One morning my boys were attending a different daycare from their usual one and my oldest son was going to be riding a different bus than he usually does. In the morning before leaving, he was enveloped in tears. We sat down and we talked about why he was experiencing these feelings of sadness. He communicated that he was scared to ride on the new bus because he didn’t have an assigned seat. Now, his dad wanted me to drive him to school to avoid him feeling this worry and fear. But, I knew that he needed to feel this sense of fear and be able to move past it on his own. If I were to have taken him to school and prevented him feeling this fear, what would that have taught him about fear? How would that be teaching him how to handle fear in the future? When he is an adult? I knew deep in my heart, as painful as it was to see him cry and be sad, that he needed to face this on his own and be able to develop the skills to move through this fear. I re-assured him that each and every time he experienced fear and feeling scared and he did it anyway, that it would become easier and easier.

Now, as adults, how many times have we turned away from fear because it was too scary? I know for myself, this is something that I’ve been working on and, let me tell you, it’s not easy at first but the feeling of accomplishment is such a reward!

When we arrived at the new daycare, they told him that the bus had no assigned seats! My son fist pumped in the air and walked with so much courage and grace into that daycare!