The Year I Realized

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, physically, cognitively, and relationally. Even my mission trips fit that bigger picture because they involved meeting children where they were and caring about the whole person.

It also changes the way I look at all the different jobs I’ve had. Maybe I wasn’t bouncing around without a direction. The settings changed, but the theme stayed surprisingly consistent: helping children grow and learn how to function in life.

And now I can see why occupational therapy keeps catching my attention. In my current special education classroom, I often find myself wondering, “What skill is underneath this problem?” If a child struggles with personal space, grabbing, transitions, regulation, routines, or independence, I don’t only want to correct the behavior or finish the school assignment. I want to understand what is keeping that child from functioning more independently and what might help.

I’m not an OT, and I still need the education and clinical training if I choose that path. But I can talk with our school OT now, share what I’m noticing, learn appropriate classroom strategies, and pay attention to how the OT thinks through these situations. That lets me help my students while also learning whether OTA is really where I want to go next.

This year has been strange and difficult in some ways, and it still may be my last year as a para. But that doesn’t mean the year is wasted. Maybe I don’t have to stay somewhere forever for it to be valuable.

If this is my last year, I can help these kids, learn everything I can, learn from the OT, notice what I’m good at, and let this experience help show me what comes next.

Maybe this isn’t the year I found where I’m supposed to stay.

Maybe it’s the year I started figuring out where I’m going next.

And maybe I didn’t choose the wrong degree all those years ago. Maybe I chose a broader degree before I understood why I needed a broader one.

I wasn’t only interested in teaching children school.

I wanted to understand the whole child and help children learn how to do life.