July 18, 2025
Hello CR
It’s me, Jolly. I wanted to talk to you today about anxiety.
The reason I am bringing this up now is because we are heading into Visiting Day Weekend. There has been a lot of anxiety and a lot excitement about parents coming to visit…not because parents are coming to visit (that part is really exciting). The part they are nervous about is saying goodbye.
This is so hard for parents…we say it time and time again. I know as a parent myself, it is so hard to see our kids struggle with something. What we want to do is fix it or give them lots of options of how they can fix it, rather than just letting them sit with it and then allowing them to know that they are capable. They are capable of feeling really icky feelings about saying goodbye or missing home, or a disagreement with a friend, or not getting the popsicle color they wanted…whatever it is, sometimes we just want to fix it.
I think that resilience and the capability of handling anxiety comes from the ability to sit with it and to know “I can move through this.” It is kind of like a storm – you can try to find ways around the rain – but the rain is what creates beautiful growth. You can see it here at camp with the beautiful fields and trees and flowers, and it is the rain and the storm that help that. I want us to start thinking about kids feeling that icky feeling as part of their growth, and not to try to get rid of it or manage it for them.
That is what we are doing at camp, and so that is my tip: as hard as it is when you are saying goodbye and your daughter may be crying and they are not sure that they can do it…you have to be the one who believes that they are capable. You have to hold them in your arms and say “this is really hard right now, but I know you can do it because you are so capable.” We don’t want to create fragility where there doesn’t need to be any. I hope you’ll join me in creating really strong and resilient kids by letting them know how capable they are, sitting in not so great feelings.
We look forwad to seeing you on Visiting Day!