July 9, 2004 - Friday
Harry's been increasingly clingy the last two weeks when I drop him off at school and in hindsight there's really no mystery as to why. His school has switched to a summer camp program that pools all of the 4-6 year olds. There are only a few of Harry's regular classmates there for the summer, plus there is another class of older 6-12 kids who gather at the same time in the morning and fill Harry's familiar school rooms with unfamilair older kids each morning. It is clearly a little intimidating. That dynamic is something that the school had mentioned as a potential difficulty of starting a child at this school in the summer and one of the reasons why we started Harry this past April; to at least let him get accustomed to the place.

At first I didn't think too much about this clinging problem because it just seemed like some goofy behavior, maybe something he picked up from someone else. But, when I finally remembered and realized what was going on, I talked with Harry last night about making friends: how hard that can seem; how perfectly normal it is to feel uncomfortable; and, how it's hard for anyone to really know what to say to kids/people one doesn't know. I tried to suggest to him that other kids feel the same way and that just saying 'hello' and trying to make new friends would make it easier for both him and others. I tried to give him a little pep talk on the way to school again this morning.

There is, of course, a lot of parenting that begets only delayed gratification or delayed feedback at best. A parent tries to teach and maybe, just maybe, there will be an indication some days, weeks, or years later something you did or said actually mattered. Today was one of those amazing times (amazing with a small "a" and in kind of a humbling sense) when the results can right away. Today Harry walked into school and turned around to grab my shirt as he has been doing, but then bravely turned toward a group of kids sitting on the floor across the room with a GameBoy or something. As I turned to leave with Jeremy, a girl arrived whom Harry has listed among his friends. I call to him that Rachel was there and he turned toward her and boldly said, "Hi Rachel." That's nothing all that remarkable on the surface, but kids, still very self-focused at four, don't usually greet each other so formally and it seemed to me to be a definite try at what we had talked about. Awkwardly, Rachel seemed a bit embarrassed by it and turned away toward her mother. I almost went back toward Harry to commend him for trying so nicely to be friendly and perhaps explain that Rachel must have been just surprised, but he was apparently undeterred and turned again toward the group on the floor. Jeremy and I went out the door, but I couldn't help turning and standing for a moment in the breezeway looking in through the window to see what would happen. I didn't know whether he knew the kids there or not, but they were older and I didn't think so. He sat down anyway.

After school I asked Harry about it and said my little piece of Rachel being a little nervous and how that was an indication that his feeling are the same as everyone else's. When I asked about the group he said he just sat there for a while, then got up. He said he didn't say anything and neither did the kids obsessed by their GameBoy. I told him that he still did great and that the kids were probably a little nervous, too, but that each time he did that it would get a little easier. I know that's not bad advice, but I also remember how hollow such advice can seem to a child amid the immediate, awkward feelings of being in a strange enviroment. I was just so encouraged, and amazied and humbled, that Harry actually listened and tried so hard to make it work.

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