Dear Parents of non-school aged children,

Dear Parents of non-school aged children,

Please make a point to remember what your children are like now. All they’ve learned without instruction, structure, rigor and standards. How much they’ve benefited by being around brothers and sisters, aunts uncles cousins friends of varying ages and experience.

Look at them and how smart they are! How they are able to puzzle through obstacles when they learned to walk and speak. How they know to ask for help when they need it. How happy they are and how rarely they have a sad day. How massively curious they are with all of the questions!

How brave they are. Unafraid to do things that scare the life out of you in worry. How much fun they are having even when they are messing things up, maybe even especially then.

How tough they are. How resilient! They stand up for themselves. Resist. Argue with you. Even make good arguments that surprise you.

Please make a point to remember because all of the above don’t just naturally begin to fade the September that people turn five. And there’s no denying that all of the above are overwhelmingly positive traits. They may be inconvenient at times, but positive nonetheless. But there’s also no denying that so much of the above does begin to fade the September that people turn five.