Surviving the Ordeal

When you begin school as a different child, everyone is willing to help. Kind kindergarten classmates offer to be your friend and you are invited to birthday parties and playdates. Young children willingly slow down their games, especially when guided by the teacher. Somewhere around the second to the fourth grade, things change. You are not cute anymore and there are higher expectations for behavior. You are falling further and further behind your peers so it is more difficult for them to slow down their games. Simple tag and hide and seek become complex ball games in which you are afraid of the ball and don’t understand the rules. Toys that were cool in kindergarten are babyish now but you’re not quite ready to grow up. Teachers, often instead of being helpful and patient, are impatient and frustrated. Minor infractions result in being labeled a “bad kid” or a child with “behavior problems.” You begin to stop caring what others think and begin to wander the perimeter of the playground by yourself. By the time junior high comes, you are more concerned with being left alone than making friends. You lash out in any way you can, which results in more negative labels from peers and teachers. The kindness of an occasional good teacher or classmate helps you wade your way through the storm. When you graduate, you know you have survived. Finally, somewhere outside of the narrow walls of grade and high school, you find your place. For some, it may be in the tolerant academic world of university. For others, it may be in a non-academic career or living arrangement with others who share your interests and world view. Even then, it takes a while to realize you are worth something. When it finally happens, you realize everything was worth fighting for.