A Time to Thrive
It is May 1, 2020 and many of us have been living under stay at home orders for several weeks. Those of us with seniors in high school have been watching as important social and academic milestones get cancelled. For some families, it has included a deeply personal sense of loss as moments we had imagined from the day they were born, such as their proms and graduations, will be a void in their lives...and in ours.
Yet, there are some of us who are also experiencing something else. An unexpected time to thrive. We are witnessing something in our children that is inspiring something within ourselves. This is the case in our family - our eldest daughter, Mary Clare, is 18 and a high school senior.
When she received the news that schools in Virginia would be closing and moving to strictly online platforms, and that school events such as prom would be cancelled, her initial response was that of disbelief and disappointment. Then, as our family buckled down in preparation for the stay at home orders, her concerns turned to worry about how to maintain her closest friendships. Teens are at a time in their lives when peer connection far outweighs family relationships - and developmentally this is supposed to happen. As parents, we want this to happen, as it paves the way to successful adult independence. There were several difficult weeks when we insisted her conversations with her best friend take place over Facetime and not face-to-face, even though she lived just a few streets over.
At one point recently I noticed something. Mary Clare was not among those teens reeling over a prom dress that would never be worn or a graduation ceremony that may not take place. She wasn’t crying over her cancelled trip to Italy. Her focus changed and she was now asking us and herself ‘What Can I Do?’ instead of dwelling on ‘This Sucks.’ She and her closest friends had figured out a way to stay connected virtually. The house began to smell good because she and her younger sister were teaching themselves to bake - something I never found the time or energy to do. Rants about isolation, about unfair grades, about inflexible teachers began to mellow. Her younger sister joined her for evening yoga every night before bed, offered through an online video program. My daughters were more at peace than I had seen them in years. Something was happening.
Mary Clare eventually disclosed that unlike some other teens, she found herself thriving. She had found her footing. She had stumbled through the stages of grief and had arrived at acceptance. When I probed a bit more, I discovered just how hard high school had been for her. Not just academically, but socially, emotionally and mentally. With the intense academic rigor combined with navigating the ever changing social groups and pressure of finding the right college at the right price mostly behind her, she felt light. No more avoiding the mean kids at school. No more FOMO because no one is doing much of anything. No more racing from class to class with fear of arriving late and getting in trouble for using the restroom. I had not truly realized how much of the stress connected to my daughter’s high school experience had absolutely nothing to do with academics and everything to do with how to ‘fit in, keep your head down and stay out of trouble.’
It is no wonder her time now is spent on building her dorm room Pinterest board, or learning how to bake, or enjoying time doing yoga with her little sister. She is right - she is thriving. She is successfully balancing disappointment with joy, frustration with fun. This is a muscle that cannot be exercised in PE or calculus class. It is a choice she has made. Perhaps the lessons learned during these several weeks outside of the walls of high school have better prepared her for college and for life than any lecture or lab experiment could have. She has learned far more than I could have imagined or hoped for. My daughter is thriving - not because of my choices, but because of her own.
