4th Grade Blues...

The school season for our family is off to an interesting start this year. Little one is now in 4th grade but is not so sure she is happy about that. In fact, she is pretty sure she hates school and almost everything about it, from getting up early in the morning to P.E.

Of course I would feel better about sending her if she bounced out of bed in the morning, anxious to get on the road. I have to realize that I myself do not bounce out of bed in the morning anxious to get to work…never have been one of those people. I’m not really sure I know of a job which would get me to bounce out of bed ready to go…maybe if I was on the ski patrol at a ski resort. (I love to snow ski!)

So, I have to admit that, probably my daughter’s vocal protesting is, in part, a direct result of my own. Hey, what they see us do they imagine they have implicit permission to do themselves.
I know there are other factors at play. I know her 4th grade teacher is in it for the students to learn and really doesn’t seem to care if they like her or not. I would be a different kind of teacher, overly concerned that every student liked me. But it is foolish to think that we are all motivated in that direction. Some are in this for power, some for accomplishment, some for a paycheck, some for love.

I think it’s good that Little One has finally met a teacher who just wants her to be a student. It’s ok for her not to immediately have an adult wrapped around her little finger. It will build character.

Of course we all know that this teacher would not have been my first choice. I’m afraid, given the choice between a teacher who is there to teach and one who makes it her business to “love” each of the kids in her class…I would have opted for the latter. Good thing we didn’t request teachers this year. We left it up to prayer…or to the person in the office who randomly assigned students to the class.

Prayer still covers it though. God knows what class Little One is in. And He knows her needs for love. And He is ultimately better at providing that for her than any teacher, or ever her Daddy will ever be.

So, until Little One is cursed at, punished unfairly, or bullied, Daddy will just sit back, watching her suffer, listening to her “I hate school” blues, feeling my heart be sucked out of my chest as she makes the slow “death march” from my car to the school entrance every morning, reminding myself that...what doesn't kill her, builds her character.

Character building sucks.