Back to School: Sharing Memories 

Back to school season means many things: happy parents and sad children to name just a couple. But, there are so many other things that accompany this important time of the year. More than ever, there are concerns about things that we never worried about previously. School violence, bullying, human trafficking and safety, to name a few. It is important for parents to help create an environment of respect and safety for their children, all while doing their very best to make certain that joy and laughter propels them through the dreary and difficult moments, which for a child, can seem like years. The gift of time is miraculously suspended in the life of an imaginative child. Time moves slowly and seems endless for them, while for us it is fleeting. 

Try to put yourself back in the days when you were a child and remember how things used to be. What did you like about those days? What did you love? What were you challenged by and what was hurtful in those days? What do you wish you could change? 

More and more, being plugged into technology takes precious time away from face-to-face communication that is crucial to a child's development of empathy, and understanding of social interaction. Parents and children sit at dining room tables on their phones-and we all shake our heads. We have to remind our friends to please put down their own phones when we are meeting with them and sharing a meal. Why not try to have just three little conversations this back-to-school season where you teach your children not only about face-to-face communication, but about the importance of how they can always communicate anything to you? Use stories from your own childhood experiences to make them laugh and to teach a serious lesson in a way that dwells not so much on the content, but on the process. Show them a couple of photos for your school days. Help them to understand that you, too, were once a kid facing the difficulties of bullying and the anxieties that come with school. Make it short, funny, simple and loving. Just three little conversations. Please try!

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