By Amy Keyes 
The consensus these days is that school is hard. Like, way harder than it used to be. I spend all day in it. As a seventh-grade teacher, sandwiched in the middle of some of the hardest years of life, I am a front-row spectator to what our kids face every day.
Hallways full of Axe Body Spray are actually a breath of fresh air compared to some of what kids navigate throughout their days—packed classrooms of heated hormones can bring on some, as they say today, “skibidi toilet” days that leave kids feeling like they are stuck in a daily maze just trying to find the exit.
The tide seems to be turning a little, but honestly, I think we are still all trying to re-lace the social and academic frayed threads from our years navigating new ways of learning during the peak of COVID. Still recovering from the trauma we swam in as a collective whole. Still trying to outline with Sharpie some of the blurred boundaries that spill into the way kids show up to school even years later.
I have two teenagers of my own, and by the time they roll in at night and I’m ready to bombard them with my laundry list of reminders of what expect from them, it seems like I’ve already forgotten what I see my students experience all day long.
I need to back up and widen my lens. Our kids are trying so hard to make it through the day. Whether it’s academically, socially, emotionally, physically—it’s like a full-time job for them, and it’s exhausting. Multiple classes to balance. Multiple teachers to deal with. Multiple peers making or breaking their hearts day in and day out. Multiple boxes of tissue emptied every few days from trying to keep their heads clear in the thick of cold and flu season. It’s a lot. And then they go home if they are lucky enough to even have that luxury.
I feel like my shift from teacher to mom mode every night leaves me forgetting that they are coming home from being in the thick of it every single day. Dealing with all of it—controlling what they can for themselves but also being in a setting where most of what they are experiencing is actually out of their control.
My need to have the laundry folded and put away, the dishwasher emptied, the dog walked—all the things—often overtakes my ability to remember that they are walking in carrying all of the baggage from their days. And that baggage is heavy. Even on the best days. School is hard. So why am I making the nights even harder for them?
What I think I’m realizing is that they need to breathe. To deescalate. To have some time to just be them without having to be students who have been working so hard to meet all of the expectations that have been thrown at them all day.
I have the ability to make their nights easier. I don’t need to have them do it all on my timeline, just because that’s what I want or because I’ve had the time to unpack the baggage of my day already. Maybe some unwinding—a spontaneous bonfire and s’mores before the homework, or a quick game of basketball, or some surprise ice cream sundaes to add some sweetness to the day.
That’s not to say I shouldn’t help keep them on the track to being responsible citizens in the world and build the habits I know they will need as adults: making sure their grades are on track, that the floor of their rooms is somewhat visible, that they stay true to their commitment to walk the dog every day. I just think maybe there is room in their night for everything. And maybe, the order of it doesn’t have to be determined by me.
Maybe, I have the power to turn the “skibidi toilet” stuff into a sigma night for them just by giving them the time, space, and grace they need.
by Whitney Fleming 
