Back to school for kids…and Mom

Posted in Mom Stuff
by Alicia Castelli

An extra set of school supplies needed to be bought this year – something that briefly sent my kids into a bit of a frenzy.
I recently decided to go back to school and I casually mentioned this to my 9-year-old son.
His shoulders fell, his face crumpled and his body sagged.
“How long will you be away?” he asked.
Whoops! I quickly reassured him I would still be living at home and working.
I was watching the Blue’s Clue’s episode where Steve goes off to college and the actor replacing him is introduced as Steve’s brother, Joe.
The show carefully and happily describes what it means to go to college.
The next day my 3-year-old daughter overheard a phone call between myself and a friend whom I was telling about my return-to-college plans.
Later that night, she burst into tears because she thought I was moving away to college like Steve did.
While I usually find it amusing how songs on the radio and subject matter on TV often parallels a person’s life – this was not funny.
I quickly reassured her (for several days) that I wasn’t moving away and, hoping to head off teary confrontation number three, explained to my 6-year-old that I was going back to school but would live at home.
I could tell the kids weren’t entirely convinced. Everything they’d heard about college indicated the person left home.
So on the day we bought school supplies for the boys, I decided we’d go to Lorain County Community College to buy my school supplies so the kids could see for themselves where Mommy was going to be studying.
That seemed to do it. They understood a 15-minute car drive and they asked me a lot of questions about college and they all wanted to look at my books.
So while all’s well that ends well, the whole experience was a reminder that kids process infor-mation differently from adults and often reach incorrect conclusions based on a conversations we’re absolutely certain they aren’t paying any attention to.