I successfully made it through the first day of this potentially very strange school year. More importantly, so did my kids. Like many, they will be attending school on a hybrid model this year where they are in the building two days a week and participating in distance learning the other three days.
Oddly, I have not been overly anxious about the start of school, or my decision to have them attend in-person (as opposed to complete remote learning.) I had weighed my pros and cons for a while, recognized there simply is no perfect solution and we made the decision that seemed most right for us. I cannot emphasize enough how important I have found it to recognize that different decisions are right for different families!
When I let myself wander down the path of “what-ifs,” I definitely become more anxious. Yet, I have always recommended sticking to facts rather than what-ifs. Now I am trying to follow my own advice. I am preparing for some negative but hoping for the best.
As I drove away from dropping off my daughter, however, I realized that even preparing for the worst has skewed my perceptions a bit. It has focused my attention disproportionately on the possibility of negatives. When we focus on them, we tend to find far more examples!
Notable to me at 7:20 this morning was how I had transformed my concern that drop-off would be a nightmare of disorganization and traffic jams into an assumption that this would definitely be the scenario. I was thankfully wrong! The school was incredibly well prepared.
As I pulled out of the school parking lot, I had a little chat with myself. I reminded myself that our concerns are valid, but they are not facts. I also observed to myself that my concerns were taking up too much brain space.
Going back to school in a pandemic is likely to bring up a huge range of worries. Those need to be addressed and validated. However, we need to be careful to give just as much of our attention to the possibility of positives.
Drop offs may be more difficult AND they may be just fine. We will likely experience technical difficulties during virtual learning AND there will be many times it will go smoothly. There is a lot of stress gained by sending our kids and teachers back AND some positive mental health gains.
When we allow our concerns to take up more mental energy than the possibility of positives, we are far more inclined to only notice the negatives.
That brings me to the second part of my conversation with myself.
I realized we need to contribute to the positives by identifying them, talking about them and praising them. We need to do this even more than we spend time complaining and criticizing. There is room to validate our concerns without forgetting to praise all the things that go smoothly.
I know I will have my moments of anxiety and frustration, as will my kids. I will try to be mindful of being a part of the solution rather than contributing to the stress.
Please note that I said “try.” I am no saint!
Click HERE to follow Psychdiary on Facebook and receive links to new blog posts.
