Dear Paragon Parents,
When I was growing up, my parents weren’t particularly hands-on when it came to my social life. My dad was a race car driver, so I went to car races. My mom is an artist, so I went to art shows. Neither was exactly designed with children in mind! The picture above is of me, at a car race, throughly annoyed, and about 9 years old. Often, there were only a handful of other kids around, and if I wanted someone to talk to or play with, it was up to me to find them. I remember plenty of moments standing around feeling awkward, uncomfortable, and very much alone.
When I became a parent, I promised myself I would do it differently. I would take my kids to kid-friendly events. I would make sure they had friends there. I would arrange the playdates, make the plans, and help create opportunities for them to feel included. And for the most part, I still do. But as my children have gotten older—and as I’ve spent my career watching children grow—I’ve started wondering: Have I sometimes made it too easy?
Because somewhere in all those uncomfortable childhood experiences, I learned some incredibly important skills. I became good at walking into a room where I didn’t know anyone. I learned how to introduce myself, survive an awkward conversation, recover when someone didn’t want to be my friend, and try again. I remember what loneliness and being left out feel like, and those memories have made me incredibly sensitive to making sure the people around me feel like they belong. Eventually, I became the organizer, the plan-maker, the nucleus of my friend groups—the person who brings people together and makes sure there is room for everyone.
And it makes me wonder: Would I have become that person if someone had always made it easy for me? Would I know how important inclusion is if I had never felt excluded? Would I be comfortable walking into an unfamiliar room if someone had always made sure my best friend was waiting for me? As parents, our instinct is to protect our children from the hurts we remember most vividly from our own childhoods. But sometimes I wonder if, in protecting them from those experiences, we might also unintentionally protect them from developing some of the very skills those experiences taught us.
Parenting makes that line incredibly hard to find. When do we step in, and when do we give our children the opportunity to struggle a little, feel uncomfortable, make a mistake, and figure it out? I wrestle with that question all the time. So this week, I invite you to think about your own childhood. What was hard for you? What did you learn because it was hard? And in trying to protect your child from experiencing that same hurt, is there a skill you perfected through struggle that they might need the opportunity to develop, too? There isn’t an easy answer—but maybe asking ourselves the question is a good place to start.
Wishing you a wonderful week,
Lindsay Hay, M.Ed.
Head of School
