takes place in relationship with others, or as author Alfie Kohn
wrote, “marinated in community.” Thank you all for being part of the community
of support we together create for our children.
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