About a year ago, I received a letter from a parent, whose child we will call Ann:

“Dear Ms. Tara,

I just wanted to send you a note thanking you for taking an interest in Ann and helping us with finding ways to increase her comfort level in class. It’s people like you who make big impacts in a child’s life long-term and I really appreciate it.”

First, let me tell you how much this letter touched me. I think I cried. As a “teacher”, we know that we do affect the children that we come in contact with, but we don’t always hear it. And it’s a nice thing to hear.

Ann was a tough nut to crack for me. She started class at 3 years old, almost 4, and was a typical Funny Bug; a little shy in my opening circle, but quick to warm up and participate by the time we started the warm-up. About 6 months later, things began to change. Ann would clam up during the warm up, and refuse to participate – especially if we ran in a circle. The rest of the class she was fine, but not during the warm up. I hadn’t ever experienced this behavior before, and I was stumped. I asked advice from other instructors at the gym, went over several possibilities in my mind (afraid she’s going to be ran into, issues with peripheral vision, etc.), but I just couldn’t figure it out. Her lacking participation began to spread, to the point that she barely joined the class at all. Her parents began to worry, as did I. There was nothing that I could figure out that was going on either in class or at home to cause this problem. I noticed that, during class, Mom seemed very nervous. She would stand at the window and watch closely, worried about her daughter’s behavior. I had an idea; an idea that made me nervous, as I was about to ask a parent to do something that I had never done before. Leave their child. I asked Mom to trust me, and to meet me at the door to the gym the following week, and drop Ann off with me, then to leave, and return at the end of class. She agreed! Whew! Nerves subsided.

It was like I had the old Ann back. She was a little timid during opening circle (what 4 year old isn’t sometimes?), but completely participated in the rest of class. She asked me a few times where her Mom was, but was just fine when I told her she was running errands. It was clear that Ann had begun to regress a little, which stressed Mom out. Feeling that stress, Ann preceded to regress a lot. Without the worry that she was being watched, she was happy to enjoy class as the stress-free 4-year old that she wanted to be. And after a few weeks, her confidence in herself had grown to the point that she was happy to have Mom and Dad there to watch her.

Miss Jane experienced a similar situation recently. I’m sure you are all familiar with the term “helicopter Mom”. Well one of her Super Beasts had a very NON-helicopter Mom. She was happy to stand back and let her little one do her own thing; but just knowing that Mom was nearby caused her to feel pressured. Some children have an innate desire to please their parents, and without even knowing it, become stressed out for fear of doing something incorrectly. While everyone understands a parents’ desire to see every single thing that their child does (especially when they are doing it for the first time), sometimes we just need to step back a little, give them a little space, and let them be a kid. Don’t worry, Miss Tara is still there, or Miss Morgan, or Miss Mercedez, we’ll always let you know if we need you. After all, we’re here to have fun, but we definitely take it seriously!