School Days

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days...
Yes, it's that time again, gentle reader. My baby birds have flown the coop (except the one I am homeschooling this year), and I hope you are all ready - not to relax or breath a sigh of relief -
P-L-E-A-S-E!!! This is the moment our vigilance begins.

We begin by walking on eggshells and projecting cheery introductions to the teachers we don't know as we help our special needs children acclimate to their new surroundings. If that means we take our children to school the day before classes begin to spend two hours trying the lock on their locker, well, my God, we sit there and encourage them till we're blue in the face because we know the stress they will feel when the day of reckoning arrives.

If we walk through their schedule on that pre-class day, so that they don't get "lost" amidst the multitudes of junior high kids shouting and running and laughing in the hallways when the day of reckoning comes, well, my God, we do it because we know the time investment is an insurance policy. Maybe, if we pay now for our child's tears and apprehensions, the day of reckoning will go more smoothly.

We walk to the cafeteria together and meet the lunch ladies who are opening the kitchen in anticipation of the day of reckoning. They shake our child's hand and show him how to enter his ID number in the little machine. They tell him that he has to make choices between the salad bar and the regular line or the special diet line which is fine to choose even if he isn't on a special diet.

Oh my God, the day of reckoning approaches ... don't ask my child which meal he wants. What he hungers for is acceptance. Just treat him the way you'd want to be treated. You know, the golden rule.