I have walked five children into kindergarten and filmed those same five children walking across a high school graduation stage.
The oldest one is married with a mortgage. The youngest just earned her diploma. In the life cycle of parenting, getting them to young adulthood closes a loop (IT OPENS A WHOLE ‘NOTHER LOOP THAT NO ONE TOLD US ABOUT but that is another essay).
Internet, if I had back even one-millionth of the minutes I spent worrying about [[checks notes]] absolutely everything, I could have brokered world peace with the free time. Now to be sure, some things are worth worrying about, but I feel confident I don’t need to talk moms into any parenting anxiety.
Instead, I am here to shove a few worries off your plate after discovering I should have concentrated on real things instead of how to save my children from a submerged car I accidentally drove off a bridge.
For the moms of kinders and littles, stop worrying about the following:
1 – He is not reading/adding/writing as quickly as his lil’ classmates.
“I think he is behind,” your mom might say to you. How will he make it in this life if he cannot tell the difference between a B and a D?? He’ll get there — and stop worrying. Kids develop at wildly different paces.
Don’t sit his tiny body in a chair AFTER eight hours of school and force feed him more instruction. That baby is cooked.
Sure, there is an “average” and a “bell curve” and a “baseline” and then billions of kids just go ahead and read when they are ready and grow up to have a successful career in HR. In some cases, kids definitely need extra scaffolding, but in most cases, they just need to go to recess.
2 – She is not in enough extracurricular activities.
How will she ever get a full-ride soccer scholarship?? She won’t no matter what, so let’s go ahead and take that down a hundred notches. On what planet did we decide first graders needed three activities OUTSIDE of school which is a full-time job? A full time job!
Your kids can absolutely come home after school and play, and that is their little life. If she is not enrolled in violin lessons, t-ball, art class, and theater at age 7, well, she will grow up EXACTLY like the kids who are but less exhausted. Littles do not need to be programmed twelve hours a day. She is not going to “get behind.”
Look at those kids on the soccer field; they aren’t going to Stanford on an athletic scholarship, bruh.
3 – Your kid is way, way, way different than you — and you are freaking out.
The college quarterback spawned a quirky little mathlete. The thespian parent ended up with a wide receiver. The prom queen’s daughter eats her lunch with the librarian.
Why isn’t he more athletic? Why is she such a wild stallion? Why aren’t they more outgoing? Why are they so outgoing? Because they are who they are. After five, I can tell you kids are exactly themselves from the jump. There is nothing wrong with them.
Let them be as quiet, silly, weird, driven, shy, awkward, hilarious, or outrageous as they are. As I’ve said a million times: we raise the kids we have, not the kids we were (or the other kids we have) (or the kid we thought we’d have). Celebrate them in their exact little container. My girlfriend Leslie, the gentlest pacifist on planet earth, birthed a Navy Seal. Hooyah!
Spend energy instead on these ideas:
1- Are my kids learning how to be kind?
Are we teaching them to notice the left out kid, the new kid, the awkward kid? Do we model generous language and make a big effing deal when our kids demonstrate kindness?
We can’t let our kids get away with bullying ever. Nip that in the bud early and swiftly. Mean little kids turn into mean teens and even meaner adults, and then they get Instagram accounts. WE KNOW WHO THEY ARE.
Sure, praise good report cards and clean rooms, but go whole hog when your kid acts kind, inclusive, and compassionate. Shaping their character matters more than anything we spend our parenting energy on. It’s now or never, man.
2- Model ownership and repair early.
Telling our kids “I’m sorry” and “I was wrong” and “if I could do that again, I would say ____” and “will you forgive me” is a masterclass in emotional intelligence. When kids have never seen their own parents apologize and own bad behavior, where will they learn it?
If we pretend out shit never stinks and humility is beneath us, we will raise self-centered children whose pride will outpace their tenderness. Most parenting is caught not taught. They emulate what they see more than what we say. Make sure they see a path through mistakes and repair. Give them the gift of relational mentorship.
3 – Instead of worrying about their inevitable bad choices, make sure instead they will tell you when they do.
This is an imperfect mechanism because kids are liars (yes, yours too), but if we overreact, overrespond, shame, and isolate them when they mess up, we’ll drive them into the shadows.
We can say things proactively like: “Literally no matter how badly you screw up, you can come to me,” and “No matter what you tell me, we will figure it out together,” and “I promise to always be safe for you.” Then when they blow it in plain sight or have the courage to tell you after the fact, refuse to use humiliation.
If you need a minute to collect your wits, use Kelly Corrigan’s extension tool: “Okay, tell me more.” If they can fail without your shame-based reaction in first grade, they will come to you when they are seniors and the stakes are higher.
I would say all of this works about 67% of the time, and that is almost passing.
We are still human moms raising human children in human homes, and those little kinder babies will make some choices in ten years that will send you to the fainting couch. You will stand in front of your tall son one day and say in complete seriousness: “Is there any possible way you can just get a D??” You will not parent perfectly because that is not real. Your kids will not grow up perfectly because that is not real.
But most of your worries will never come to pass and aren’t worth worrying about in the first place. Don’t invent problems; you’ll have enough real ones to manage when your precious kindergartener smokes pot on your roof in a few years. Character, heart, integrity — those are the biggies. You can let most of the rest go. It all works out; or it doesn’t but you figure it out.
You are doing a beautiful job. You are mothering with all your heart and soul and energy and grit, and that matters. The stuff you are hoping will stick, mostly sticks. The stuff that keeps you up at night mostly evaporates. Exhale, mamas. They are going to grow up one way or another, so might as well enjoy it more and worry about it less. It goes fast.
But maybe focus on saving money for college because your kid isn’t getting a tennis scholarship.