By Gretchen Woods

Publisher

Well, it’s happened again.

Parents all over the map are waking up, looking at their calendars and asking their kids, “You have HOW many weeks of school left?!”

And, no doubt, all over the map kids are rolling their eyes and uttering replies along the lines of “Gee, Mom/Dad, I’ve only told you a hundred times.”

That’s when we know the end of the school year has snuck up on us yet again.  There’s a flurry of final preparations going on for graduations of every stripe: kindergarten, 6th grade, 8th grade, and on up from there.

The cap sizes differ among all of these (as does the level and sophistication of hijinks, I daresay), but each one marks a milestone for students and families alike.

Over the next couple of weeks, our kids will be marching up aisles, saying tearful goodbyes to friends, and making plans for the summer months. For most, the fall school season is barely visible on the horizon, if at all.

And, as the summer winds down to a close — which seems hardly possible right now, given that it still feels like April out there — they’ll face being the new kids all over again.

Our high school and college grads face the biggest challenges of all. It’s a tough time to elbow your way into the workforce right now, let alone a career. The question of “What do I want to do when I grow up?” takes on an urgency that it might not have had a few short years ago.

It’s tough for those of us on the sidelines to watch. We’ll hold our breath and wait and hope, much as we did when they took that first bicycle ride. We’ll watch them take those spills, collect the bruises, then get up and brush off and try again.

They’ll face their challenges, as we faced ours. And we’ll cheer them on all the way.