Nanny to the Rescue Again!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

God doesn’t call the equipped; He equips the called.

Thank You, Lord.

When I said I’d go, You said You’d send me.

When I thought I wasn’t good enough, You reminded me, But I AM.

When I was scared I didn’t have the preparation, You prepared me.

When man closed windows, You opened doors.

Amen.

Greg and Becky Johnson—As the Lord always completes what He starts, so do you! Your zealousness for this project, your grace for my learning curve, and your unconditional love for me and Nanny have again brought us to the completion of another successful project. Thank you.

Debbie Wickwire—I’m so glad to have met you in person! What an inspiration you have been to our team. Your hands-on role in this project has made it as smooth as silk and practically perfect in every way!

Kristin Mullenix—Thank you for your commitment and dedication to this project. I’ve grown quite fond of you and your family and enjoy reading about your daily joys of parenting. I especially love hearing how my tips really do work! You really know your PR stuff. Thanks for teaching me the ropes.

Jennifer Stair—We give new meaning to all in a day’s work. Thanks for the tag-team effort! Like I say, a team of two is always better than two teams of one!

Team W—Thanks for all your work. I hope you’re as proud of me as I am of representing you.

Mom—Love ya. What else is there to say?

Boys—The distance between our homes is never a measure of the distance between our hearts. I love you both dearly.

Pastors Joe and Donna Sapienza—Thanks for all your love, guidance, support, encouragement, and occasional correction. Thanks for always covering me in prayer.

The pastoral staff at Celebration International Church—I am blessed. I am thinking about you.

Sharon—Your daily prayers have power. You’re faithful to your word. Thanks.

All my CIC family—You truly are my family. Thanks.

My friends and family—You are all gems. Thanks for your patience with me and my schedule. Although space may have separated us during my time with this project, you were all never far from my heart. Thanks for all your love and understanding.

My family—Thank you for giving me the opportunity to love your children and become a special part of your family. I’m grateful for your support and encouragement in my writing projects.

INTRODUCTION

Today is the big day. You send your first child off to school in his starched new clothes, with his spiffy lunch box, and wearing a backpack that makes him look like an adorable walking turtle. You walk him to the bus stop and envision the happy times to come: spending evenings helping your growing child sound out words in his See Jane Run primer, practicing the multiplication table with your third grader, and sharing the fun of his pint-sized academic world.

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days.

There’s nothing like the joy of hearing all about what your child has learned in school!

Or not.

Because the truth is, what kids learn in kindergarten today may not be exactly what you dreamed about. If it hasn’t happened already, you may soon observe behavior or hear words you are certain your child didn’t learn at home. You may even find yourself thinking, Whose kid is he?

Has Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me become your children’s theme song?

Does their homework load have you tearing out your hair?

Do you find yourself embroiled in arguments with no visible sign of escape?

If so, welcome to the world of grade-schoolers.

Maybe you’ve experienced a conversation with your second grader that went something like this:

JOEY. Mom, can I watch the new Lord of the Rings movie?

MOM. No, honey, I don’t think so.

JOEY. Why not?

MOM. It’s PG-13, and you are not thirteen.

JOEY. Kevin watched it, and he’s not thirteen.

MOM. Well, if Kevin jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?

JOEY. I would if I had a parachute.

MOM. That’s beside the point; you are too young to see the movie.

JOEY. I could get a fake ID, like Mike’s buddy.

MOM. Oh my goodness. Where did you hear about fake IDs?

Pretty soon you are longing for a parachute so you can safely jump out of these tug-of-war conversations.

Chances are if you’re holding this book in your hands right now, you have survived the first years of your child’s life, hopefully with few, if any, physical, emotional, or psychological casualties to yourself, your spouse, or your child. I know that’s the case if we’re old friends and you applied some of the tricks of the nanny trade that I shared in my first book, Nanny to the Rescue! ¹ If not, no worries. You are here now, and if you absorb my straight talk and super tips for grade-schoolers in this book, you’ll be a practically perfect parent in no time at all.

OK, maybe I’m promising a bit too much. After all, no parent can be perfect. However, I do promise to give you three things in this book: an informative and enjoyable read, ideas that can increase your confidence and effectiveness as a parent, and techniques that will improve your kids’ behavior and outlook on school, home, and life in general.

Nanny to the Rescue Again! picks up where the first book stopped: at the doors of your local elementary school, covering ages six through twelve (or first grade though sixth grade).

As a professional nanny with more than a decade of experience, I’ve had the unique opportunity to observe families transition their little ones into the grade-school years. I’ve seen parents grieve as they are suddenly left home alone all day, their job description now radically altered. (Of course, I’ve also seen mothers—usually of multiples—nearly dance a freedom jig as they walked their youngest child to the door on the first day of school.) I know what it’s like to feel angered and saddened for a child who is being bullied at school or facing malicious rumors passed along the gossip grapevine. I’ve also shared the astonishment as I’ve witnessed a young charge’s vocabulary grow by leaps and bounds—but not always in the way I, or his parents, would have liked.

The good news is that even with the obstacles ahead, the middle years of childhood are generally the most enjoyable for parents. There’s no experience quite like the pride of watching your opera-star-to-be belting out Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with an earnest lisp at her first spring concert. And the first time your son reads a book by himself, your heart will skip a beat as you share in his excitement.

You’ll softly laugh at the whispers of little girls planning their futures and little boys sharing their dreams of batting in the big leagues. And you’ll experience that odd mixture of sorrow and pride the first time your child proudly announces that she no longer needs you to accompany her to the bus or into her classroom.

The first season of parenting is one where you bundle, cuddle, and stay on high alert as you guard your baby from the minefields of the common home: electric outlets, sharp corners, breakables on coffee tables, and the ever-popular insect snacks. (Why is it that we can’t get babies to eat their green peas, but if allowed, they’ll search every corner of the house to find and scarf down a dead bug?)

If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder. . . he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.

—Rachel Carson

The grade-school season of parenting is when the winds begin, ever so slowly, to shift toward independence. It is a time when you have to learn to let go and trust the values you’ve instilled in your children to be their anchor in the world. A time when you must learn to trust that things will be OK, that you have done your job well. You will still be there to protect your child, just not always in the same ways. During these grade-school years, it helps to think of yourself as the Great Preparer, readying your child for a successful debut into a healthy, confident, and loving adulthood.

So grab your number-two pencil and your Big Chief tablet for notes, and let’s start our first parenting lesson, shall we? (I might even give out a few gold stars . . .)

SECTION ONE

YOU BROUGHT THIS CHILD INTO THE WORLD . . . NOW YOU HAVE TO LET HIM GO

(YIKES!)

CHAPTER ONE

SEPARATING WITH SANITY

Scene 1: Take 1

The First Day of School

MOM. It’s going to be OK, Zachary. You’ll have a great first day of school. (Her voice quivers, and her smile is weak.)

ZACH, nonchalantly. Yup! I can’t wait! (He walks into school with a spring in his step.)

MOM, following close behind, trying to keep up with her son. How about a hug and a kiss for Mommy?

ZACH. Mom, you don’t have to walk me inside, you know. I know where my classroom is. (He blows a kiss her in direction and turns to greet his friends with a smile.)

MOM, fighting off the tears. OK, honey, I’ll pick you up right outside at three o’clock.

ZACH. OK! Bye, Mom!

MOM, turns and slowly exits the school building. Then spying a group of other moms chatting out front, she joins them. Why do they have to grow up so fast? I never thought the day would come that he wouldn’t need me, never mind want me!

SECOND MOM, moving to console her. Sooner or later, all mothers experience this moment of no longer feeling needed by their kids. Today appears to be your day. It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it?

(Unable to form the words through the lump in her throat, Zach’s mom simply nods.)

Whether your day has come or is soon approaching—indeed, someday the realization hits: you and your child are two independent people who are in the process of learning to function without being attached at the hip. Since you literally carried the little tykes inside your womb, then in your arms, followed by years of having the pitter-patter of their feet right behind yours, it’s no wonder that something as simple as dropping them off at school can feel like an amputation of sorts! No matter how much you might have wished for a few hours of alone time, there’s a transition period where most moms feel a real loss. And it’s especially potent with the first and last child!

The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them.

—Frank A. Clark

Long gone are the days of spoon-feeding your toddler or tying your preschooler’s shoes. If you’ve done your job well, your child started with, I can do it myself! and has now begun saying, I don’t want you to walk me into school today; I’m a big boy. It’s bittersweet, isn’t it? We want them to fly, and yet . . . we miss having them next to us, safe in the nest.

In parenting, there is the physical game and the mental game. The physical game is running through the actions. The mental game is running them through in your head.

—Michelle LaRowe

Getting Kids Ready for the Big Leagues

It seems like just yesterday you were holding your child’s hands as he learned to steadily walk the length of a field. He needed you to support him, to pick him up when he fell down. But it’s a new game now. You are no longer playing backyard ball, where you can run in and call a time-out anytime you choose. Your job, at this point, is to cheer your little batter as he steps up to the plate. You can’t hold his hands as he swings at the ball. (Well, you could, but your child would suffer untold embarrassment by his peers for the rest of his school life.)

He has to try; he must let the proverbial ball fly fair (or foul) on his own. You can, however, observe the play (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and take mental notes. Once the game is over—and when your child is receptive and asks for comments—you can encourage and advise.

All healthy parents gradually move from the role of a full-time, hands-on coach to more of a consultant and comforter. It doesn’t happen all at once, thank goodness. And your children will always love and need you at some level for the rest of their lives.

Nanny Tip

Your kids are looking to you to see how they should respond to situations. If you have a positive attitude, they will too. If you embrace change easily, so will your children!

Practice Will Pay Off

The ultimate goal of good parenting is to equip your children with the knowledge, life skills, and confidence to make healthy choices. As parents, you want to train your kids so their default behavior is kind, wise, compassionate, and fair—whether or not you are watching. A tall order, you say? Yep, it is. And of course, your child will try and fail and then get back in the game and try again . . . many times. Growing up isn’t easy for any of us. But without the testing ground of real life, most of us would not have matured. The playground is a laboratory for real life. It is where we learned cooperation on a seesaw, how to handle (or avoid) bullies, and how to go down a slide without getting burned.

If you’ve done your job well to this point (and most parents who care enough to read a book on parenting are in that category), do not fear: your child will enter her elementary-school years with your voice in her ear. I’m an adult, and I still hear my mother’s voice in my head whenever I’m tempted to go in a counterproductive direction! I bet you do too. (I have a friend who tells me she even hears her mother whisper, Get the double rolls; it saves time and money in the long run! when she’s shopping for toilet paper and tempted to go the cheap route.)

Nanny Tip

Here are ten key elements that will provide your child with comfort and stability during life transitions:

1. Family support

2. Friends

3. Rest, exercise, and healthy food

4. Prayer

5. Laughter

6. Gathering and sorting information

7. Keeping a healthy sense of fun and adventure

8. Being patient with your child (and teaching him to be patient with himself)

9. Maintaining consistency where you can

10. Taking a time-out for yourself

By incorporating these elements into your child’s days, settling into a new normal will start to feel more fun and exciting than scary and worrisome.

So although you may not hold your child’s physical hand as she experiences life outside your home, you certainly hold her heart—and the memories of your words of wisdom, love, prayer, and discipline go with her into every circumstance.

Putting On Your Game Face

In the opening scene of the first day of school, it was obvious that this mother felt more insecure than her child. You may be nervous about all your child may encounter in this new world, but to borrow a phrase from a deodorant commercial, "Never let ’em see you sweat". Portray a positive, confident attitude about your child’s transition to school (or any other major life transition), and it will impact the way your child embraces the change.

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: I don’t like change. I like waking up at the same time each morning, arriving at work at the same time and at the same place, and leaving work at a consistent hour each night. That’s been my routine for the past seven years, and it soothes my inner Mary Poppins. I enjoy knowing that on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings I’ll be at church and that Saturday night is girls’ night out. I take comfort in knowing that each May I take my vacation. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved words like schedule and organization and planning. I get warm fuzzies over planners and date books and calendars. I brake for The Container Store.

I am nearing the third decade of an ordered life, and I don’t like when a wrench is thrown into my dependable routine. But recently, I have been going through lots of transitions and changes in a short amount of time. Even though most of them are good things, there are still lots of new experiences happening all at once, which makes me especially empathetic with kids coping with the shift from Mom’s familiar kitchen to the crowded kindergarten cafeteria.

My recent experience has been helpful for me in terms of feeling empathy for anyone in transition: whether a child going off to school for the first time or a mother adjusting to another phase of life. What helped me during the shaky transitional phase may also be of help to you and your child.

Preparing Your Child for School

Here are some ways you might keep your child feeling centered as he goes off to school or any new place, based on my personal experience and information from other parents and child experts. These small activities take just a moment of time but pay enormous dividends in terms of peace and confidence as your child faces new challenges.

Practice your child’s new schedule. For example, a week before school starts, begin waking up and going to bed on school time. Lay out clothes the night before so morning time is less stressed, and then do some trial runs for fun. On one of the days, do a school drill—see if your child can get dressed and ready: bed made, teeth brushed, backpack loaded, and ready to go by a certain time on a preset alarm. Then instead of going to school (since it won’t yet be open!), go out for a celebration pancake breakfast.

Do some information gathering with your child. Let him ask you questions, and share with him what to expect at school. Help him deal with any fears or concerns, such as, What if I lose my lunch money? or How will I get home?

Role-play situations that are bound to come up during the school day. For example, to prepare him for when he needs to use the bathroom in the middle of class but is not sure what to do, you say, Zach, if you need to use the bathroom during class, raise your hand high for the teacher to see, and when she calls on you, ask if you can use the bathroom. Then say, OK, Zach? I’ll pretend to be the teacher. Now show me what you do when you need to go to the bathroom.

Teach him what to do when he doesn’t know what to do. Speak up! If you have a question, ask it! But raise your hand first and ask politely. Most likely someone else has the same question too.

Go over the school rules together. Most schools provide a handbook, so be sure to review it with your child. Highlight what you feel will really affect your child.

Try to get together with at least one other student before the first day of school. Most schools provide a class list toward the end of the summer. Plan a picnic at the school playground so that your child can make a new friend.

Attend school events. Many schools have a meet and greet day before school begins, a time to meet your child’s teacher and other classmates. Take advantage of these opportunities.

Make fun events of shopping for school supplies and school clothes. Let your child handle and sort his supplies and pack them in his backpack. Ask him what special treats he might like to have in his lunch box the first week of school, and try to provide one or two of them.

Pray for your child. If you are comfortable with prayer, casually pray for your child before he goes to school, maybe even as you drive (with your eyes open!), and make the prayer full of anticipation and hope. (Lord, I thank You for letting my child be such a special boy at home, and I ask that You show him how he can be a blessing to his friends and teacher today. We trust You to make it a good day!)

Assure him that God is with him everywhere and that he can talk to God anytime. When he’s old enough to read, put a verse of Scripture or a loving thought or a funny joke in his lunch box. Before he’s ready to read, draw a fun picture or cartoon to tuck into his backpack or lunch box. My mom taught me to wake up each