Blog Challenge Day 13: My Earliest Memory (and how it has affected my parenting)

I can remember being in kindergarten.  I can still see the classroom itself.  It was huge, but then I was four years old and I’m sure everything was big through my eyes.  I remember playing at the water station and just being so content there.  I was likely doing something that I shouldn’t have been though, because the teacher started to yell at me (it was 1980) and then made me go sit in the corner.  I still remember feeling so scared because I was being yelled at and so sad because I really wanted to play in the water.

It’s funny that this happens to be the challenge for today, because this memory has been popping up in my thoughts lately.  For the first time, I can remember being my kids’ ages.  I can really have a genuine empathy with how incredibly big the world is to them, how loud and scary a yell is, and how unsettling a roller coaster of uncontrollable emotions can be.

All of this helps.  It helps me to guide them through this stage of their lives rather than simply react to it.  They’re just little people discovering the giant world around them and it’s my job to make it less scary and more encouraging, as I help them navigate their way through it.