Adverse Effects of Change

I should have seen it coming.

My nine year old son does not adjust well to change. He never has. And today is the last day of school.

Most children would rejoice. And while my son has been looking forward to it all week – this morning he was an emotional wreck. Mind you, he wasn’t sitting around moping, he was making the rest of us miserable. Just general bad behavior – yelling at his siblings and tormenting them, crying because I wouldn’t let him have ice cream for breakfast (and he thought I would allow this because….?).

Now, I have known this kid for nine years, so I think I have him pegged. On the surface it appeared that he was just being a spoiled bully but I could see what was going on inside. It is a big change for him to leave the classroom that has been his second home for nine months. He will miss seeing his friends every day and the structure that school provided. No, he didn’t love school but it was an integral part of his life.

So, while it was not ok for him to act out and bug the rest of us, I understood where he was coming from. Unfortunately, his siblings were not so understanding. As the mornings are crazy enough, I was not able pull them aside and explain the necessity of patience and compassion.

It was a very unhappy crew that boarded the school bus this morning.

I will have to make a note to warn the family that our newly minted fourth grader may morph into a Tasmanian devil on the first day of school in September.