Summer Stories 2024

Good afternoon Summer Camp families,

This week was the first couple of days of being Cottage kids for several of us! Some tears were shed; some parents stayed close by, or came back early. Some parents waved goodbye to kids who seemed somehow unruffled by the new people, and the new routine, and the new space. Teachers made individual transition plans with different families, as we began to learn these particular kids, and what we think might help them thrive. 

Other Cottage kids came close to check on those new friends. Garden tours were given; pill bugs were offered; a tentative pat on the shoulder. I heard kids telling each other that mommies always come back. I heard other kids tell me that they missed their mamas, too. I heard someone introduce the other child at the art table as their best friend. I heard someone say, about someone they had met several times before, “I know her, she’s my friend!”. 

This first week of Camp was also an opportunity for me to reflect on mistake-making. It’s complicated to do the admin tasks to get set up for Summer Camp. There are so many moving parts, from folks planning their vacations, and changing camp days, to staffing, emergency preparedness, and making sure I have everybody’s paperwork on time. It would be impossible for me to do it perfectly, and so, as a recovering perfectionist, I am just leaning into grace. I gave myself a margin for error on most things, so that whenever I find out what it is that I messed up (which happened literally every day), I can pretty easily roll with it and just readjust to what I have learned. 

I am still trying to acclimate to the notion that the whole world does not expect perfection. It would be so satisfying to some part of me if everything lined up just so, people never broke traffic rules or said things that weren't true. My teeth would be straight, there would be no junk piles at my house, I would never yell. But nothing is perfect, ever, and it’s actually better that way. Our imperfections are often the most endearing parts of us. The most human parts of us. The part that draws us closer in connection, the only thing that matters. 

You will hear me say this a lot of times: all of us are allowed to make mistakes. It’s part of how we learn. Not one person here is expected to have all the answers, never be awkward, never hurt someone’s feelings by accident, or always say the right thing. Not me, not you, and definitely not our kids. Kids get an extra allowance of mistake-making because we adults have a lot more experience and executive functioning skills to keep us from making some kinds of mistakes (mostly). 

Kids are going to get mad and hit sometimes. Kids are going to say things that we wish they had not said. Kids are going to be a little too wild and somebody will get hurt. People here get to make their mistakes, and learn from them, and not have their mistakes be what defines them to us. On this first week of Camp, let that be the takeaway. There is grace enough for all of us, in whatever mistakes we will inevitably make. 

I had a chance to spend a lot of time with someone who is still getting comfortable at school a couple of days this week (multiple kids in different classes). I was trying to just be close by and be a calm, safe grownup who was listening to their feelings and not getting reactive. This is part of what we mean when we speak of "co-regulation"-- a calm person can share their calm with other people nearby, and it helps the other people feel calm and safe on an unconscious level. We are social creatures, and we sync up with each other, because it actually helps keep us safe. It helps us know when we really do need to react, and when we can relax. 

I notice that sometimes grownups feel a lot of urgency to reach resolution or get to the part they think will be the good part, where kids are off playing with their new friends. This time, I had patient parents who could see their child was having a hard time, and they were able to hold back their own excitement, and deal with maybe some of their own disappointment or worry that this wasn't as easy as it might have been, and just let it be. 

Let it be, meaning: there's nothing to fix. This is a perfectly okay way for this transition to happen, and we can just go slow and help this child feel safe and connected. And going slow and focusing on connection and relational safety is great, when we can do it that way, because it helps create memories where the child will be warmly received, and can cry or feel upset and have the space to do that, and grownups will be there to help. It's actually creating and strengthening the neural pathways that will help them have the resources to deal with stressful situations down the road.

Anyway, my favorite moment from one of those slower transitions this week was when a person who was crying and at that moment had laid down on the rug, suddenly stopped and said, "A birdhouse!" I thought, A what? And then they repeated it, so I came and laid down on the rug, too, and indeed, from that vantage point, we could see two birdhouses, way up at the ceiling of the patio, too far up to be part of our normal line of sight. What a good reminder that it can be so helpful to shift your perspective.

Some kids who already know me well were doing a funny thing this week, which some kids do all the time with me, and that is, they try to find absolutely anything they think I will set a limit about, and then they go and do that. In teacher debrief, I was slapping my forehead, asking if I am somehow causing this, because one or two kids, year after year, will look to see that I am watching, and then climb the one tree I said was too unsafe to climb, or tell me they are going to take a Cottage toy home, or just anything to get me to stop them. 

I'm not exactly sure what it's about, but it's too strong of a pattern for me to think it's by chance. And I think what it is is that I am a grownup who will remain unruffled through whatever limits and boundaries need to be held, and the big feelings that sometimes accompany those limits. It's so funny how a kid who is perpetually testing limits, especially ones they already know very well, will ask again and again, by their actions, "are you going to stop me? Are you going to keep me safe? Do you really mean it?"

And since I know that they already know that I am going to be there, they do these sort of "trust falls" with me. A child really did climb the one tree I don't want people to climb. They piled up three wobbly tires, gave a backward glance toward me, and climbed up to a safe perch and waited. I waited a beat too; did they really need me to say this again? They looked right at me. I walked over calmy. I stood close to them and said, in a soft voice, "there's cement right there", pointing to the fall zone. They immediately climbed down and did not get back up. 

This week I was in the Big Yard every day, and I wrote observations to some individuals, but I have been thinking and thinking about stories to tell more broadly, and what I keep coming back to is my own family. 

It’s birthday season for us, a house of Geminis and Cancers. My baby just turned twelve, and this is the first occasion when she has not asked for a bunch of stuffed animals for presents; instead, Sephora gift cards and clothes from Hollister. I keep looking at her, carefully styled and busy with her friends, beginning to see the young woman she is becoming. She is so competent, thoughtful, creative, such a good friend. She is self-aware, steeling herself against her inborn impulsiveness, tries to resist even as products are advertised to her specific tastes in the online reality she is growing up a part of. But at night, she curls up with me, lays her sleepy head on me, needs my hugs and my care as much as ever. 

My older child, my birthday twin, is about to turn fifteen. He has been taller than I am for a year already. He is quiet, sensible, funny. He and I enjoy a never ending stream of extremely dry jokes that nobody else seems to understand. This year, after careful consideration, he asked for a small birthday party with no bounce house or games, just some soda and spicy chips, and time for him to be able to sit and talk with a few close friends. If you threw in tacos and switched out the soda, it sounds like my ideal party, too. Sometimes his dad worries about him because he spends so much time in his room. I don’t worry so much, because I can hear him in there, shouting to the other kids in the server, coordinating and joking and shouting instructions to each other. Social, just in his own way. And, because when I asked him if he wanted to go to the beach this weekend, he considered, and then told me that no, he would want to stay home and rest, because he has had a busy week at his arts camp, and he knows he will need the down time. I appreciate the wisdom and insight it takes to make that kind of evaluation for yourself. 

I saw myself today, post beach, in the bathroom mirror and thought, this is what I look like as an adult. Two messy braids, the same red lips and black liner that I have worn since I was about my son’s age, but on a new face, an older one. I am still learning how to make the kind of insightful assessment that my son made about the need for rest. I have been, in my middle age, slowly unraveling the made-up (but real) imperatives that led me down the paths I have taken. Some of them seem to have been the wrong way. Maybe there are no wrong ways.

At my cousin’s memorial service last week, I stood awkwardly with a small part of my remaining extended family, not talking about why my cousin ended his life. Why are we like this?, I asked my brother. He had written a poem. I had one with me, in a book, that I did not read aloud. Instead, I hugged my aunt, my most difficult family relation, tightly, and said “I’ll see you soon”. 

A child sat at the writing table drawing a series of monster trucks with black marker. “Does your son not like loud music?”, he asked me? Once I confirmed that I had heard him correctly, I told him that’s right, my son does not like loud music, especially coming from other cars. I remembered vaguely talking about this some weeks ago, in a conversation about loud noises, I think. I had been giving another example of how sometimes ambient noises can be really startling or disruptive, confirming that I know this experience, too. And this child remembered me saying that my son doesn’t like loud music coming from other cars, and brought it up out of the blue. I wonder what brought that to mind.

Later, another child sat together with me and this same child and said, "let's talk about hand dryers". I agreed, "Yes, let's talk about hand dryers". He told me about an experience with a hand dryer where you put your hands over it and it dries them. I repeated key parts of his description to understand what he was saying and help other children hear it too: "oh, it has a button", etc. I said that I don't like hand dryers because they are too noisy. The child heard me and validated that. Then I asked how the  truck-drawing child felt about hand dryers, and he also thought they were too noisy. I said that I especially don't like the automatic ones, because they sometimes turn on if you just walk past them, and the person interested in hand dryers asked “why?” I explained, “Their sensors see you and say, ‘hey, would you like to dry your hands right now? I bet you would’,  and they just turn on. I prefer the ones where you have to push a button”. There was some discussion about that and then he offered, "So do you prefer paper napkins?" And I said yes, and the other child concurred. 

The age difference in the summertime makes for some dynamics that are not usually so strong during the rest of the year. Sometimes we have siblings a few years apart, clashing like they do at home, with the littler kid vying fruitlessly for big kid attention, and big kids, in their full power, harshly denying access. This week we had a littler kid who is only about a year younger than the kids they are trying to play with, but the difference in their ability to navigate friendships is worlds apart. The bigger kids, emulating their older siblings, claim that the younger child is following them or copying them. They are definitely not. They are trying to be part of their team, part of their game. Friends. But how they do this is trail after them, agreeing to whatever they want to do. 

It’s not very effective. Bigger kids see that, and they play a game of pretending to be annoyed all day. They clearly enjoy engaging the younger child, but they play a game of “this person is not our friend, right?” They tattle, they evade, they bait, they play chase. This week, I heard a set of kids who have been playing that game say, “(Child) is our friend today, okay? Today (they) can play with us”. 

We are just past the mid-point of Cottage Summer Camp, and although we have settled into a comfortable groove, I have been missing so many things about our regular school year. First of all, all of you are here more, which helps spread out the background work of course, but also, we are getting to know you. We have these little side chats, and conversations at debrief that help us get to know your child and your family, and begin to understand their quirks and peculiarities. We get to hear more about what you are thinking about, what you are worrying about, and it helps us better understand how to help in the ways that we know how. I miss it, and I know we are all looking forward to having that time with you. 

We held the first monthly meeting of our newly elected Board of Trustees this week, on Zoom, and I was so delighted that there were a few other community members in attendance. In the olden days, when everything was in person, it was hard to get everyone to understand that when we are talking about the Board, the governance of the school, we are not talking about some group of white-haired men in tailored navy blazers, sitting behind a big wooden desk. The Board is actually just a bunch of parents in your child’s classes, who feel strongly enough about Cottage that they agreed to give a little more time and attention to ensuring Cottage will be here continuing to thrive for generations to come. 

To help people understand that, we ask that every family attend at least one Board meeting per year, so that you can see: the Board is made of these familiar faces, and the conversations being had are being conducted in the same kind and respectful manner that we use when we are talking with kids. I think it really makes a difference in how the school feels to the adults that we insist on treating each other in a manner we would like to see repeated by our kids. Often, adults believe we can try and pull some “do as I say, not as I do” flimflam. It doesn’t work. But more immediately, adult relationships suffer when they are based on misrepresentations. Transparency is a hallmark of how we operate as an organization. 

To that end, I heard myself liberally annotating the entire meeting. I kept jumping in every time I heard something I thought might not be clear to those many folks who have not been attending our meetings for a long time, and who might not understand whatever shorthand we are using without thinking about it. I can remember being the newbie and I know that it took me longer than it might have to catch up, because I spent so long just trying to get the basics. The basics are pretty complex! 

Our Board is the bottom line in how the school runs. It’s collective leadership in action, and we take care to archive and preserve our work to make it easier for future Boards to continue facilitating our hard-won success. We have a system, and it’s quite effective.  I love for people to know that there is so much loving work being poured into this place. That’s part of the magic hanging in the air. 

Next week, I expect to be in class every day, but this week, I was mostly doing thinking and planning work for our start of school activities. It’s a very fun part of my job, although admittedly not as fun as getting to be with the kids, but still, a good deal more fun than billing. Part of my thinking and planning consists of talking with parents to share my observations about whatever is happening with a child. This week, I had an ongoing conversation with a family about self-care tasks, so when I was in class, I was observing for that in particular. I had so much to say that I accidentally wrote a whole blog post called Learning to Get Dressed, which you can find here. 

Lastly, I just want to tell you a quick little anecdote that I heard at Teacher Debrief about a child new to the Small Yard. They really wanted Teacher Ana’s attention, but she was busy helping another child, who was very upset. The child got on a bike, and began to play a game where they rode up to Ana and told her, “I can’t stay, but I’ll be right back”, before riding away on the bike, and then returning a few moments later to repeat the sequence. Teacher Ana appreciated that the child, in their new experience here with us, was playing to process the information that teachers can help you and play with you, but they also need to help and pay attention to other children as well. Hello/Goodbye games are a way that children make sense of separations, and having to wait for a preferred caregiver is just one kind of mini separation that young children are learning to manage.

For this installment of Summer Stories, I am pleased to offer you Small Yard Stories.

Some children were a bit reluctant to say goodbye to their parents one day, and the way that it finally happened was that I offered to read a book that I had just added to the display shelf, Let’s Go For a Drive, by Mo Willems, the comedy master behind the Elephant and Piggie books. That happens to be one of my favorites, but I especially like it for younger kids, and I would not have been able to tell you why. The Big Yard kids are requesting a bunch of Gerald and Piggie stories, too, but this one I wanted to give to the littler kids. 

I opened it up to read it, pausing on the front endsheet to ask the children which car they would drive. One person told me which ones would go fast. Another person told me they would drive the convertible. We turned the page, and I began to read. This story has a nicely repeating pattern, with a singsong chorus that changes each repetition: “Drive! Drive! Drivey-drive drive!” and then adding whatever item they are packing for their trip. But the funniest part, apparently, is the page preceding the jingle, where Gerald yells in an increasingly dramatic fashion. The children I had begun to read to were joined by 2 or 3 more, and that yelling was a big laugh line every time, and then the jingle called for a little dancing. We read it probably ten times in a row. It was hysterical each and every time. 

Later, a child was doing another repeating joke that got funnier with each telling, which consisted of picking a puzzle piece out of the wooden puzzle by its handle and spinning it around, and together we would say, “the cat is spinning around, and around and around! “Now the boat is spinning around, and around, and around! The bear is spinning around, and around, and around!”, and so on. I know it was a joke because the child was telling me, “It’s funny!”. 

I was reminded of the humor of the classic, Go Dog, Go!, in which the author, P.D. Eastman, somehow captures the kind of humor that is so very funny to two and three year olds (and me, I guess): largely, creating a pattern, and then repeating it, and repeating it, and interrupting it. That’s when I realized why I like Let’s Go For a Drive so much: it’s just exactly the right kind of humor for younger children, who aren’t yet mostly using poop as the laugh lines in their jokes. Jokes are very important. They bind us together; they make some tiny aspect of humanity relatable; they create and foster connection. Jokes are a major way we make friends. So I think I made some new friends.

At the end of the day, most of the kids were cooling off inside the one room of Cottage that has an air conditioner, the Small Yard classroom, while two children lingered under the Mulberry tree, listening to the storytime that was happening over the fence by the climbing tree. One of those children was holding a book themselves, a little notebook full of drawings, and they were pretending to read it to the other child. The one child was chattering, and moving, seemingly talking to the other child without specifically engaging them, almost like a performance. The other child was silently moving their body over and over to be right next to the child who was talking: if one climbed the climber, so did the other; if one sat down, the other sat beside them; if one scooted over to make room, the other scooted closer. 

As young children do, instead of talking directly to the child right next to them, the chattier child addressed me, asking, “What’s her name?”. Both children looked expectantly at me. I answered, and they went back to what they were doing. This too is a way that young children make a friend: just start playing side by side, undeterred by any lack of conversation or reciprocity. Later, like the bigger kids, they will stand face to face, look at each other, and make conversation about possible common interests, make poop jokes at the snack table, and make explicit play invitations. Right now, they will follow each other around, doing what the new friend does, hoping for the best. 

A big sibling and a little sibling came to school. The big sibling told me that their little sibling had celebrated a birthday, and that they went out to dinner with some neighbors. That day was the little sibling’s first day at school. The big sibling stood watching as various friends attempted to engage them and asked them to play. They were unmoved. 

After a while, the little sibling was crying. We looked through the fence together. I asked if the older sibling thought we should go to the fence to talk to the little sibling; they said no. They told me, “She misses Mommy”. I said yeah. Then I said, “Maybe she is upset that she has to be in the little yard. She was thinking she was going to be in the Big Yard with these kids having so much fun”. The big sibling smiled and said yeah. 

They did end up on either side of the fence together; they each sat down. I heard the big sibling telling the little sibling not to worry, that Mommy will come back at lunchtime. They sat together. Teachers started talking about making it a more comfortable place to sit; we fetched blankets and towels to sit on. We moved stuff out of the way, swept some cobwebs. Two more friends came and sat down on the Big Yard side of the fence. All three kids faced the child on the Small Yard side, chatting and engaging them. After a while, the older sibling went off to play with their friends, who had been tugging at them. They played nearby, while the younger sibling stayed close, calmly playing there and watching until Mommy did come back.. 

A child was playing a bathtime game, in a house made of big blocks. They were running a bath by turning a round block and making a “shhhhhhhhhh” sound, and then taking a pretend bath, and draining it. They did this many times. One of the times, a nearby child asked, “what are you doing?” and the child screamed very loudly. Several children stopped in their tracks nearby; it was a scream that delivered a “something is very wrong!” message. Watching nearby, I told them, “He is playing a bathtub game. He is filling up the tub”. Another child, who had paused, observed, “He screamed very loud”. I said, “He did.” About four beats later, the bathing child turned to face the child who had made the initial inquiry and told them, “I am playing a bathtub game”. It turns out that scream might have been a placeholder representing a complex calculation that most of us do invisibly: “I am right in the middle of something. Someone is interrupting me. I don’t want to be interrupted! I don’t want my game to end!...Oh, they were asking what I am playing. They were not going to stop my game. Okay then. I will just tell them what I am doing, like the teacher said”. 

Another child of a similar age played nearby, part of or adjacent to a robot fighter game, which mostly seemed to involve sleeping in a house made of a metal climbing structure and a bench. Three robots or humans slept on the bench. One of them spoke to the younger child, on their bike, and asked them by name if they wanted to be a human or a robot, and after a few beats, they answered, “a human”. They kept supplying the new friend with one of their weapons, which were being carried but not used. The human kept putting it down. The human stayed on their bike, not sleeping, but just staying close by quietly. When the robots and humans woke up, they ran off, and the human on the bike rode in the vicinity. But when it turned into a chase game with other people, the human was still riding, talking through a narrative to themselves as they rode. Kids who are new to the Big Yard are fascinated with big kids, but have a hard time with the intuitive unspoken rules of complex imaginative play when they are first practicing it. It’s hard for them to keep up with the story as it changes. 

A Small Yard friend was in the bathroom, when we heard a child crying. She asked me who was crying, and I made a guess. I said, “A lot of times kids are sad when they have to say goodbye to mommy. Do you ever feel that way?” She did. After a pause, she told me that she used to be a baby. I said, “oh yeah? Tell me about that”, and she did. She told me that she used to be a baby, and that she used to be in mommy’s tummy. I reflected, “You used to be a baby. And now you're so big!”, and she agreed. Then she said, "Remember, Mommy used to be a baby?” Again, I asked her to tell me about that, and she did. And again I reflected, “and now Mommy is a big grownup! But she still has parents. And you are getting big too! And you still have parents too”. She agreed. I told her a little about my own family, too, and how I used to be a baby. She understood. It was a long potty visit.

 At the end, she noticed a paper heart cutout on the wall behind her. I affirmed that, and I said I had seen stars and butterflies, too, and we could see them when she was done. She finished up, and together, we remembered to look for the stars and the butterflies. She found she was not tall enough to reach the butterflies, even if she stretched. I was not tall enough to reach the stars. 

“Draw me a car”, the car-drawing expert of Cottage said to me. I said “Sure”. We have played this game before. He wants to do a thing he wants to do, but he wants to do it together. It’s kind of a one person job. He passes me the paper. “Draw me a car”. We don’t really draw for kids at Cottage, because my fancy expert control over a pen, even if I don’t think I’m any good, is still forty-some years more practice than these kids have had, and it’s not a fair comparison. So I pick up a marker, and I narrate, “This is going to be a really fast car”, and I draw a squiggle that is sort of shaped like the outline of the top of a car. Then I hand him the paper. He takes over, draws a circle where you would expect to find one of the wheels. The circle goes around two times, and he pauses. “Draw me another car, I messed up”. He shows me. The circles are not quite overlapping, a little off-round. I look, and say, “I think you can fix this. All you have to do is color it in”. He takes the paper back, colors it in as a tire, shows me, and moves on to the second tire. 

By this time, another child has announced he is drawing a car, too, right next to him. This child starts by drawing sort of a rectangle with wheels. This artist is a little frustrated at how it’s going, and I suggest he talk to the first artist, saying that he is an expert at drawing cars. The first artist confirms, not looking up from his work but repeating my words about being an expert. Meanwhile, the second artist has decided to retrieve a book with a picture of a car, and has begun looking at the book and making a similar car on his own paper. He laments the blue marker running low; I note that he is drawing the blue and red car from the picture, and offer a blue colored pencil, which he hungrily accepts. 

Both artists add detail to their pictures while I help a third child realize their plan of drawing a dog, cutting it out, and tying on a string as a leash, which is frustrating for them because they don’t want to personally draw the dog or cut it out, nor tie the string. The two car artists have added headlights, spoilers, and paint detailing, and are heading to the gallery wall to hang up their art. After commissioning a fourth artist to create the dog drawing, the collaborative artist agrees to cut out the picture together with me. I have two pairs of scissors ready. I make a cut, pause, hold the paper still while she does the rest all by herself. She brings me a hole punch; I show her how to use it. She makes the hole, brings a string, threads it, and instructs me to tie it, shows me how. I tie it, hand it to her, and she walks off satisfied. 

Two drivers were on a road. One car was made out of blocks. One car was made of a bike. Both cars were police cars, and both drivers kept trying to hand the other driver a ticket, and neither would accept. Finally, they both decided to drive a garbage truck instead, and the bike rider got off and hopped in the cab of the garbage truck, perched on a stack of blocks for the seat and dashboard. 

One of my favorite moments of Summer Camp happened on Monday afternoon. It was at teacher debrief, after the kids had all gone home. We were talking about a roughhousing game that is a popular pastime in the Big Yard these last two weeks, as the biggest kids work out their energy (anxiety? Just wiggles?). One teacher, a less experienced member of our team, had been supervising the game closely and helping resolve the small conflicts that inevitably come up when kids are wrestling. Teacher Alyssa and I were asking her about how that felt for her, because we both know that it can be pretty stressful to some adults to be close and help with a roughhousing game. The teacher assured us that it was fine, and we knew that it was, as we had also been observing from further back. And then Teacher Alyssa said something that I was so happy to hear: “You know, you can always tag out”. 

It’s something I always say, and have encouraged as a staff practice. Any of us is invited to tag out of supervising play anytime we feel like we are over our heads for any reason. Sometimes what’s happening is a little stressful for us and we might be too tense to speak to the children calmly. Sometimes we might just be cranky from a rough night’s sleep and feel like yelling at everyone that day. Sometimes we might feel like we just don't know what to say or do in that moment that will help. And that’s one of the best things about Cottage: we don’t have to do this alone. 

There is always, always a team of empathetic, attentive adults ready to help if any one of us gets stuck. We are not alone. It does not mean anything about our worth or competence for us to get stuck and tag out. In fact, it’s one of the most helpful and insightful things a person can do. 

And so I am feeling really proud of my colleague, my co-teacher Alyssa, who has been so competently and attentively managing the rough tides of the Big Yard this whole Summer, even while her own daughter is adjusting to preschool for the first time right over the fence. For the past 3 years, we have been learning and growing together, and having this time in the yard with her this Summer, and hearing her insights and observations at teacher debrief, has been a wonderful gift.

Later in the week, I also got to be the grownup close by for some roughhousing games. You know I love roughhousing games and I especially love that they are real-time consent practice: over and over, these little people, in this case boys, are practicing noticing a feeling in their body and speaking up about how they feel about it, even when they are highly motivated for the game to continue. And at every moment simultaneously, they are having to listen for how it’s going for the other people, and react and adjust, or the whole thing self-destructs. 

Because I love to move that negotiation from implicit to explicit, and I want to give the value of those words more weight, I got a big piece of paper and a marker and started writing down the rules of their game as they played. I did it at first silently, and then they quickly saw what I was doing and began addressing me, shouting more and more rules to write down: No hitting in the face. No kicking. No surprise pushes from the back, but yes to pushes from the back that people say yes to. There was grace and nuance and still a lot of room for a very rough, and very rulebound, game. 

At one point, someone slapped their opponent on the butt, and as it was novel, I asked, “Is spanking allowed?” They all looked up, quizzically. Not one of them knew that word. These boys who, moments before, had clarified that their “no touching people on the penis” rule also meant weiners, pee pees, and whatever other kid slang they were using, had all never heard of spanking. I clarified that that was one way to call hitting on the butt. They all enthusiastically agreed that it was allowed, and moved on, while I had a quiet moment of reflection about how none of these children know that some parents hit kids for “discipline”. 

I got a little mad listening to a podcast the other day when the speaker, not on a parenting podcast, said that children are annoying. She said it two or three times, in the context of her making a point about something like, sometimes people do stuff you don’t like and there’s not really a problem to fix. Valid. But I didn’t like hearing it phrased that way. And then today, I remembered, when I was at the swings, having a conversation with four kids I love, about music. 

One child was telling me about a few of their favorite songs and asking me if I knew them. I said that I did. They sang each one to me, and I listened. They asked me if one particular one is my favorite song, and I said that it was not. It is, in fact, a song that drives me up the wall, that I never sing because I get terrible earworms, and a song with repeating phrases and a neverending stream of lyrical variations is my worst case scenario. They sang on. Simultaneously, another child was now singing a song from a movie that they loved, but told me that their parent thought it was trash. Also at that moment, a third child was singing a song about the colors of the rainbow, but just one lyrical phrase over and over, and a fourth child was also singing, a song that I could not identify, atonally.

 And I just kept pushing the swings, and nodding my head in acknowledgment, because all four children were singing their songs to me, and periodically saying things I’m sure I was meant to be able to hear, but couldn’t because of the sound of the other singers. It was sweet, and I appreciated it, and also, I was feeling a little annoyed. I was remembering driving my car with two little singers in car seats in the back, each singing different songs at top volume, and feeling like I was going to scream at everyone if I didn’t take deep breaths all the way home. 

I object to calling kids annoying, but it’s not that I don’t know what she was talking about. I guess I just think of it as, kids are more self-centered at this stage of their development, and that makes it hard for them to consider that you may not be able to hear if four people are talking at once. The thing is, the way that we talk about people, even just in our heads, shapes the way we think about them. The words we say about them become a part of how they know themselves. Me feeling annoyed is not the same as kids being annoying. 

So much of what makes me good at what we do at Cottage, I learned at Cottage, but not this. In my Master’s program at Pacific Oaks, I had a curriculum class with one of my favorite teachers of all time, the venerable Olga Winbush. She had us conduct observations and then describe a child we had observed. She wrote our words about the children up on the board, in  a person-shaped outline, one for each child. Words of judgment and accusation (“bossy”, “aggressive”) filled the pages. The outlines filled up with those words we had said about children who weren't even there to defend themselves. 

It was impactful to see that visual representation of our language creating the image of a child. We were all motivated to learn another way. We practiced for the rest of the semester coming up with words that told the information that we wanted to convey from our observations, but without our poisonous judgmental language. This remains a skill that I have a good deal of mastery over, and I am pleased to share in my own observations each day.

I’m finishing this on the morning of our last day, with tears in my eyes because it is so hard and sad to say goodbye to kids you have known and loved for most of their lives. Each one of these kids is so wonderful and utterly irreplaceable. Having all new wonderful kids is absolutely no consolation, even though I am already so thrilled about the ones who we have been getting to know at camp this Summer. I know a lot of us feel about Cottage that we never want to leave, and I am the fulfillment of that silly wish. It’s only silly because change is the one thing in this life we can count on. It’s time for some of us to make that transition from school friends to friends-friends, is all.