I bring my two younger children with me when I go to work for several reasons.

One of these is because we have no live in helper who could look after them when I go to work.

Another reason is because we have decided to home school them for another round of other reasons.

One time, in my recently former workplace, as I was teaching a student, my son, together with his friend who used to go to the Work Behavior group that they attend with Teacher J, went into my room. They were a little listless because they are waiting for the clock to strike four which is the time they start their group.

Son went near me and hugged me. He also spontaneously kissed my cheeks.

His friend’s facial expression, I was not able to see completely because he turned his face away and looked disgusted, more like ashamed with what my son did.

I asked him “Why are you looking like that? Don’t you kiss and hug your mom?”

He replied, “I do but not when there are other people around.”

I was shocked. And hurt.

Maybe because I am used to having my children around me day in and day out, most of the time. I think I would be having a hard time accepting that they wouldn’t want me to kiss or hug them or vice versa when there are other people around.

Sure, there would come a time when they would refuse to do just that, afraid to be embarrassed in front of their peers, though it is just probably a stage.

What if my children would think those thoughts?

I know children go through this phase. My eldest daughter never fails to kiss me at the gate whenever her school bus arrives to fetch her or bring her home. She does this even if the other riders can see her.

I talked to my husband about this. I told him that there was this testimonial I read from a home schooling mom that her children, who are in their early ten years, are not ashamed to show physical affection to her even if there are other people, maybe because they have become closer since they do learning together.

Hubby said that maybe because homeschooling children do not “mature” faster than those who go to a regular school because they learn to interact with other people other than their family members.

Could it be?

I do not want to know how it will be like in the near future but I do know is this:

To the parents out there reading this post or who those who got here by accident, hug and kiss your children while you still can, while they allow you to do so 

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 7:40 am and is filed under Being a (Special Ed) Teacher, Challenge Yourself, My Family, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.