Holding spaces for children to learn and grow is sacred work, particularly when we care deeply. Whether we are launching the school year, full-swing, or winding down, it can be exhausting.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to hold everything well. When there’s a vice grip on my heart and my breathing is shallow, that’s when I know I am in the frenzy of trying to ‘do’ enough.
Recently, I was describing my own overwhelm to a mentor of mine and she replied with gentle encouragement smiling on her lips, “Let’s pause to celebrate your achievements big and small.”
Let’s pause to celebrate achievements big and small.
What are our achievements? How can we remind ourselves that we are doing our best? What is influencing the children in our lives for good?
In our schools and homes, our most notable achievement is:
We do it together!
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We create community. We work through challenges together. In the ups and downs we hang in there with each other. We don’t throw in the towel. We stay together.
Yes, our morning routine may fall apart or our math unit is a mess. Yes, there are flaws and imperfections. But, we do it together!
Let’s celebrate our togetherness, our belonging!
invites us to focus on the five most important journeys of a child: faith, worthiness, selfhood, belonging, and changemaking.
Belonging is the most difficult. It seems the least necessary. Our culture supports it the least. We are afraid of each other’s differences. We have expectations of each other that can’t be fulfilled. Belonging is fraught with land mines and pitfalls that would make Mario shutter.
However, when we have meaningful relationships we are happy! The research backs me up! Belonging is what leads to lifelong fulfillment.
Moving towards acceptance and togetherness will reap eternal rewards.
We model the belonging journey in our classrooms and in our homes! We offer children the lived experience of togetherness, as imperfect as we all are.
Sometimes we can’t celebrate belonging.
What if we weren’t able to stay together? In our homes or in our schools?
There are places in my life right now where “belonging” is broken and hearts are aching with a throb beyond physical pain. I visit those dark alleys too. In the shadow places, the spirit of celebration may feel like a delectable fruit too high on a tree, simply out of reach. Our humanity is heavy.
Yet, even in those places, I wonder how we can hold tenderness in the face of what seems violent?
As I look deeper into the darkness, I can still see belonging worth celebrating. I can still see community. Even in the broken places. With tenderness, I hold the celebration of our achievement of being together. I have faith in our spirit’s willingness to forge relationships despite our brokenness. Even in the painful places…
Also, I want to encourage you, if you can’t see meaningful relationships in your life and your loneliness shouts at you above the celebration, I encourage you to invest in a faith community, a learning community, or relationships aligned with who you are. Just stick with it. It will be imperfect. Welcoming takes time.
Here are a few questions to help you focus on your celebrations:
What does my child learn from the most difficult relationships?
What am I learning from those relationships?
Who in our community feeds my child’s soul? How can I give thanks?
What is happening in our classroom community that makes us a team? How can we rehearse and remember that achievement?
I hope you can feel the significance of our achievement in togetherness!
For the sake of the children,
Karine
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