In these last days of summer, if there are children in your home, there is likely talk about school.
The First Day. The backpack. The carpool. The try-outs. The forms – all the forms – that are due or soon to be due. Sometimes you can almost smell the pencil shavings that once spilled out of the sharpener.
The start of school can take you, as the parent, back to your own teachers and classrooms of yesteryear. Regardless of how you felt about school, you have memories of those days. These may be things that you have not thought about in years – until your own child has that spelling bee, that week of standardized testing, that teacher they either adore or dislike.
Just take a step back in time for a minute. Wander through the hallways. Check out that locker. Take a deep breath of that cafeteria air.
Every day, you went to that world whether you wanted to or not. You sat in the same seats, at the same desks and had the same workbooks. You stared at the blackboards. You wandered the halls. You went to gym class, health class – math and English too. You raised your hand. You had recess on the blacktop or shot hoops in the gym. You rode the bus and walked home. You were in the school play. You went to dances and football games.
You had a best friend. Or lots of friends. There were Friday nights at the movies. Saturdays at the mall. You played on soccer teams and baseball teams. You went to gymnastics and ballet. You sold Girl Scout cookies, wrapping paper, or cans of popcorn. Maybe you even had a lemonade stand.
The summer days back then were long and lazy. You went to the pool. Or vacationed at the beach. You rode go-carts, bikes and slides.
Your own memories of your childhood may include these snapshots or be totally different. But as you watch your own children grow over the years, it is likely that at least once in a while a memory of your own childhood surfaces.
Sometimes, when you are a kid, it seems like you will never grow up. But once you actually become an adult, you realize just how important it was to have that time. Childhood is fleeting.
As co-parents, it is easy to get caught up in the game of “my time versus your time.” Counting and measuring. Comparing.
The grief that comes from no longer being able to see your child’s sleepy face each morning can fuel this “me against you” war if you let it. Regret and guilt may play a part. If the separation was not your idea, a desire for revenge may also enter the equation.
But in this nasty war for time at the co-parent level, often it is the child’s world that is trampled. A parent who feels his or her time is too limited may in turn restrict what the child is able to do during his or her access time. The parent misses the child. The parent wants all of his or her allotted parenting time to be spent together with the child. The parent feels justified.
However, this short-sighted stance that a parent’s post-divorce grief may breed can easily disrupt the child’s world. While the parent may see himself or herself as “child-centered,” the behaviors speak differently.
A better approach is to strive to allow the child to have his or her world, despite the separation. When this goal is shared, both co-parents will sometimes “lose time.” But in losing, they are actually winning. Because they both are then truly putting the child first.