Ep. 8 Thank a Teacher

Elevate the Individual - Episode 8 Transcript

This is Lacey Jones. And this is episode eight, Thank a Teacher. Hello and happy September. I don't know if where you live, the weather's changing, but there's like this subtle change happening where I live. The heat seems to be backing off a bit, and this past week was a bit cloudy with a little rain, and all I really wanted to do was wear a nice flannel shirt and layer on some clothing. Do you ever kind of reach that point where you're like, Woohoo. Time to put on some real clothes again. Enough of shorts and t shirts. Let's wear a sweater or hoodie and not break a sweat while doing so. Anyways, I digress. It's September, the seasons are thinking about changing, and for many people, kids are heading back to school. And I personally love when my kids head back to school. Yes, it brings new challenges and routines which can bring up different anxieties and frustrations. But for me, I really just love the structure and I love seeing my kids use their brains again and it's easier for them to stay out of the snack cupboard and they get to grow and progress, and I'm all for that. Well, this year we are experiencing another nontraditional start to the school year as our teachers have chosen to go on strike as they work out their contract with the school district. And for those of you who don't know, my mom was a teacher for many, many years. And when I was younger, we as a family lived through strikes, and we saw firsthand the turmoil that it can cause for teachers, for staff, and for family members. So I want to make it very clear that I 100 million bazillion times support our teachers right now as they fight for the learning conditions of our students and their working conditions. We love our teachers and we know and can feel the love they have for their students and for our family. So by the time this podcast airs, it will have been almost two weeks since the teachers decided to strike. And I've really been thinking about how I can help in this situation. Yes, I can go stand on the picket lines with the teachers. And we've made a very quick pit stop to visit the teachers. We honk every time we drive by and see them out in their red t shirts as part of a solidarity thing. And my kids always ask why we're honking as we drive by. We can bring them snacks, and hopefully our little small actions can help our teachers to feel the support. But there's just something that's been calling at me even more than doing that. And I can post on social media and I can talk to other moms and I can share my opinion and support, but something deeper is still just calling to me. And so, through my journey of becoming a life coach, I had one driving purpose. It's to bring peace to those who are suffering and feeling weighed down by all that life has to offer. And it's really to restore hope in times of pain and confusion and frustration. So I've decided to dedicate this episode of the podcast to our dear, sweet teachers and staff and the families in our school district in hopes that I can use my voice to bring peace to those who may be feeling weighed down by the uncertainties in their lives right now. Now, that doesn't mean that if you aren't part of our school's district, that this doesn't apply to you. The uncertainties of life are not limited to the homes and families within our school boundaries. And I hope that you can also find peace while listening through what I share, and that you can snowball that peace to others within your influence, your community, your school district, and your school boundaries. And in the very first episode of this podcast, I talked about our emotional backpacks, and I want to revisit that concept today. It's the time of year where our kids are packing their backpacks for school, and teachers are packing their totes and their big purses and their bins to prepare for the school year ahead. And if you're anything like our family, you may have pulled out last year's backpack to kind of assess whether or not it could survive another school year and carry your child through the next eight or so months. And if not, you might have purchased a new backpack for the year. Maybe when unpacking that old backpack, you discovered items that were missing or should have been thrown away several months ago. No judgment here if you found a moldy food item, that happens. All right, well, several weeks ago, my kids and I sat down to dump out the backpacks and to go through our current supplies to see what we needed to purchase for the new school year. And we did a little shopping to fill in some missing pieces and update other items. And we've packed the bags. And with the delay of school starting, we have repacked the bags each time, kind of paring down on some items and beefing up on other items each time, trying to ensure that they are prepared for the coming months. And as we've repacked the bags, we've refined some of those items they're carrying so that they're not unnecessarily weighed down with 22 glue sticks and five extra notebooks that they just don't need. And this has given me some time to kind of think about how we pack our emotional backpacks. Life will bring along beautiful and amazing experiences. We know this, and we also know that it will bring along painful and challenging experiences. It's all part of this human experience. And when we pack all of those experiences into our emotional backpack, we tend to add some other items that weren't really on the list to prepare us for life. That school supply list you know how it asks for a box of markers and crayons, but it doesn't always identify the quantity of how many markers and how many crayons, right? So are you someone who buys the box of 24 Crayons, or do you go big with a box of 64 or even that 128 Crayons? What about those markers? Are you going to stick with the eight basic colors, or are you going to add a box of pastel colors on top of the classic rainbow colors? While having all of these options can create more opportunities for creativity and expression, they do also add weight to the backpack. And that child is going to have to keep track of more items. They're going to have to keep those items organized and try not to lose more items. They're going to use more brain power in the future when they need to decide which red crayon to use on their project. And they might not be sure if they should go with red orange or orange red. Each child will need to decide whether or not that is to their benefit. Some will handle the situation well, and some will become overwhelmed with the decision making process. Every child is different. Our children are not the only ones packing backpacks right now. As adults, we've been packing our emotional backpacks around for years. Our parents started us out with the basic supplies, and our life experiences have given us different perspectives that have caused us to either pack our emotional bags more efficiently or we just continue to pack heavy emotional baggage on top of poorly packed bags from our childhood. And as we continue to experience the ups and downs of life, the weight of our emotional backpacks can really start to sink us if we haven't learned how to pack for our emotional needs moving forward. Well, in the coaching world, we talk about clean pain versus dirty pain. Clean pain refers to the natural emotions that come along with challenging experiences. So, for example, our teachers are on strike. This causes some logistical issues that our family will need to accommodate for within our schedules. As my husband and I work and as we work on those logistics, our children will sometimes watch more TV than I want them to. They will eat more snack foods than I want them to. They will most likely stay up way later than they normally do in the month of September when school is typically in session and they're going to sleep in. Well, as a family, we're going to need to adjust and readjust our structure and routine and our boundaries and our expectations for the kids during this time of uncertainty as we wait to hear when that first day of school will be. This is all part of the clean pain that comes along with uncertainties, those moments where the plan changes and we have to adjust to our new normal. It's really something we've all had many many opportunities to do over the past couple of years as we've experienced the pandemic. Now, if I've got this emotional backpack and everyone does, and it's packed with some feelings of uncertainty and curiosity about what the future holds, and then I start to pack it with dirty pain, that backpack is going to start getting really heavy. In this situation where my kids are waiting to start school and they're watching more TV than I would like and eating more snack foods out of boredom and staying up too late and sleeping in way too late. It can be very easy to start packing around thoughts of failure and frustration and anxiety as I make their choices start to mean something about my parenting skills. I can quickly amass this tornado of shame when I walk out of my office and find my kids on the couch with food wrappers and empty cups just strewn all around them with piles of, like, unfolded laundry and a sink full of dishes. If I choose to entertain those thoughts, like, wow, if I were a better mother, our house wouldn't look like a frat house right now. Or if I could just manage my time and household better, my kids would be out making a contribution to society instead of holed up inside binge watching worthless shows and rotting their brains while quite literally turning into couch potatoes. I have totally failed as a mom right now. What value does this add to our family? What does it create for me when I'm thinking these thoughts? Any guesses as to how I act towards my kids? I'll tell you right now that when I'm in that headspace, I am not the mom, not the wife, not the woman I want to be. I get a little bit grumpy and grouchy and judgmental, and I don't talk to my kids in a way that leads them to wanting more from life and becoming better individuals, and it sure doesn't improve our relationship. I ultimately take a challenging situation and I make it worse than it needs to be. I'm adding dirty and heavy pain to an already weighty emotional backpack, and it isn't necessary. Now, that doesn't mean that when I open my office door and find my kids watching TV and not cleaning up after themselves that I just have to think loving and happy thoughts about my kids and their choices and all will be peaceful and loving and there's going to be so much tranquility within our home. It just means that I need to be aware of my thought process if I want to create an intentional environment within my home while we wait for school to start. Not just within my home, but intentional peace within me. And in order to do that, I need to take a minute to assess the thoughts that I'm carrying around about this new situation we are in. Some new thoughts to work with might be, this is temporary. This will get ironed out or my kids have experienced another glitch in their lives. We are capable of learning how to maneuver this one or this is a teaching opportunity. And I can guide my children through this. And because I think curiosity is one of the more helpful emotions, I might choose to think. Maybe I should ask the kids how they're feeling and see if they notice a difference in their emotional state when they behave like this. I wonder how I can help them through this. Let me ask these thoughts will take restraint. They will take practice until they become our goto thoughts. As we overcome the initial ingrained thoughts that we have used in the past, if we want to change and grow, we will need to put effort towards thinking and believing new thoughts, which will then drive our emotions in a direction that's going to allow us to create new structure, new order, and stronger relationships. This is a time of uncertainty for many people, including families, teachers, staff, students, food service workers, janitors, bus drivers, school administrators, and members of our community. This strike affects a lot of people, but I want to swing our attention back to the teachers and the staff who are walking the picket lines right now. There is clean pain that comes along with this disruption in our lives, but it's the dirty pain that I want to ease, because when this strike is over, our teachers and our staff will have to quickly change gears. They'll have to put on their game face as they head back into the schools and continue to teach and love our kids. That has never stopped. While the clean pain will take a toll, the dirty pain can be catastrophic. Dirty pain will show up in the form of anxiety, sleepless nights, weird teacher dreams about failed lesson plans. You know about weird teacher dreams if you're a teacher, physical ailments, challenged relationships and stomach ulcers. Dirty pain will cause some to act out in ways that do not honor who they truly are. It will cause others to forget why they became a teacher in the first place and leave them questioning whether or not it is worth it to stay. So how do we ease the burden without spewing toxic positivity during this time of uncertainty? For this, I want to speak directly to the teachers and staff. I want them to know how valuable they are. I want them to know how much they mean to our family when we.

Uprooted our family and moved to this new city full of so many unknowns and way more people than we had ever been around. It was the teachers and the staff who saw my individual children and connected with them.

It was the school counselor who struck.

Up a conversation with our son after a rough night. It was the librarian who pulled books for our kids and encouraged them to read. The PE. Teacher who is their biggest cheerleader, the math instructor who challenged their thought process, the kindergarten teacher who dropped off supplies at our house during the pandemic and online school, the office and support staff who give high fives and know each child's name. The teachers who come to sporting events and religious milestones. The staff member who wrote a note to my son applauding his comments and insight during a very awkward sex education lesson.

The teachers who took time to share.

Our children's 15 seconds of fame when they were on the local news.

The music teacher who willingly teaches our.

Children to play the recorder.

The bus drivers who show up each.

Day and safely transport them. To and from school, eliminating the stress of waiting in the drop off and pickup line. The track coaches who cheer them on.

As they run or walk that final lap.

The school nurse who has our number on speed. Dial and manages life threatening illnesses so that children can stay safe and continue to learn.

The resource officers who keep our children safe as more and more children experience.

Disruptions to their mental health the food.

Services who keep our children fed with.

The resources they are given. Dear teachers and staff, you are shaping not only the minds but also the hearts of our children. As you walk those picket lines, please remember that you are valuable to us and to the future of society. You matter and you are making a difference. Thank you.