Dot-Free Living

First grade is scaring me.  I don’t want Ax to lose himself in the myriad external assessments, comparisons, and judgments that abound in this world.   I want him to know himself, his is-ness, and be at peace with it, learn how to thrive in this world as the person he is.  

Of course I’d also like him to learn to read, add, and, love learning.  

But mostly, mostly what’s true for me is I don’t want him to get effed up by school.  Just as when he was mostly home with me my number one goal was to not mess him up as much as possible.  To let him be who he is with minimal gentle guidance as needed to help him stay alive and navigate this world and its quirky norms, rituals, and rites of passage:  Clothes are to be worn in public, please and thank you make people happy to help, knives can cut you, which hurts.

And that’s worked so well so far.  He is oddly serene, kind, and curious.  He is himself.  He is comfortable expressing his needs and accommodating others.  He is in the flow, untroubled, joyful.  And a joy to others.

I do believe there was some luck in that, and I also know that Mike and I have been quite intentional about our communications and practices with him.

I have made shepherding this child my most important life’s work and I’m pleased with everything about him.  Everything.  

I am completely in love with our child as he is — far from perfect, slower than I’d like him to be on this or that morning getting ready for school, stingy with kisses this week, and skeptical about bathing in general.  

He is magnificent.  I love him without reservation, in a way I know I should perhaps love myself, but don’t.  

Even after all this work the thorn of Evie, my evil inner critic, that chronic disease of “not-good-enough-itis” afflicts me on a regular basis.  “Too fat, too old, too unaccomplished, not good enough,” the voice drones sometimes softly, sometimes loudly under everything.

And so when Ax came home from his second week of first grade with a one-page calendar full of blank squares and one green dot on that day’s square my blood ran cold.  

“Mommy look I got a green dot today!” 

“That’s wonderful,” I said, crying inside for the end of his freedom from judgment, the end of that short sweet time of his life just getting to be himself and being loved for it.  

“What does it mean?” I asked.  

“It means I was good today.”  And I hugged him while he semi-resisted and I said I was proud of him, but what I should have said is that he is good every day in my eyes, no matter what, that I am on his side, no matter what.  

And then I went to back-to-school night and his very kind, very experienced, very loving teacher explained that green meant ready to learn and we should celebrate that when our kids come home.  That yellow meant something needed to change, and that red meant it was time to talk about something being a problem.  She couldn’t remember the last time she gave someone a red, but there it was, the threat of it.

And if a kid gets so many greens in a row they get special privileges like petting the class lizard or getting to wear a hat during the day.  Things I know my Ax will definitely prize.

And I’m thinking about the words of education and psychology experts Alfie Kohn, Shefali Tsabary, Carl Rogers, and my own experience and I’m thinking: This is where the self-loathing and fear starts.  

Green dot good, red dot bad, and I want to be green.  Every day.  And even when I’m green dot one day I can’t be sure of whether I’ll be green dot the next day and then — stress, self doubt, external rewards focus rather than intrinsic motivation/joy focus.  No more trust in one’s own positive self-regard, no more unconditional acceptance and love.

I get that they need a way to control the inmates at school.  I get that the kids are graded, the teachers are graded, the principal is graded, and the district is graded, and that life is full of green dots and red dots.  

But at home it will be dot-free living.  I will not do to my child what was done to me.  I will not reinforce the idea that my child’s value depends on racking up green dots.  He is bigger than that, and so am I.  And so are you. And so are we all.

I’m gonna keep going.

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