Welcome to a new blog that I will be writing from time to
time to communicate about events at BGA, reflect on readings, and recognize
milestones. There is much to be
celebrated and communicated about the first few weeks of the school year, from
the opening of the Mary Campbell Visual Arts Center to the fall athletic season
to the impressive number of National Merit Semifinalists (six)—an unusually
large number for BGA and above nearly all of our peer schools.
I
thought I would open this blog in a different way, though, by reflecting on a
book I read this summer and the opening of school for our three-year-old
daughter, Claire. Wendy Mogel’s book, Blessings of A Skinned Knee, has received
a lot of press and accolades for its combination of practical advice, universal
wisdom, and gentle humor. Mogel combines
Talmudic teachings and excerpts from the Torah in keeping with her Jewish
faith, as well as personal stories and interviews. The primary theme of the book is that as a
culture we risk undermining the resiliency in our children and insulating them
from the normal disappointments and failures that accompany growth. Certainly, in our work with parents in a
kindergarten through twelfth grade school, we see the potential results of this
tendency. Mogel cites testimony from
college administrators, for example, who point out that there is a rising
number of young people who return home during the first semester of college
because they are not equipped to live and work independently in that
environment. College deans use the image
of “teacups” to describe these incoming students, who are so overprotected and
fragile that they tend to crack and break very easily.
As parents of a young child my wife, Dana, and
I have more than an academic interest in this subject. On almost a daily basis, we, too, are
negotiating the boundaries and trying to find the balance between allowing our
young people the freedom to struggle, take risks, sometimes fail, suffer
appropriate consequences, learn coping skills, and, at the same time, protecting
them from real dangers and risks, providing needed support, offering important
advice and counsel. Mogel reminds us:
Your child is not your masterpiece.
According to Jewish thought, your child is not even truly “yours.” In Hebrew
there is no verb for possession; the expression we translate as “to have,” yesh li, actually means “it is there for
me” or “there is for me.” Although nothing belongs to us, God has made
everything available on loan and has invited us to borrow it to further the
purpose of holiness. This includes our children. They are a precious loan, and
each one has a unique path toward serving God. Our job is to help them find out
what it is.
In the daily work of finding those boundaries with Claire
and avoiding the temptation to give in to what our own pediatrician
acknowledges is a very sweet but “strong-willed” child, Dana and I can certainly
benefit from the sage advice of someone like Wendy Mogel.
As a faculty and administrative
team we work together with our parents in the interest of all of our BGA children, challenging and
nurturing in a delicate balance. As we do so, I will certainly refer back to this light and
enjoyable read. In the meantime, Dana
and I have an ample supply of Dora band aids, and a little girl who frequently
falls but rarely cries; she often reminds us, in one of her predictable
responses, “I have a boo boo. .” She
adds, “That’s o.k. I’m tough.” To this, I achingly but silently reply, “I
hope you are.” We hope that this resiliency carries with her
for many, many years and appreciate, in advance, the wise adults who will help
her to grow in that way.
