Maybe Our Kids Are Going to Be Just Fine

I've been thinking a lot about how much we worry as parents.

Are they developing on time? Eating enough? Growing enough? And lately, my husband and I have been wondering if our oldest was really “ready for school.” Would she make friends? Would she know how to communicate her needs, navigate her feelings, and find her place in a world that can sometimes feel a little too big for little people?

And then, sometimes, we watch them do just fine.

My daughter recently started kindergarten.

One of the things my husband and I worried about was whether she was making friends.

After all, she had just transitioned from a full-time Korean preschool to an entirely English-speaking school. We wondered how she was communicating with her classmates, whether she felt included, and whether she was finding her place in this new environment.

So every day, we'd ask her about recess.

"What did you do today?"

"Did you play with your friends?"

And almost every day, she'd tell us the same thing.

"I collected acorns!"

She'd come home with a handful of them, proudly showing us her little treasures.

Now, in my head, I had already created a whole story around this.

I pictured her wandering around the playground by herself, quietly collecting acorns while everyone else was running around playing together. Was she not making friends? Was she having trouble joining in? Was she spending recess alone?

For a few nights, my husband and I even joked that we should secretly sneak over to the playground during recess to see what she was actually doing. We wanted to know if she was playing with other kids or just picking up acorns all by herself.

And then, one evening, we went to the playground.

And there they were.

A whole group of children, all picking up acorns together.

They were playing a game, making up their own rules, creating something out of the little things scattered on the ground. What I'd imagined as a lonely little girl collecting acorns by herself was actually a group of children inventing their own kind of fun.

She hadn't been standing alone in a corner.

She had been playing.

Just not in the way I'd imagined.

I remember thinking about how much time we'd spent worrying about something that, in reality, was completely different from what we'd pictured.

We'd heard one small detail about her day and filled in all the blanks ourselves.

And the funny thing was, she had never told us she was lonely. She had never said she wasn't making friends. She had simply told us what she did during recess.

She collected acorns.

We were the ones who turned it into a problem.

That moment has stayed with me because it reminded me how easily our worries can become stories we tell ourselves. We love our children so much that we start imagining all the ways things could be difficult for them, even when we don't have the full picture.

Meanwhile, our children are just out there living their lives.

Collecting acorns. Making up games. Finding their own ways to connect with the world around them.

And sometimes, they're doing just fine.

I think about that playground whenever I catch myself worrying about what comes next.

My daughter is excited about school. Every day, there's something to look forward to: show-and-tell, library day, a new activity her teacher has planned. She's happy to go back the next morning. She is even excited to go to bed so that tomorrow would come and she can go back to school. We're so grateful for the teacher and classmates who are helping make this transition a positive one.

Of course, that doesn't mean every day will be easy. There will be disappointments, friendship struggles, and moments when she needs our help. That's part of growing up.

But that little acorn story reminded me that I don't always know what her experience looks like from the inside. And maybe I don't need to figure out every part of it before it happens.

Maybe my job is to ask questions, listen when she wants to share, offer support when she needs it, and trust that she's learning to navigate her own little world.

She's five. She doesn't need to have everything figured out.

Neither do I.