Raw Emotion

When you live with a toddler, emotional outbursts are a part of everyday life.  Sometimes these outbursts break my heart - my daughter's slow, silent cry because she colored the last page in her coloring book.  Sometimes they annoy me - really do we need to scream over Barbies?  And sometimes they just make me shake my head - this weekend's episode of screaming, crying and jumping around like an angry jackrabbit at the park.  Seriously not cool.  

I often find myself saying, "Use your words."  I am trying to teach both my daughters the value of talking about what's upsetting them, instead of having these emotional landslides.  I have to admit though there are times I am jealous of their ability to show such raw emotion.  Whatever they are feeling - joy, sadness, anger, it just all comes out.  Wouldn't it be great to do this sometimes?  Someone doesn't share something with you at work and you look them in the eye and scream, "You're mean!"  Okay, maybe that's not very productive, but I bet it would feel good.  

I tend to be very guarded with my emotions, although I am told that when I am having a bad day, my face tells it all.  I have recently realized though that I need to sometimes get in touch with my tough girl side.  I went to listen to a principal from another school district speak recently.  He talked about how his building has implemented an intervention program.  He was a great speaker, and the program his school implemented is having wonderful results.  I walked away from the session with the realization though, that I need to be tougher.  Not mean, there's no way I could pull that off, but I need to not be afraid to say, "this is good for kids, and so this is what we are doing."

I pride myself in being a service leader.  If my staff or students need me, I'm there.  If they need something, I'll try my best to get it.  I'm now realizing though that every leader needs to be willing to take a stand for what is best for kids, even if it means rocking the status quo.  That seems like an obvious statement, but as a second year principal, I'm realizing that too often I worry about keeping people happy instead of encouraging us all to grow.  My new personal challenge, is to lead through service while giving my staff the tools we need to grow.  One of those tools needs to be me and my expectations.