It’s Freeing…Really.

It's true. You feel it. I feel it. The KIDS feel it.

We are going through a time where absolutely EVERY human being is feeling unsettled. The ground beneath us is shifting sand. We thought we had a wider locus of control in our lives. We are realizing that we have far less than we perceived.

That sense of having say in what happens to us is agency, one of three foundational human needs (the others are belonging and cognitive competency - more on those another day). All three begin in our heads.

Brains like order. They like predictability with a SPRINKLE of novelty to keep us curious. Constant change is something our brains CAN handle, but we don't like it. Layer in the amygdala, our instinctual center that activates when it perceives threat. When that goes off, it shuts down our ability to reason. We act on self preservation.

Cue the past two years. We have been flexible, creative, and patient. We've tried to keep our literal and figurative heads above water. We've told ourselves this will pass...we've been hopeful. Our brains and bodies are tired. Those amygdala alarm bells have rung with every statistic, diagnosis, and (ugh) PIVOT.

I am right there with you. Adulting is HARD right now.

Here's the thing: we are acting (not intentionally - remember, this is instinct) as though our actions have no affect on others most of the time - we are in flight or fight mode.

Here's the bigger thing: that self preservation behavior is affecting our kids. It's what our kids see, hear, and are learning. They don't think there's another way to be.

I see it every day. Kids acting on the belief they have no control of ANYTHING. Life just happens TO them, and they just REACT. Run that forward. That means they don't have any idea what they can do, they have no understanding of what it feels like to DECIDE or RESPOND to things.

THAT'S why this year, despite going back to school (oh how we thought that would solve so much...), it's been harder than ever.

As a parent and an educator, I am with you. I feel squeezed, frustrated and utterly exhausted. There's a lot going on.

There are day I want to simply take care of myself. I find myself entertaining, "It would be so much better/easier if I..."

And then I remind myself: I am grasping for a locus of control. I feel threatened. I am acting instinctually.

So I am working on this: Rather than telling myself that something has to change for me to have control, I focus on what I truly have power over: my own mind. I can control how I speak and think. My language - in my head and aloud - is in my control. It costs nothing, and people can't take that from me. That is my agency, that will ground me when everything around me is nuts. That is FREEING.

I don't need to have everything under control (I can't) because I have the agency I need if I choose to.

Teaching kids that THEY can do that too is what keeps me going to school each day.

And it works. It takes time...they don't like it at first...until they have a true taste of making their own decision. That's big.

Instead of offering a myriad of solutions I have thought of, I ask kids what they've thought of first. Instead of, "Let me do that," I say, "I believe you've got this...keep going!" Instead of asking, "How was your day?" it's, "How did YOU learn today?" When kids aren't getting along, we come together and THEY come up with a solution.

All this language SHIFTS the responsibility from me to them. That seems counterintuitive to solve my problem of wanting the control, BUT it doesn't.

That's how they create their sense of capability and agency. Once they understand and exercise their agency, they fly. I no longer have to hold up the world FOR them. I am there to support differently.

And that frees me too.