What Next? by Madeleine S Winter, CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 INT

You probably have a list of things that you make sure you put into your child’s backpack every morning before school. Their lunch, a hat, sunscreen, their homework or “show and tell”. Those things are all important, and whatever happens – don’t forget them, or it might mean you have to go all the way back home again to get them!

There’s something else that children really need in their backpack, also. And now I am talking about their emotional backpack. They carry this to and from school, too. We don’t always see this backpack, but we often feel it – when it is too full of hard feelings, accumulated through the day, or not full enough of the important feelings – a sense of being loved and connected and cared about. When this happens, this backpack gets really heavy, starts bumping into things, won’t fit in the back of the car. Continue reading →