Hey, this is Wayne.

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Again, that's creatingamasterpiece.com and get more So again, word smart children who like to talk and read and write and listen are going to find school to be a friendlier place because what do we do all day in school?

We talk and we read and we write and we listen.

So it's possible that they're anxious about school because they don't feel smart Don't be afraid of the dark.

Be careful with stars.

Not every light is gonna guide you, baby.

Not every light is gonna guide So Dr.

Kathy, today on the Celebrate Kids podcast, in this daily segment, Facing the Dark, I want to look a little bit at going back to school.

I mean, there's tons of kids and families that are in, I would maybe say, the anxious moments, right?

It's rebuilding muscles of going through routine, you know, finding the clothes and packing lunches, and it can cause some anxiety when kids now leave home and go into a new classroom.

Especially partly because this generation went through some really challenging times in school that some might call them COVID kids.

These are the kids that were born, some of them during COVID, and they're having their first years and they lived their first years inside the pandemic.

And now those kids are starting to enter kindergarten.

When kids are anxious about school, what are they really telling us Well, that's a great question.

One possibility would be that they're believing the lie that it should always be fun, which is why I recommend that parents don't send their kids off to school saying, you know, have fun today because the purpose of school is to not have, I mean, the purpose of school is.

Fun is not the purpose of school.

I want children to enjoy school and they can have fun there.

But I don't think presenting to kids that the goal is fun is appropriate.

Then by 10 a.m.

if they haven't had fun, they have a bad day, they come home, it was a bad day, how come it wasn't fun?

Then that'd be fun.

It's about learning.

Like I love to tell my audiences, look up school in a dictionary.

It does not say a fun place.

You know, idea like when I taught second graders, I wanted the children to want to come to school and not necessarily want to leave.

Not because home was bad, but because school was so good.

So is learning, you know, celebrated and is progress recognized and is there, is there joy?

Do we clap when we discover new truths?

Do we acknowledge progress that we've made in being unified and being diligent, careful learners, et cetera?

So part of anxiety might be that they don't understand the purpose of school.

Anxiety also could be a disconnect with the teacher, right?

And Wayne, we've been there, you know, we don't connect with every teacher and that's okay.

The older you are, the more that you know that it's going to happen.

But if you're young and you're inexperienced with schooling and you don't feel safe, boy, pay attention to that.

If a child is consistently coming home with the same message and they won't talk to you about what's going on, I would go and observe.

I'd take a half day off of work and I'd go and observe.

I'd get to know the teacher and, you know, what have you noticed about my daughter, Alice, and see if she knows your daughter, Alice.

And if it's two weeks in and she doesn't know Alice yet, I'd be concerned.

That's a teacher who's teaching content, not children.

And that's something that, you know, at Celebrate Kids, we feel very strongly about.

It also could be a lack of fit with schooling, right, Wayne?

You know, we teach the eight smarts and we teach that there are some school smarts and some smarts that are very important in life, but not as necessarily important in school.

So again, word smart children who like to talk and read and write and listen are going to find school to be a friendlier place.

Cause what do we do all day in school?

We talk and we read and we write and we listen.

So it's possible that they're anxious about school because they don't feel smart there or good there or able to contribute there.

So now this is a situation where we read to them more at night and we, you know, go to bookstores on a Saturday morning and we introduce them to the love of reading and we are good examples at home, especially dads.

of reading and reading out loud with their kids and really enjoying it.

So those are some of the things that I would communicate, and this is a good question about anxiety.

It doesn't need to be a part of You know, Dr.

Cathy, I think that's great, but there is a reality with some kids, and I think it's natural for us to lean into.

The fact that most of these young kids, especially the kindergarten, pre-kindergarten, first grade, second grade, they're kind of in that setting and that season where they were in a really challenging time culturally and historically.

And they had maybe developed, you know, preferences with how they were being raised because that's what they were being raised with.

A lot of mom and dad time.

A lot of siblings around time, a lot of close intimate family time.

And now we're going off to school and it's, man, this could be a jarring time.

And I think it even goes to homeschooling, right?

Whether it's with co-ops, or we're going to the zoo today, or we're doing these other things, there can be a lot of anxiety in that.

And I want to ask you a little bit more forcefully, kind of, what do we do when our kids are anxious Do we accommodate them?

Do we kind of say, well, they grew up in a tough time, and we need to understand that?

Do we push them and say, you know what, toughen up, Buttercup.

We're going to rub some dirt on it today, and we're going to get to class.

You're going to be fine, and I'll pick you up at 3 o'clock.

Or toughen up.

We're going to go to this thing, and you just got to get over yourself.

And, you know, I'm sorry for whatever happened in the past, especially with the pandemic.

Let's just move on, you know, and we kind of push through it.

Is there a, I know that you're going to say it depends, right?

Because that's just the way that you answer these questions.

But I want to know a little bit, do we need to be accommodating to our kids, knowing their maybe even, you know, learning environment preferences I think we need to be understanding.

I appreciate your heart.

I do think we need to understand that.

Their early experiences with learning were over, um, you know, virtual platform.

They didn't get a lot of feedback.

They, they were isolated.

They didn't have the ability to read and understand and respond to body language because we were masking or it wasn't necessary because the teacher was over there and I'm over here and all my classmates are over where they are.

So they didn't have to develop interpersonal skills and agreeing to disagree and listening to each other and we might have developed a king of the mountain kind of mentality that my ideas are best because they're mine and I don't need to listen to all these other people they're so far away.

So I think we understand all that but we don't give it too much credence.

You know, I'll say until the day I die that the past can inform you, but it ought not control you.

And so, yes, it informs us that this is why children may be skittish.

They may need to be taught skills.

I think rather than like accommodating, I don't want us to, hey, you can stay home today because you're not in the mood to go to school.

No, we teach them friendship levels.

We teach them relational skills.

We teach them about the value of eye contact.

We teach them how to listen better.

We teach them humility so that they're able to listen to a classmate.

Like one of the things that our young children didn't learn was discussions and small group work.

And so they were isolated with their ideas.

Now they're in kindergarten and there's, you know, seven children at the housekeeping corner and they're all supposed to play together.

You know, there's 20 children painting and you're supposed to affirm each other's, you know, watercolor.

And how can you do that?

If you're prideful, you can't, you want yours affirmed.

So I think there's skills we teach that develop healthy relationships.

And I think one of those skills would be authority, respect for authority.

And then the character of teachability and humility and grace and generosity and joy and gratitude.

I think those things are going to change anybody.

So let's be aware of what they're lacking, but let's not I love that, Dr.

Cathy.

It's really helpful.

I do want to get to this other point, though, that I feel like sometimes when I drop my kids off at school or we're kind of like walking through the dynamic of what school is, right, they come home, they might have some reading projects that they have to do.

They might have a big you know, math tests coming up, they have to learn spelling words, it can feel like we're punishing them sometimes, I think, at least in their eyes, right?

They don't, they didn't sign up for this, they aren't sure about this, you know, and we want to work to change their posture with school, but man, it's so hard.

So, when our kids are maybe anxious, or they do feel like, man, this is just punishment, and I don't like this, what would you like to see parents do in Well, if it's a regular basis that they're thinking they're being punished, I would question the school I'm sending my kids to, you know, and I don't say that lightly, but I mean, school is learning what you don't yet know.

If, if kids say to me, a school is hard, I'm like, well, good.

And they're like, no, I said it was hard.

I'm like, good.

Because if it wasn't hard, you wouldn't need to be there.

Right.

The purpose of school is to learn what you don't yet know.

The purpose of education is not to get you ready for more education.

The purpose of education is to get you ready for life.

So there will be things that are challenging, both ideas that are challenging and ways of working that are challenging.

And you're young and can you trust us?

Like, can you trust us to know what is best for you?

And this is a season where Monday through Friday, you know, this is, this is the way that it works.

And again, I'll say that if it's a regular basis where the kids are stressed and anxious and you're anxious, and they're not understanding why they're doing what they're doing, then again, I would question why we're in that school.

As a quick example, spelling words.

Kids will say all the time, why do I have to learn these spelling words?

Well, you learn spelling words so you can write.

So if children who are in our kindergarten, first and second grade classrooms are not allowed to write, even with invented spelling, if they're not allowed to use spelling words in sentences to communicate a thank you note to the principal, If they're not encouraged to write, you know, on grandparents day, a note to grandma and grandpa, even with misspelled words, they're not going to understand.

I learned to spell so that I can write meaningful notes to the people I love.

Are we giving them purpose for what they're learning?

If not, they're going to think that all it is is a punishment and just a nonsense kind of an exercise, which is not good.

So are we listening?

Um, do we intervene appropriately?

Um, do we have fun at home and do we, do we have enjoyable times at school?

Um, and, and maybe I'll say one more thing, Wayne, that what are our expectations for them?

Right.

Are our expectations for our children age appropriate and are the expectations that we have.

for our younger and older and in between kids, I'm realistic for who they are, or are they just all second graders by this date will know this thing?

No, that's not fair.

We're not cookie cutters.

We weren't, you know, we're all creating God's image, but we're not all identical.

So again, those would be things that would increase anxiety that I would want to talk with the You know, as Dr.

Kathy and I were talking today, it reminded me of a passage that comes out of Joshua chapter one.

I'll begin reading in verse nine.

Have I not commanded you?

Be strong and courageous.

Don't be frightened.

Don't be dismayed.

For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

You know, this passage comes specifically out of a time in history when Joshua and the Israelites were standing at the threshold of the promised land.

after wandering for 40 years.

The Jordan River was at flood stage, and there were enemies behind city walls, and their leader Moses had died.

There was anxiety, and it was natural for them to have it as a nation.

They had new leadership.

They were embarking into a new territory, and there were new battles that loomed around every corner.

But in the middle of this, God doesn't give them a spirit of fear, but a spirit of courage and power.

And this courage does not come from their own inner strength, but really comes from God alone, and really in God's external promises.

God's word says, I am with you.

And it anchors Joshua's heart as he steps into leadership.

For kids, anxiety isn't simply just erased or replaced with a faith that's grounded in God's faithfulness.

God doesn't always remove the frightening circumstances.

He didn't do it for Joshua.

He didn't do it for Mary.

He didn't do it for Peter.

He didn't do it for Paul.

There's a reality that God is the one who carries us through all of these challenges.

And there's a dynamic here that we can give and encourage our kids with, that what they're experiencing today isn't the weight of the world.

God takes the weight of the world.

But they will have some nervousness and some fears.

And God doesn't take that away, but instead uses that as an opportunity for us to dive into a deeper relationship, trust relationship with Him.

And so as we're guiding our kids into a new week, for some of them that means new classrooms or new friendships.

It means new challenges at home with homeschool work, or it means that there may be different things inside of their life where anxiety might rise.

sometimes both theirs and ours.

But God's presence really goes before us.

We know that from what we see in Joshua and other parts of scripture.

And we know that God doesn't call our kids to be brave on their own, but he gives them promises where he says, I am with you.

God is in the fire of this new experience or this challenging time or this anxiety.

Even when these situations feel overwhelming, God is present with our kids.

We know that to be true.

So it's our call to really shape their courage in the midst of this trial, or to guide them to Christ, who shapes their courage.

That's probably more true to say.

Their worth isn't in their grades, or their performance, or their social standing.

It's natural for them, in whatever anxiety situation that they're in, to base and try to ground themselves in something that isn't God, and to find that they can do it on their own.

But they need to know, and sometimes these experiences are helpful for them to see, that they are God's beloved children in Christ, and in that He is the one who overcomes their anxiety.

So rather than trying to erase their anxiety today as parents, it might be our call, it is our call, to go and point our kids to the God who does overcome it, not always remove it.

And that happens by giving our kids courage and peace and really guiding them to an identity in Christ.

So let's pray for them before they head to school or into whatever anxious thing that they're going to walk into.

We can remind them of God's promises and how he's worked in history and in different people inside of scripture and maybe even inside of your own life.

we can reassure them that anxiety is not the end of the story and that God is faithful.

And that can give them a bright light that shines and cuts through some of the anxious times that they're experiencing today.

So I hope that's an encouragement for you.

And I hope this whole podcast is an encouragement for you.

A lot of the things that we talked about today really do come from Dr.

Kathy's book, Five to Thrive, where she goes through and unpacks a lot of different things that build identity.

And primarily what we need to have is security, security in Christ.

I want to encourage you to pick up that book by going to our website, celebratekids.com, scrolling halfway down the page, and you'll see the books there.

Just click on the one that says Five to Thrive and get the book.

It's a great resource for you to have.

And in that, we hope that this resource, the podcast, is an encouragement for you as well.

And I want to thank you for listening today to the Celebrate Kids podcast, this daily segment facing the dark.

On behalf of Dr.

Kathy Cooke, my name is Wayne Stender.

So glad you joined us today and we're looking forward to a great week with you here.