feeling goofy

When we arrived at school today, G was unhappy.  He didn't want to let go of me and he did not want to wash his hands.  He whined, he asked me to pick him up, he collapsed on the floor in misery.  Since it's important to wash his hands I kept asking and steering him toward the sink but he didn't want to even after the rest of the class had clean hands and was reading books.  So his teacher came over and asked if he was ready.  He didn't respond so as I was walking out the door she picked him up and asked him if he was feeling goofy today.  Say what?!  This is the same teacher I have noticed calling some of her students sweetheart during school.  I understand that she cares about these kids and I'm so glad she does.  And some of them need a lot of help and patience, but each one of these kids who have been labeled Special Needs is a person deserving of the same respect as anyone else.  Sugaring things up with cutesy nicknames and watered down language for their emotional states isn't going to help these boys and girls.  It's going to make it harder for them to interact with people, to take themselves seriously, to be taken seriously.

I call my own, my husbands, my friends and relatives and my kids' feelings by the most honest terminology I can come up with.  I believe kids' emotions are as strong as mine and that they should understand those emotions as much as possible.  When G is whining and frowning and lying on the floor crying I call it sad, or angry or unhappy or frustrated.  When he is grinning and singing and prancing around the house I call it happy or proud.  I wish other people would treat kids the way they would like to be treated (My mom said that so many times to me as a kid... it's stamped onto my thoughts).  If I'm in a bad mood, I would be offended if someone said to me "Hey, are you feeling goofy today?"  In fact I'm pretty sure I'd shoot them one of my best glares.  If I'm in a bad mood, I call it a bad mood.  I want my kids to be able to call what they're feeling by it's best name and not a pet name, a sugared-up name that doesn't make a whole lot of sense but sounds less scary.  I'm not scared of my kid's unhappiness, or my own.  It took G three years to tell me he was sad, and I celebrated his ability to recognize his feelings and put them into words (while I gave him a hug and asked why he was sad).

There's a lot of power in knowing what you feel and being able to call it by it's name.  It makes it easier to figure out where sadness or anger came from and maybe how to start getting it out and letting it go so you can feel happy.  I wish that Special needs kids, neurotypical kids, every human being was able to and comfortable with talking honestly about emotions, their own and others.  Emotions are not something to be afraid of, but instead something to embrace and learn from.  Now please excuse me to go prepare further for our extended course in Emotional Honesty as applied to How to Share Mama's Lap, Legos and Plates of Potato Chips.