What are your memories of school?
Do you remember places - classrooms, corridors or yards? Do you remember people - teachers, friends and classmates? Perhaps you remember subjects and lessons? Or do you simply remember emotions – how you felt and responded to situations?
As we get older some of our memories become more distant. We might remember fewer names, less about the lessons we enjoyed or endured, and a lot more about the feelings engendered by particular moments or places or relationships.
“Trying to do the best for our children when we can’t be there with them through every moment of their day, can be tough.”
Sometimes, when our own children begin their schooling or face challenges, it can be our emotional memory that guides our thinking. Let’s face it, it’s hard being a parent! Trying to do the best for our children when we can’t be there with them through every moment of their day, can be tough. Add on a layer of our own emotional memory of school and it can become a process of navigating our own as well as our child’s responses.
First days can be a particularly focussed time for those emotions. I have had to grapple with these myself at times. At the end of the day, I had to resolve the tension in my mind by realising that I can’t live their lives for them and there are many challenges that, if I remove the opportunity, I remove the chance for them to grow. Of course, there are many occasions when it is important for us to ask questions and to be involved in partnership with the School, but equally, there are times to perhaps just sit and listen without doing, a skill that I am still learning.
“Let’s face it, it’s hard being a parent!”
The Apostle Paul writes in the book of Romans, an incredible description of personal and spiritual growth. He begins with a statement that sounds strange to our ears, “…we also rejoice in our sufferings” and then goes on to explain “because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope”. For those seeking to following Jesus, the next verse should fill us with hope as Paul writes, “and hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:3-5).
I have had the pleasure of hearing many positive stories from our first few days this week. My favourite student reflection has been “good but tiring”. It has been exciting to welcome so many new and returning students to Calvin Christian School. Please pray for our students (and ourselves as parents) that there might be opportunity to take delight in new challenges. Our children, like us, are growing and maturing, being prepared for futures of hope and purpose in God.
Scott Ambrose - Principal