SCHOOL

     How often have you heard or even said, "Wouldn't it be great to be a kid again?".  I think that question or statement is usually uttered by some adult having a bad day.  It would probably be wonderful to be a kid again if the hard earned knowledge, experience and insight  of age remained intact during the transformation.  With age, the intensity of all those first time childhood experiences tends to fade.  It is difficult for most of us to actually recall, with all the emotion of a child, the first time we were left alone by mom.  I can barely remember a couple times I was threatened by another child.  The times I can remember are only text images without the childlike emotions I surely felt at the time.  The thing is, for children, almost every experience is a first time experience.  They remember the emotions because for them, it's realtime.  Right here and right now.  Children are in a learning mode.  That's their job.  They are supposed to learn.  And they feel every emotion attached to the learning process.  For the most part, the experience level of a child is zero.

     Children use what they have learned even before they cognitively recognize the process.  A baby cries and attention is the result.  There is no mental sentence structure related to this phenomenon in the baby's mind, but.......the baby has learned.   We start out as babies in a warm protective nest (if we're lucky) known as mom & dad.  That's the way it's supposed to be.  That's what it says here in the fine print.  We all start out thinking everyone loves us.  After all, who else is there besides mom and dad ?  (Maybe a jealous sibling or two, but mom and dad protect us from them too.)

     As the outside world begins to encroach on our little protected world we begin to experience the emotional trauma related to another phase of the learning process.  One significant part of this new phase is that the very real possibility exists that not everyone out there particularly loves us.  Competition attacks from all angles.  We have to measure up to some vague ever changing standard.  We are judged by the incompetent as well as the competent.  But as children we really can't distinguish between the two.  We are often hurt and find ourselves racing back to the nest for a dose of safety and reassurance.

     Suffice it to say the childhood, for all it's wonderful aspects, does have a down side.  Without the benefit of absolutely perfect parents (yeah, right......we're all human) the down side has it's impactive moments.  Think about this stuff for a moment.

     Now try to imagine the whole experience with a sign hanging on you that actually says you are different.  You don't fit in.  Most of the other children miss no opportunity to point it out to you.  Forced to participate in the world outside the nest and forced to do so with a glowing arrow pointed right at YOU.  I bet the first thoughts you just had were something like sadness and anger, not necessarily in that order.  Guess what,........you're right.  If you are the child in that situation it is important to throw in a fair amount of fear and confusion.

"....I did not know anything was different about me until I was in the second grade. I had just moved and was attending a new school. Up until then I was never teased or anything. Then all of a sudden I was being teased and tormented. I was no longer a typical little girl.....".  

"....I was a painfully shy little girl. Usually content to play in my own home or go to Grandmas' [which] kept me blissfully ignorant.  Sure, I had been going to the clinic since I was 18 months old, but at home I was just me....."

     School is that place children must attend to do much of the aforementioned learning.  School is very effective at teaching children.  I'm not sure the most effective lessons come from books, but school is certainly able to drive many tough lessons right to the heart of a child.

"....I think everything was fine until I went out the door to walk home.  Then IT happened. I was on the regular sidewalk ready to walk to the crossing guard and a group of bigger boys circled me and started calling me crossed eyes and monster and mean mean names. I could not escape. I started screaming for help...."

"......that appearance starts to play a role here and that was probably where problems began. I always had a couple friends in elementary school, but the "popular" kids did not have much to do with me......".

...That is the day I knew that not only was I different, but that I was different enough to be tormented for it...."