Mindfulness Miracle?
Remember when I told you about my anxious kid who has a brutal time with change and new things? Well, things seem amazingly calm.
Well, school started this week. I was pretty worried. For a lot of the year last year drop-off was a struggle. I often had to bring him right into the classroom. There were often tears. School was a source of great stress and anxiety for him.
This past week has been like a miracle
It has been as though someone came and replaced my kid with some other relaxed kid. Some kid who acts much more like the other kids I see around me. Kids that laugh and play with their peers before school. Kids who make me wonder if somehow I have broken mine without knowing it. (Obviously I know this isn’t the case and everyone is different, but you know, parents are a paranoid lot).
Our hope was that grade one would be easier for him because there is more structure, and there are desks. Oh, the desks. He was so excited at the prospect of desks. No one crawling all over him in excited anticipation of whatever activity was next. His own little square of space carved out. The sweet relief of that little bit of space just for him that he knew was his and he didn’t have to fight for every day.
But here’s the thing, it wasn’t that he eased into it and things got better. No no. I’m talking from the first day of school. Things have been fantastic.
And that’s after a whole lot of stress and anxiety throughout the summer of various summer camps. It’s not like there has been some gradual change that I just haven’t noticed. This is a huge change in a short period of time.
It’s the mindfulness and meditation
Honestly guys, it’s the only thing I can attribute it to. If it hadn’t been the first day then I’d have all sorts of other explanations. But seriously, the first day, that’s supposed to be the most stressful one. It has been some miracle thing. He has taken to it in such an amazing way.
I’ll be honest, I’m a bit jealous. I mean, I’m incredibly relieved and happy; happy for him and his relief, but also frankly, happy for me and my own relief at not being as worried about him in the same constant gut-wrenching way. But I am also jealous that in such a short time there seems to have been such drastic improvements.
I have been working on mindfulness for ages and never had the dramatic results he has. Now I am doing the same things as him daily, and also not the same results. So there is that tiny petty part of me that is jealous that it hasn’t been the same miraculous thing for me. I think as parents we’re not supposed to admit to being jealous of our kids, but, well, there you have it.
But it also makes me incredibly curious. What is it about a kid’s brain that makes them more open to this kind of stuff. Because I really think that’s probably what it is. They are still open and learning and building those synapses at an amazing rate. Hell, they’re still building brain cells instead of losing them, right? (okay, so, the jury is still out on this…)
Maybe it’s also just a general lack of skepticism, although, I have to say, I’m not much of a skeptic. There is so much scientific backing on the effectiveness of mindfulness.
But whatever. None of that matters really. It’s just piqued my interest. I’m a bit of an overthinker and I’ll own that. Mostly though I’m just happy that my kiddo is doing so much better.
