Your Kids Aren't Behind. They're Overwhelmed. — Hey Mandy Davis

Your Kids Aren’t Behind. They’re Overwhelmed.

4 min read

Motherhood & Home Life

Every September, the same message lands in my inbox a hundred different ways. We’re three weeks in and I already feel behind. My son is nine and still guessing at words. Everyone else’s kids seem to be doing so much more.

I want to tell you what I told a mom at our homeschool learning center last week, standing by the coffee with her arms crossed tight over a planner that was already two weeks out of date.

Your kids are not behind. They are overwhelmed. And so are you.

As a former principal, I spent years looking at data walls — rows of children sorted into colors by how they scored in a testing window. I know what “behind” is supposed to mean. It means a child is measured against a pacing guide written by someone who has never met them, on a calendar that assumes every seven-year-old arrives at the same door on the same Tuesday. That is the only thing “behind” has ever measured.

What overwhelmed looks like at the kitchen table

Two children reading a book together in warm light

Overwhelmed is the child who could do the math page yesterday and today is crying over the first problem. It’s the eleven-year-old who reads beautifully aloud and then can’t tell you what happened in the chapter. It’s the four-year-old who “should be” writing her name and instead is under the table with the dog.

Those aren’t gaps. Those are nervous systems telling you the pace is wrong.

I’ve watched it in my own home more times than I’d like to admit. My middle daughter went through a stretch where every reading lesson ended in tears, and I did what I was trained to do — I added more practice. More minutes, more flashcards, more of the thing that was already hurting. It took me longer than I’m proud of to notice that the tears were the data.

Three things I do now, before I add anything

1. I take something away first. When a child stalls, my instinct used to be add. Now I subtract. One subject comes off the table for a week. Almost every time, the thing that was stuck comes unstuck on its own, because there was finally room for it.

2. I look at the week, not the day. A bad Tuesday is just a Tuesday. If I look at seven days and see reading happening in some form — a graphic novel in the car, a recipe read out loud, a bedtime chapter — then reading is happening. The lesson plan was never the point.

3. I ask what they’re carrying. Sometimes the child who “can’t focus” slept badly, or is worried about a friend, or is simply three years old and has been asked to sit for forty minutes. Children are people. They have days.

Three things I do before I add anything: take something away first, look at the week not the day, ask what they're carrying

The question that changes everything

Instead of Is my child on track? — try Does my child feel safe enough to try?

A child who feels safe will close a gap in a month that a panicked child will carry for a year. I have seen it as a teacher, as a principal, and now at my own table. Calm is a curriculum. It’s the one nobody sells, and it’s the one that works.

Calm is a curriculum.

So if you’re three weeks in and already feel behind — put the planner down. Look at the actual child in front of you. Take one thing off the table. Then pick up the book you both like and read it on the couch.

There is no bell. Nobody is coming to check. The pace is yours.

And that, all by itself, is enough.

If this is the season you’re in, I’m building a place for exactly this — practical help, real support, and other moms who’ve been at the same table. The Homebuilt Community opens in October and it’s free to join. You can put your name on the list at heymandydavis.com/community.

Keep reading

If you liked this, read these next