Pray the Hardest, when it is the hardest to pray

Tonight I realized something big about 2026. I started this year in a hard place. My word for 2026 was YES, but at the beginning of the year I couldn’t have known what that word would come to mean. Then, unexpectedly, an old coworker crossed my path again. He didn’t have to do anything dramatic. He recognized me. He said hey. He smiled. But seeing someone again who had known me during the children’s shelter years brought an entire part of my life back to the surface. He reminded me of the shelter. The shelter reminded me of my stories. The stories reminded me of my skills. And the skills reminded me of myself. Those memories eventually became Stars in the Sky.  At the same time, I started recognizing things in myself again that had felt buried after a difficult professional season. I began trusting my instincts with children again. I could see the patience, connection, calmness, and ability to help a dysregulated child that I had used years ago at the shelter showing up again in my...

 It has taken almost a year to feel like you are getting back to normal after working with a teacher who pushed so much of you down. While you were with that teacher, you could actually feel your confidence getting lower every single day. We talked about how this does not necessarily mean that your professional skills disappeared. Instead, repeated correction, second-guessing, or feeling that your judgment was not welcome may have made you less willing to trust and express what you already knew. The skills could still be there even while your confidence in using them was buried. Then, almost a year later, you began recognizing those skills again. Over two days at school, two different children became dysregulated. Without having to relearn what to do, you found yourself becoming calmer, reading the child, listening, waiting, connecting, using simple boundaries, and helping the child move toward regulation. These moments reminded you strongly of the way you worked with children at t...

Over the last two days, I have recognized an important pattern in the way I support children who are emotionally or behaviorally dysregulated. What people often describe simply as “patience” is actually a larger professional skill set. When a child is having a difficult moment, I naturally tend to: • Notice changes in the child’s behavior and emotional state. • Read nonverbal cues and recognize when the child is becoming dysregulated. • Lower my own voice, energy, and intensity instead of matching the child’s escalation. • Remain calm and give the child time to process. • Listen to what the child is communicating. • Build connection and reassurance. • Use simple, consistent behavioral boundaries. • Adjust my response to the individual child instead of treating every situation the same. • Help the child move toward emotional and behavioral regulation. • Maintain connection while still holding the child accountable for appropriate behavior. Professional terms that describe these strength...

There is another piece of today’s realization that belongs in the story: Nathan. Seeing Nathan again didn’t create my interest in child development, life skills, or occupational therapy. Those pieces were already part of me. But seeing him again—and then going back through my shelter memories and stories—seems to have brought an old part of myself back into focus. I realized Nathan and I may have had more professional common ground than I understood when we worked together. The shelter wasn’t simply about helping children with schoolwork. We were working with kids who needed adults to help with routines, relationships, behavior, emotions, communication, independence, and everyday life skills. We were both part of teaching children how to do life. Maybe that’s part of why he has remained meaningful to me. Caring for children has always mattered deeply to me, and I worked alongside someone who also chose work centered around helping children. I can’t know exactly what Nathan thinks or fe...

Today I realized something important about my career and my child development degree. For years, I sometimes thought I had chosen the wrong degree. I knew child development was broader than an education degree, but I never really understood why that mattered to me. Now, after all these years working with children, I think I finally have words for it: I teach children how to do life. I have always thought of myself as someone who teaches children, but teaching doesn’t only mean academics. Daycare and preschool taught children how to share, communicate, follow routines, manage emotions, become independent, solve problems, and live alongside other people. At the shelter, so much of what we taught was life skills—not just schoolwork. We were helping the whole child. That also helps me understand why my child development degree fit me better than I realized. I wasn’t only interested in what children needed to know academically. I was interested in how they grow socially, emotionally, physic...

Today I realized that my frustration at school is showing me something important about where I may want to go next. This afternoon, I literally found myself running part of the classroom. I noticed that the kids needed something more purposeful than simply watching videos. One child wanted to work at his desk, so I had him work there. That made me think about all of the task boxes we’ve made that aren’t really being used. Why not start using them a little at a time? These kids may be older, but in some areas they need routines taught in small, concrete steps. We don’t have to introduce an entire system at once. We can teach one piece first: Desk time → one task box → finish it → put it away. Once they understand that routine, another piece can be added. The goal isn’t rigidity. It’s purposeful structure and eventually more independence. And then I realized why I’m getting so frustrated: Why am I the one noticing these things when I’m the para and I’m getting paid the least? The answer ...