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Last Day of School Blues: Making Space for Sad

Last Day of School Blues: Making Space for Sad

Last updated on: June 7, 2017 at 7:32 am by Erin Wathen

Last Day of School Blues: Making Space for Sad 2017-06-07T07:32:30-07:00 Erin Wathen

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My boy is 6. He hasn’t gotten the memo that the last day of school is exciting and fun and awesome.

Both of my kids have always loved school, from Pre-K onward. Never a tearful “don’t leave me moment,” never an “I don’t want to wake up” day, and (so far, knock on wood) no mean kid drama. And all around, nothing but wonderful teachers.

But there was something especially magical about this year of Kindergarten. A class that just clicked from day 1, a teacher who makes Mary Poppins look like a grump, at the school that my husband and I tell our kids is pretty much Disneyland, compared to the schools we grew up in.

Side note here–do any of you GenXer’s feel us?? I mean, our kids spend their days skipping from music and art classes, to computer and P.E; and then on to some exciting science thing, some creative writing endeavor; an amazing group learning experience in a classroom surrounded by fun stimuli, and then the extra recess that they earned for good behavior this week. Further–it is always someone’s birthday, or a holiday, or–at least twice a year– a super awesome field trip.

When I was in school, (in the snow, uphill both ways, etc), I recall spending 7 hours a day at desks. Desks arranged in straight, forward-facing lines. Twice a day, there was a brief 15 minute respite on a playground full of crumbling equipment. Perhaps it is more decrepit my memory than it was in real life–but I do remember multiple injuries amongst my classmates that, in this day and time, would probably amount to a lawsuit.

(*This is to imply no ill-will towards my elementary teachers. Who were, for the most part, wonderful in their own ways. With the exception of a particular grade I will not name because, true to small town life, that teacher may be reading this. And if she’s not, her mother and/or children probably are.)

Maybe I am being uncharitable in my recollections, all around. OR– and this is probably the heart of it– the public education experience has come a long way in the last 3 decades, and our kids benefit from what our teachers learned from years of trying to engage us through long, tedious, forward-facing exercises.

All this is to say, fast-forward 30+ years. Recalling the last day of school as a celebration–the end of long bus rides and hard desks! the beginning of weeks of freedom to watch cartoons and eat junk cereal and play with my neighbors!–I had utterly no frame of reference for how genuinely heart-broken my son was yesterday, on his very last day of Kindergarten.

I should have known. He’s been saying reflective things for weeks about how “I can’t believe Kindergarten is almost over!” and “I will be so sad when school is out.” When I suggested that he draw a picture and write a nice note to his teacher the other day, his letter said, “I hope the last day of school lasts a long time, because I don’t want it to end.”

So by the time we got home yesterday, he was a sad puddle on the floor. A mopey, pitiful mess.

*not my actual kid. I simulated sad kid from the internet.

My own not-too-exciting school years aside, I have never been one to grieve major life passages. I don’t sniffle about “they aren’t little any more,” and “where did my baby go.” I err on the side of “look what amazing little people they are becoming,” and “I’m so thankful they are so healthy and strong and growing like they should.” I am eternally the “what’s next” person. I rarely let myself grieve the thing that’s passing, because I’m too focused on moving right along to the next big fun thing.

Like any good parent, I cannot stand to see my kid sad. So I tried everything to cheer him up. I assured him 1st grade would be just as amazing; I reminded him of the picnic we were going to in just a few minutes, where we would see school friends again; I went into the litany of fun things about summer:

“Just think bud… You’ve got all summer to play with your church friends, and your baseball friends, and your cousins!”

At which point he miserably leaned his head against the wall and wailed, “I know… but it’s still not as fun as school.”

Well, what can you say to that?

Seeing that his sadness was not going to be deterred by any amount of ‘fun,’ I remembered that I am an Enneagram 7. Let’s face it, I am basically “Joy” from Inside Out. There’s no room for sadness here! We don’t need you!

But for the rest of the world, and for folks more wise than me, joy and fun are not the answer to everything. Some things simply need to be grieved. However much hopeful and awesome lies ahead.

And what I heard him really saying was… I will never be in Kindergarten again. I will never be in just that classroom, with just exactly that group of friends, and just that one teacher who loved me so well, and saw particular gifts in me that others had yet to recognize. I am done with the days of school being primarily playtime. I don’t get to be “the little kids” ever again.

So I let him be sad. I quit trying to comfort and distract, because clearly he was doing some deeper spiritual work of letting go. Work that I often avoid, because really, if we let it sink in what is passing, we would be depressed most of the time.

But there’s a balance.

Most of this parenting thing–and this life thing, for that matter–is walking the line between being in the moment and looking ahead. We don’t always do it well, or gracefully. I mostly err on the side of “look how big you’re getting! your life is going to be amazing!” But I’m learning to take better cues from my kids–who, in all their wisdom, know how to make space for sadness sometimes. That’s especially hard to do when everyone around you is celebrating. But it is good work, and real work, and a major milestone on the road to becoming who we are. Which is something amazing and awesome, most of the time.

*my actual sad kid. in all his wisdom. don't worry, he's fine today.

*my actual sad kid. in all his wisdom.

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