Wendy Mogel
Winter 2012
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During the first two days of kindergarten, a girl sobs. On day three, she dials it down to sniffling and decides to join four other students at the clay table. Her teacher overhears this conversation:
Boy: Why are you crying?
Girl: Because I miss my Mommy.
Boy: We all miss our mommies.
This normalizing of emotion through the provision of context has an apparently good effect. The girl nods, albeit with a look of resignation. The next morning, for the first time, she hugs her mom and says goodbye without protest.
The boy, our separation guru, grasps an essential truth. Growing-up is hard, but also necessary and unavoidable, so we might as well accept it and get down to the business of making snakes out of clay. T’was ever thus and always thus will be… except, of course, that times change, and leave-taking these days takes on greater complexity and nuance — which means that independent schools face new challenges in helping children make a smooth separation from their home and their parents.
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