I have been very nostalgic lately.  The feeling was difficult and I just can’t stop the tears….

I dropped Ivana the other day in school.  When we arrived there, all the kids were outside on the playground.  I gave Ivana a kiss and a big hug before I left her as I said “I will see you later baby, have  a nice day”.  “Have a nice day too mama, I love you”, she said with her angelic voice as I walked away.  I sat in my car infront of the gate where I can see her.  I stayed there for about 20 minutes just watching her.  She was just standing there watching the other kids play.  Her best friend did not come that day and so I can tell she felt alone.  Ivana is a quiet type of girl, she observes a lot, she is always hesitant to approach other kids, she prefers that other kids approach her, and when they do she feels so shy as if she will melt.  Isn’t it that as kids we are afraid to be rejected by other people?  I can tell she can feel this sometimes as she have told me few times that the girls in school did not like her clothes or her shoes, but I wonder if what she meant was they did not like her.

And so for almost 20 minutes I was watching her and the sight of her alone standing there without anybody approaching her made me so emotional.  I cried.  I can see myself in her when I was a kid and I have experienced feelings of rejection so many times.  I knew inside me I was a good kid, generous, helpful…but why is it that kids like me did not find me interesting.  I felt like I was living in a world like an invisible object.  That was sad, and I do not want my kids to experience the same.

As parents, it is very important that we make our kids feel accepted, loved, and that they are beautiful in every way.  It is very good that we shower them with compliments whenever they are doing something good or they accomplish something that makes them really proud.  The fact that there were lots of times I was not given compliments as a child had a huge effect in my self-esteem which I am still carrying now that I am already an adult.  My parents were not very vocal about their love for me and my siblings; they are the type of parents who can’t even say the words “I love you” to their kids.  That fact though did not make them any less before my eyes, but made me realize instead how people are really different in so many ways.

I left school that day and drove home…the tears were not flowing anymore, but I felt so relieved with the realization that I can be a better parent and a mother.  There’s always room for improvement and lessons to learn from experience.