Inbetween

"Do you know what tomorrow is?"

"Tomorrow is my lucky day."

"And why?"

"Tomorrow is my first day of school."

When I overhear this conversation between my two sons, my heart feels warm. It's touching how excited he is—about school, learning, the unknown—without really knowing what to expect.

That was over a year ago.

Today, here we sit, a bit wistful and perplexed. Next to me lies a business card that reads "Psychotherapy for Children," and next to it, the referral from the pediatrician. She thoroughly examined my son’s persistent dry cough, only to tell us that there’s no medical cause. "Probably stress-related," she adds. "Totally normal in children. They have stomachaches, headaches—symptoms without really being sick. It’s a mechanism." The body processes what the mind can’t understand.

Totally normal.

Really?

I’m a big fan of psychotherapy. I’ve personally benefited from so many different approaches and have even completed some training myself. Therapy is important and valid.

But what amazes me is how we approach it. This phenomenon isn’t new, is it? Children are excited about school as long as they aren’t actually there. It seems almost inevitable that at some point, this excitement will fade. "We all have to go through it," my mother used to say to me.

Do we really have to?

The leap from "lucky day" to the constant question of when the next vacation is was shockingly short. I expressed this to my son’s teacher, who seemed to take it personally and quickly put me in the "system resister" category. She actually used those words. Now, alongside all the feelings already mentioned, I feel a bit bewildered. When can we start to meet each other on a level where we can exchange ideas without taking things personally or feeling attacked? I’m not here to point fingers at anyone—I could place myself right alongside them as the annoying mom.

The question is, can we still question if the current school system is good as it is? In Austria, there have been two major educational reforms in the past—one under Empress Maria Theresa and another in 1962. Yes, 1962. That was the generation of my parents, the Baby Boomers who rolled up their sleeves after World War II to rebuild the world. Not much has changed since then. Mistakes are still punished, and children learn that they can collect stars for obediently regurgitating various content. To what extent this prepares them for life, I honestly don’t know. Is it really essential that everyone knows the year Tutankhamun died? Or might it be more essential to learn about one's own strengths and weaknesses, to stay curious about life, to become one's own expert, and to understand money management?

"I know you all think your children are unique and special. Everyone has a prince or princess at home. The truth is, they are not special." So or something similar was how a principal once welcomed a new class at school. They are not special. It screams inside me. OF COURSE, THEY ARE. We all are! We just, unfortunately, have forgotten what our talents and gifts are and are functioning in well-oiled hamster wheels, checking off daily tasks while our long-forgotten dreams sit packed away in a box in the closet.

This may sound bitter. But it’s not. Because within me is the deep desire, the drive, and the belief that we can change things—if we want to.

I ask this question out loud as I sit at a discussion evening at the Future Health Lab of the Megabildung Foundation. I hear about PERMA Teach, mentoring concepts in schools, meet motivated teachers, and many interested people. I feel hopeful. There are other ways.

There are now numerous alternative schools trying to do things better—or at least differently. Often, though, it's the other extreme: forest schools, open schools, private schools that aren’t quite typical private schools. All good approaches, but usually unbelievably expensive. And if it wasn’t the cost that kept me from sending my son to one of these schools, it was the worry of not preparing him enough for the world out there—raising him in a bubble that could eventually burst. Being too little "normal." But what is "normal," anyway? Is it normal to send a child to therapy so they function well in everyday school life?

And even though I’ve been hoping for years for a new, big, 3rd (!!) educational reform in Austria, my question is what we can do in the meantime. Is there no middle ground?

The questions I ask myself are many, yet they always lead me back to the same point: something needs to change. On a large scale. Mental health as a school subject, resilience training, Human Design for children—the ideas vary. A visit to a psychotherapist should absolutely have a place on this list. But it cannot be the only solution—and above all, it should not become the norm.

I hear my son coughing and am pulled back from my thoughts.