Our children are anxious, and they're getting more so every day.

Even before the pandemic, anxiety among the kids in our country was increasing at an alarming rate, and the situation has only gotten worse.

I'm not a psychologist or a researcher, but I am a parent, and it's incumbent upon me to give my kids the best chance at mental health.

Some factors parents cannot choose: the genes we've passed along to our children that make them more susceptible to anxiety, the unavoidable tough patches in life, and the friends they'll make, friends who will either reinforce or contradict their parents' approach.

We can choose, however, the amount of pressure we put on children to achieve.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately, as our kids' schools have begun to emphasize scholastic performance at earlier and earlier ages.

Recently, my husband and I attended a parent-teacher conference for our 3-year-old (an activity in which I feel certain my own parents would not have had either the opportunity or the desire to engage). At the meeting, one of our son's teachers mentioned that he wasn't up to speed on some of his shapes.

"Buy flashcards," she suggested.

Her comment concerned me, not because I had any intention of quizzing my toddler on what a rhombus is, but because I'm sure there are other parents who, worried their child might be falling behind his fellow preschoolers, would.

In fact, one classmate was recently moved to another room after his mom said he wasn't "learning anything."

Gosh, not having to learn anything is the best part about preschool, I thought when the boy's nanny explained why he was in a different classroom now.

Our older child is in kindergarten, and when report cards were sent home, I didn't even read the academic portion. Frankly, I don't care whether he's testing at grade level.

What I want to know is this:

Is he kind?

Is he learning to behave, to make friends, to put on his coat and rainboots without help?

A few weeks later, the kindergarten teacher sent home an activity for the kids, a plastic baggie filled with cut-out words from a list they're supposed to know.

We were told to pull the words out one by one, to quiz them to see which they could read. She also suggested making a wall chart and pointing at words every time the kids go past.

The goal is for them to be able to read 50 words by the end of the year.

I promptly put the bag of words away and soon lost them, something I only feel a little bad about. The guilt isn't because I think I'm falling behind on instructing my child but because I know the teacher went through a not-insignificant amount of trouble to put together the activity.

The care she took in creating the assignment leads me to believe she, or someone else at the school, thinks there's value to drilling, rote memorization and achievement, even at this early stage.

I can't help but think, though, of my memories of kindergarten, of snacks and naptimes, games and coloring sheets. I don't recall a test or a subject, or even a single thing that I "learned."

My sons will have exactly one shot at the magical time of early childhood, and I refuse to have it sullied with successes and failures. I don't feel any anxiety about their performance, and I hope they don't, either.

And if they ever ask how they did, I will simply tell them God's honest truth:

"Honey, you got straight As."

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

Photo credit: ReadyElements at Pixabay