We all want to send our kids to the perfect school. It has
perfect teachers perfect students and a perfect curriculum that fits your child perfectly.
If you’ve found it let us know! Meanwhile the rest of you should consider
the following:

Perfection Can Be Boring

Perfection is enjoyable for a short while and then it gets
boring. It’s challenge that keeps us
hopping! We need a problem we can sink our teeth into.

Fortunately Hashem has made sure that we’ll never be in
short supply of this kind of stimulus. He shows His trust in our ability even
from a tender age to deal with life’s difficulties. Moreover He prompts our
growth and development by sending just the right-sized problems for our current
stage of emotional and spiritual maturity. Hence unfair teachers mean
classmates too much or too little stimulation difficult languages to decipher
— among other prompts — are scattered before children as they march back to
school at this time of year.

It is up to parents to show their trust that their kids can negotiate whatever Hashem puts
before them. It’s up to parents to show kids that problems aren’t the exception
in life but rather the very “stuff” that life is made up of. Instead of
rushing to clear away every difficulty parents can help provide their children
with a problem-solving skill set that will serve them well in life.

Discomfort Is Tolerable

The survival skill set must include a tolerance for
discomfort. If the child is not in the class with his or her best friend the parent must feel that the show can go
on. If the parent panics the child learns that uneasiness is unbearable. He
won’t be able to cope. On the other hand the parent could choose to display
confidence in the child’s ability to be flexible patient and resourceful (“I
know it’s disappointing. It would have been so nice for the two of you to be
together. I guess Hashem wants you to branch out a bit and discover new
possibilities. Who knows — maybe you will discover a surprising new friend in
the class this year!”).

The parent’s conviction that Hashem sets the stage
benevolently can help the child adopt the attitude that he is in good Hands.
Moreover he can feel that he has a trustworthy Helper through all
difficulties; he is not alone.

Stress-Management Skills Are Necessary

It’s not wise to let a child play near a body of water
without ensuring that he knows how to swim. Similarly sending children into
the adult world without teaching them how to manage stress is highly
irresponsible. The imperfection of school life brings lots of stressful learning
opportunities. The goal once again is not to remove the stress so that
the child won’t suffer but rather to teach the child how to deal with life’s
problems.

Let’s say that the child finds homework unbearably tedious
or hard. The parent can show the child how to find the best time and place in
which to work how to break up the task into smaller more tolerable bits how
to take pauses for rest and refreshment how to reward himself for task
completion how to reach out to others for help and so on. Such steps will
serve the child well throughout life giving him useful strategies for managing
overwhelming tasks. Instead of giving up running away or using addictive
habits to numb the pain the child can problem
solve. He or she can figure
out how to minimize pain and maximize coping.

Another example: let’s say that the child feels left out
socially in the class. She’s too old for the parents to make “playdates” for
her or otherwise intervene so she’s just miserable. Again the solution
involves teaching the youngster effective stress-management skills. If you
can’t be happy the way you want it to be (i.e. with lots of friends) then be
happy the way Hashem arranged it to be (i.e. on your own).

The parent can also help the child to explore other ways to
fill her time constructively and pleasurably: hobbies volunteerism
creativity family activities and so on. Thinking outside the box is a vital
life skill. There is always more than one way more than one path to happiness.
Parents can teach this lesson to their children pointing them confidently in
new directions. The “one-size-fits-all” cookie-cutter lifestyle is unrealistic
and because it doesn’t work it induces great pain and suffering. Instead
parents can uphold the belief that Hashem sends challenges in order to open new
doors. A child’s loneliness can be the impetus for tremendous accomplishment
and creativity that might otherwise have lain dormant.

School of Life

There are many other challenges that arise during the course
of every school year. Find solutions where you can easily do so but don’t
worry excessively when you can’t. “Unsolvable” problems may actually provoke
the greatest education of all.