What Has Changed, What Has Not

Photo by @valario_davis

It’s a bit mind-boggling how many folks reached out to share their support and experiences after I published my Open Letter last fall. What I know is that what is happening to me is happening to so many other families around the country.

Black and Brown boys are being pushed out of preschool so frequently we have to call it an epidemic.

I’d like to say that we have since landed in a place that helped my child develop the “lagging skills” he needs help with (and here I cite the powerful, life-changing work–for me–of Dr. Ross Greene whose idea of lenses and how we look at children with challenging behaviors makes sense to me), but that hasn’t been the case.

Instead, I got beguiled by a Quaker independent school that said they had the capacity and willingness to handle my kid, who does have predictable moments of challenging behaviors that generally occur around his interactions with other children. I’ve never denied that. I am upfront about what he’s working on and where he needs support as he develops and masters those skills. We lasted there for three months before the school said it was unable to meet his needs (and it’s notable that the school also kicked out another boy of color, too), and we found ourselves back in the same place we’d been in nearly a year before.

What was important, however, was that we weren’t in the exact same place. Yes, we were out of our fourth preschool (if you’re counting), but I was different and my child was different. This time, I activated my network of support and people showed up for us, like my friend who accompanied me to a meeting about my sun at the Quaker school and, as a Quaker herself, was mystified at the school’s unwillingness to even try to teach my kid the social skills he needed. Having her be able to witness and articulate that moment was powerful. His teacher of the home preschool/day care let us return until we figured out what we wanted and needed to do. She was also clear about the difference between permissive schools and progressive ones, noting that the Quaker one was permissive and a space where my kid will most likely never do well. I appreciated her honesty. The therapists we’d worked with affirmed us and helped me give E the language for talking about leaving and next steps. No need to dwell on the past, essentially, but to, rather, get some play dates on the books so he could remain connected to his friends. A reminder that children are resilient and that he was developing key resiliency skills helped, also.

We are at a new preschool, an Afrocentric one in Boston’s Roxbury that has been around for decades. As we prepared to begin at the school, I gave his teachers as much information as they wanted to know about E, but his teacher said she preferred to get to know him first and that she would ask if she had questions. Indeed, he displayed some of those challenging behaviors, but, this time, the response was different. There has been no discussion of something being “wrong,” but, instead, has been much more around him learning how to be in a new place, learning how to get along with peers, how to understand expectations. There’s also been lots of affirming of his strengths. The school is structured; children know their limits; they are loved. E is adjusting. He has been interested in his peers and is doing some intense social work of negotiating relationships and learning how to be in community with other young children. I think he’s exhausted, lol. Indeed, being an almost-five-year-old is hard work.

I’ve hung back mostly, hovering along the periphery. I am hesitant to get involved in the school community. I know it’s this fear of perhaps: perhaps this will all go south AGAIN in the blink of an eye; perhaps the teacher is going to begin telling me about what’s wrong with my kid without any suggestions about how I can help him and support her; perhaps we’ll be told this is not the place for us. My therapist has been great about telling me to focus on today, and to be grateful for today. I am generally optimistic about my life; this current moment and this last year has tested that resolve. I’m trying. This current moment is not a year ago.

I do not know a solution other than to keep working for schools, educators, and language that is truly focused on what is best for young children in early childhood spaces. I know these spaces exist. I have a dear friend who is doing incredible work in California with all kinds of children. I know principals who have helped their staff receive the training they need to service all children. What is infuriating is that these places are not givens and that it’s through trial-and-error that a family might “luck” into one of them. For Black families and other IPOC families, the ratio of schools that are culturally responsive and effective to all the ones that aren’t is dismal, at best.

And, really, that’s why I’ve not been back to this blog for a while. The need to write about the aftermath has been overshadowed by the every day need to simply show up for my kid, to get him the supports he need, and to keep my day job. Things are marginally better, but not as much as I hoped and not as much as my kid–and all kids–deserve. It’s the better, for today, that I focus on. Today, right now, everything is okay.

Everything is okay.

We are going to be okay, and I must refuse to accept any other reality.

I hope.