Nipples and Breasts Everywhere!

It’s funny how we all process change a little differently. Take my little guy, for example.

My youngest son is just shy of 1st grade. We’re living in a foreign country now, so he’s adjusting to public school in a similar yet very different culture. The kids speak with accents. They use words he doesn’t always understand. Even his teacher takes a different approach to running her classroom than the one to which he is accustomed. Just the other day, she asked him to please sit down and finish his coloring assignment. Being the former Montessori student that he is, his very respectful reply was, “No thank you. I don’t think I want to do that right now.”. And he kept meandering around the room. Thats what he does: he meanders.

But yesterday was a bigger deal. Yesterday was his first day since starting he new school during which they had PE. Even though my son goes to a public school, he has to wear a uniform, so PE means changing out of his slacks and school sweatshirt and into more appropriate PE clothing. Changing in public caused him a bit of grief, just as it has his older brother. Perhaps I’ve done something wrong because neither of my boys are comfortable with being shirtless in public. I don’t know.

Regardless, he was a bit taken aback by the whole experience, and he eagerly related the ordeal to his Mommy when she met his at the school gate at the end of his day. Sensing his obvious excitement she said to him, “Wow, there must have been a lot of nipples,” in an attempt to inject some humor into the moment. I mean, what little boy doesn’t erupt into laughter at the word “nipple?”. Seriously. Go check it out. I’ll wait.

But my son’s response was unexpected. “No, the girls were there, too,” he said. “There were nipples and breasts everywhere!”

Change is something we all face. There is no escaping it. What matters most is how you deal with it. For my little guy, although wrestling with his own challenges adjusting to major changes in his life, part of the process entails confiding in his mother, sharing with her the sources of his turmoil. He has shared with me some of his biggest fears about moving to this new country. The moral of the story is that dealing with change happens only by acknowledging and then confronting the change, the source of the fear. The story was not really about the nipples; it was about finding someone to whom you can relate your experiences. Change doesn’t just blow over, and hiding your fear of change will never get you anywhere.

Tell your story.