Back-to-school blues can hit the first grade mom to the high school senior mom.
This back-to-school week can feel like one giant heart squeeze. They say we get 18 summers with our children, and another one has already come and gone. It’s enough to make us moms weep. From first to second grade or high school to college, it can be sad to see the time move so quickly.
Studio 5 Parenting Contributor Heather Johnson helped us find our footing. She shared how we can feel emotionally steady during this time of transition.
Emotional Steadiness in Motherhood
We often think that to be emotionally sound or steady means we shouldn’t ever experience emotions. That’s not true.
“Emotional steadiness means that we know what to do when the emotions hit, not that we don’t experience them. It means that we accept them and recognize them and are even grateful because they’re telling us something,” Heather explained.
When we feel those back-to-school emotions, they’re telling us that we truly loved and enjoyed and participated in phases of our children’s lives. And, we’re sad that phase is over. Heather believes both feelings can exist.
Staying Present
Whether you have a first grader this year, who’s now going to be full-time school, or you’ve got a senior who’s now going to college, we want to stay present in it. Heather said we tend to take these milestones and allow them to mean a lot of other things.
“We allow them to mean things about the past, like we didn’t do good enough. Or we make it mean something about the future, like they’re going to get married and we’re never going to see them again. It doesn’t mean any of those things. To stay present, we want to remember that today you have a first grader,” Heather shared.
Acknowledging Grief
“Grief is loss, and this is about loss. Women feel this loss when the transitions happen, when there’s changes, and they’re out of our control. Whenever we start to feel that grief, we want to make some solid choices about how we’re going to view it and what we’re going to do with our time and energy. Focus on connection with people instead,” Heather encouraged.
Communicating with Your Children
It’s also important when you feel grief in these transitions to communicate with your children and those around you.
“We say to our kid, ‘This is going to be a challenge for me.’ Say it out loud,” Heather added, “Follow that with, ‘And here’s what I’m actively doing to manage those emotions.”
Getting Busy
It’s good time to get busy.
“Go out, do something, plan lunch dates, pick up a hobby. Go get busy. Go get engaged. Go get involved in some way. If you need to work at your kid’s school, go work there. But do something,” Heather encouraged.
Looking to the End Goal
“There’s a lot of power in recognizing what those end goals are. We want responsible, contributing members of society to launch out of our homes. We want them to have the beautiful experiences of their twenties and thirties like we had. We want them to do all of those and reach all those milestones.”
Radical Acceptance
Finally, Heather says to work on radical acceptance.
“Radical acceptance is where we look at a situation, realize we can’t control it, and so we wrap our arms around it. I can’t change the fact that my kids are getting older. It’s not going to not impact me, but I can accept it. The more I accept it, the less the emotions have negative power over me.”
To contact Heather for counseling, email blog.familyvolley@gmail.com, or visit www.familyvolley.blogspot.com.
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