Caution: Very personal post.
My daughter's junior high principal rarely spoke to her over the course of those two years. That is kind of a natural thing. Kids like her don't really get a lot of personal attention. She was that girl that worked hard in her classes, put herself around good friends, played multiple sports and joined extra-curricular clubs. She was the kind of kid that would just die if she had ever gotten a detention. I can sympathize, most principals are busy putting out fires and dealing with the kids most needing adult intervention and she was not really one of them. The problem is that I was her junior high principal and it is no longer okay for me to accept that our relationship was on hold for two very important years.
I had always been looking forward to having my daughter in my school building. When she was in first grade, I was hired to my current position. Before that, she was a great sidekick for me at my previous high school. She went to my dances and games with me. She always seemed interested in what I did. When she was older, she would play school with one of her friends (whose mom was a teacher there) in my building until it was time to go home. As the years ticked by, the time had come to register her at my building.
I wasn't long before my excitement about her being there would be challenged. In the first week of school a student in one of her classes told her that the only reason she was getting to play on the softball team was because her dad buys all the equipment. She told us this story and we laughed it off with her. Inside, this was a huge shock to my system. Somehow I had lost sight of the fact that kids at this age would not see her how I see her while she goes to my school. She is always going to have the appearance of special treatment no matter how hard she worked or excelled. She would going to exist under my shadow and this was not acceptable to me.
I started to pull away and give her the distance she needed to be insulated from me. Junior high is tough and I never wanted to make it tougher for her. We did not take advantage of what we knew about what was going on at school. This was good for both of us, but it was difficult to convince others that she was never an informant for me. Sure we exchanged small encounters but we probably never appeared to be close at school. Thankfully, my teachers took care of the fun stuff and jokes during my fatherhood sabbatical. She had great relationships with the staff and I am indebted to them for that. She ended junior high with great experiences in and out of the classroom despite me having very little to do with that.
8th Grade Night |
She is a freshman now and we can breathe again. She talks non-stop about school and even though I tease her about, I kinda like it. She is getting ready for homecoming and shopping for dresses. It honestly doesn't bother me at all. It takes me back to the days that she was my homecoming date at Elverado High School. A lot has changed since then and she is a great kid. She didn't get the credit she deserved during those two years, but now she is free from the shadow to make her own path forward. I am truly excited for her.
So to my daughter's principal, you are getting a good one. I promise to be a supportive parent now that I can feel like one again. She really likes kidding around with the teachers if you could make time to do that with her. Her mother and I will do our best to guide her from here, but we need a great principal to guide her in there.