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The<br />
Time<br />
COIN<br />
Camille Anding<br />
When our children stepped<br />
into their first grade class in<br />
elementary school, I went<br />
with them, physically and<br />
emotionally.<br />
I refused to leave their sides.<br />
It was to be a reminder that I was<br />
always nearby when they pulled their<br />
shiny, fat pencils out of their new book<br />
satchels – the red plaid ones with two<br />
leather clasps and front pocket. When<br />
they pulled out their new writing tablet<br />
and fresh box of Crayolas, they would<br />
remember the time we spent together<br />
shopping for supplies. They would never<br />
doubt my concern and love.<br />
There were always new clothes for<br />
new beginnings – Sears’s jeans with extra<br />
knee support, flannel shirts, matching<br />
knee socks for sweaters, and lots of<br />
accessory bows. The clothes were new –<br />
reminders that our love would never<br />
grow old and that there would always be<br />
a new supply as long as it was within our<br />
earthly power and bank account.<br />
My physical presence began to<br />
dwindle during their middle school years;<br />
not by choice. It came with their age and<br />
peer pressure. Doting parents were for<br />
elementary kids; not middle school youth.<br />
However that’s when I felt they<br />
needed their parents most. Peer pressure<br />
is often a negative thing and can quickly<br />
morph into bullying, which it did.<br />
I was in a quandary. My motherly<br />
intuition saw all the signs, but I knew<br />
too much parental overstepping would<br />
only amplify the problem. I did what I<br />
should have done at the onset. I fought<br />
the bully on my knees, and God diffused<br />
the problem.<br />
In another challenging situation, it<br />
was the teacher – the shouting, angry,<br />
even hostile through a child’s innocent<br />
eyes kind of teacher. A friend in the<br />
school system identified the problem<br />
which explained the 180° change we<br />
were seeing in our child’s personality.<br />
We were able to solve the situation<br />
with a classroom switch, and the daily<br />
trauma was resolved, but now I had a<br />
problem.<br />
My anger and animosity grew<br />
toward that teacher, and God pinpointed<br />
forgiveness as the antidote. It was not easy<br />
but certainly doable and necessary to<br />
match my Christian declaration.<br />
So from experience, I highly<br />
recommend all parents of school age<br />
children have your own survival kits.<br />
Pack them with much prayer, keen<br />
insight and discernment, along with<br />
inexhaustible forgiveness, the kind<br />
that God offers us. ●<br />
74 • September 2018
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