Your Child Getting Accepted to School

It was the winter of 1990-1991. I was in the eight grade, waiting for the weather to warm up so the baseball season could start. While the winter was taking its sweet time to move out of the way, my attention span was doing all it could to focus on the mundane algebraic, scientific, and Spanish facts I needed to learn and remember for yet another useless quiz or test.

There was something else I needed to study for. I had been signed up to take the high school entrance exam. There were three, maybe four schools that I would be applying to. One of them, Bishop Fenwick in Peabody, MA, accepted me and became my home away from home months after receiving a letter congratulating me on my acceptance.

Waiting Patiently (or Anxiously)

This week, it was my daughter's turn to wait for an acceptance from a school. The Oppressed had applied to one of the regional vocational schools with hopes of studying Nursing or Natural and Life Sciences. This was just one of the many sources of anxiety on her mind. She and Lovie had texted me at work, asking me to check my email for any messages from school. I did so and reported back that there was no such message sent. She should check with her mother.

Check Your Email

I never said I was tech-savvy. I just said this email wasn't on my phone.

I got home from work on Friday night, The Oppressed was waiting for me when I walked through the door. This was odd. She is usually locked away in her room reading Manga and texting with her friends. Instead she was waiting for be to walk in so she could ask me to check my email. I reminded her I had been checking my email at work and there was nothing from the school.

"No," my youngest daughter said. "Go to your office and check your email. Make sure you really didn't get an email from the school."

The Oppressed and I go to my office and check my email again. Sure enough, there was an email from the school patiently waiting to be opened. I never said I was tech-savvy. I just said this email wasn't on my phone.

I open the email. The Oppressed was overjoyed to see that she had been accepted to her high school. She ran upstairs to announce the news to her family. I soon followed her upstairs. She is still buzzing from the news.

A new chapter is soon unfolding for my daughter. There are new experiences waiting for her when September rolls around. She's going to learn new things. She's going to meet new people. There will be activities, trips, and adventures that will fill the next four years of her life.

Welcome to High School

A lot is going to happen for my daughter. You figure out a lot in high school. When I started high school, there was sports and nothing else. Meeting new people and trying new things broadened my horizons. When I graduated, I had new skills and experiences that helped me when I moved on to college. The foundation laid for me has continued to serve me today.

The Oppressed is going to school with skills learned in middle school and even before that. She has learned academic and life lessons in and out of the classroom. I talk to her every time I see her during the week, asking how school was and what happened. There are days of student council, tests, lessons, and the drama that unfolded in the halls and at lunch.

High school for me was sports, drama club, and student government, just to name a few things. There were field trips. There were nights with friends eating dinner and endless (according to my parents) phone calls about things that, at the time, were dire and life-altering. I went to high school knowing a few people from junior high school. We went our separate ways as we negotiated our own individual paths from freshman to senior year. On my own path, I met people who shaped me and the years I spent in the classroom, locker room, stage, and halls. People helped me get one of my first jobs, negotiate ski slopes, and figure out a question or two on a homework assignment.

I'm not worried about The Oppressed doing well in school. I know she will. She has gone from a proud line leader in preschool, to a hard-working student in elementary school, to a great example of effort and behavior in middle school. Her natural curiosity and empathy have served her well in school and helped a lot of people in her schools. She has never failed to reach out to students who needed help. Her experiences in student government and drama club are going to help her when she sees and tries new things at her new school.

Finish Middle School First

But that is months away. First she needs to finish, and her parents need to survive, middle school. And then there is the summer vacation. There is plenty to see before the school bus rolls away to a new school. I'm not driving her anymore. She doesn't have a death grip on me when I try to hand her off to the teacher. She rides the bus with her friends and they discuss things that are dire and life-altering. There will be teachers in high school that will make life difficult, just like they do for her in middle school now, and what teachers did to me and my friends when we were in high school.

She needs to finish, and her parents need to survive, middle school.

Wife and I can't wait to see what happens for our daughter in high school. For all we know, she might decide to do something other than nursing or life sciences. She will try new things. She will meet new people. That's great, because that's what you should do when you're in school.

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