This week I was connecting with a friend and former colleague, discussing the struggles within one of the local school districts. This is a large urban district that was struggling prior to the pandemic and now is barely keeping its head above water. And at what cost?

Students need positive relationships at school. I have witnessed firsthand as a parent, teacher, and administrator when this does and doesn’t happen. We had a year where our daughter’s teacher didn’t work to build a relationship. He went through the motions of being a teacher and we saw her effort wane as a result. She completed her work but you could tell she wasn’t as connected.

We can’t assume we know what each one of our students encounters on a daily basis. For example, we know through statistics and observation that some students may not have access to food at home.

As many of our children have either started their school year or are preparing to return, we must be mindful of one big emotion…anxiety. You may observe tantrums or outbursts which appear to be out of the ordinary. Ultimately, it’s a manifestation of their anxiety and more than likely they are unaware they are feeling this way.

Even the students who are very attentive and respond promptly with every request may be responding this way as a learned response from trauma. You may be very pleased with these types of students but you may not be aware of the anxiety or fear they are harboring based on a traumatic experience in their life. This child could be conditioned to make the adults around them happy because they may live with an alcoholic parent who becomes verbally and/or physically aggressive when they don’t comply.

When a significant event occurs such as divorce, the death of a parent, or physical and/or mental abuse we tell ourselves that the “children are resilient and will pull through.” Children are resilient, but they still need tools that will help them cope with the trauma. Often what we believe are children being resilient is really a child packing away what happened and not addressing their feelings.

Why does self-care come easily for some while others struggle in allowing themselves the time? When the concept of self-care is mentioned, many dismiss it out of hand as a buzzword or fad.

We’re not meant to keep our emotions in check 100% of the time. We need to find some balance or outlet, understanding how to express our feelings appropriately in a safe environment. How do we monitor our own emotions while helping our children understand their own?

Explain to me we are pushing so hard to get back to the schooling that so many complained about prior to the pandemic? Why are we afraid to admit something new may be working for some students?

When a student continues to struggle with things like day-to-day readiness in the form of understanding their assignment notebook or assignments and homework within google classroom, have we assessed or reviewed why this keeps occurring?

Let’s commit to meeting our students where they are and not where we think they should be. We have to remember that not all children come to us with the same foundation and many will have significant gaps as a result of COVID-19 or were already experiencing significant gaps before the pandemic.

We also need to recognize that some of our most vulnerable students have been “lost” during the pandemic. The United States has approximately 50 million students who attend public schools and of those, around 3 million continue to be unaccounted for since the pandemic began.

Recently, I listened to a podcast by Rachel Hollis, where part of the episode discussed why the fear of failing is so triggering for many of us. Rachel spoke about how we do ourselves a disservice when we do not allow for failure or refrain from experiences because we don’t want to chance failure. I have always been one to dream but it was these fears of failure that were holding me back. Fear of failure holds us back from continuing to set goals or pursue dreams. The brutal result of this cycle is stagnation.

Reflecting on the relationships I’ve built over time, I got to thinking about students in the inner city of Chicago. Many of these students hated every bit of school, but once I worked on building their trust, I saw increases in attendance, time on task, assignment completion, and passing classes. One specific way I was able to make inroads was through a daily decision many students made: choosing each morning to either play basketball or eat breakfast. It was evident on the days that basketball was chosen, that my first-period class was more difficult as they were hungry and most times angry. What I understood about this choice, was that many had not eaten since being at school the day before. I saw a tremendous opportunity here...

We all know or can think of the “naughty kid” in our child’s class or have memories from our own childhood. What if we reframed our thinking and focused on these children through the lens that they have a deficit and need more support?