What I Learned When My Junior Kindergartener Won the ‘Most Dramatic’ Award: Parenting Tips for Intense Kids
The sun was burning the back of my neck at Lila’s Junior Kindergarten end-of-year picnic, I was holding a store-bought sugar cookie that was dripping blue icing onto my jeans, and my husband was holding his phone at a weird angle trying to record the award ceremony. Ms. Henderson, Lila’s teacher, ran through the silly end-of-year superlatives first: Most Likely to Pet Every Dog on the Playground, Best at Sharing Extra Crayons, then she paused and grinned. “Most Dramatic,” she called, “goes to Lila Carter.” The whole 20-person class cheered like she’d just won an Olympic gold medal, a few of the other parents chuckled, and I laughed right along. But as Lila skipped back to her seat holding her little paper certificate, I felt that familiar tiny knot of worry tighten in my stomach. I’d spent the past six months quietly stressing that Lila was “too much,” and now the whole school had an award to confirm it.
At home, Lila’s dramatic streak was a daily thing. There was the 22-minute meltdown because I cut her toast into squares instead of triangles, the fake fainting spells she pulled when her older brother wouldn’t let her pick the movie, the way she’d sob for 10 full minutes after watching a kids’ movie where the character lost their stuffed animal. I’d asked my mom if this was normal, scrolled a few late-night parenting threads, and was starting to plan how I’d teach her to tone it down before senior kindergarten next year. I thought dramatic just meant difficult.
After the ceremony, when I went up to grab Lila’s report card, I joked with Ms. Henderson that the award was not exactly a shock. She wiped a glob of potato salad mustard off her wrist and leaned against the folding picnic table, shaking her head. “I didn’t give it because she’s difficult,” she said. “I gave it because it’s her best strength. Watch.” She nodded toward the playground, where Lila was kneeling next to a new little girl who’d scraped her knee. Lila was rubbing her back, frowning like the injury had happened to her, and offering the little girl her favorite unicorn sticker to make it better. “When we do dramatic play, she’s the first one to volunteer for every part,” Ms. Henderson said. “She makes every story feel real for the rest of the kids. She feels what other people feel, that’s not a flaw. That’s a skill most adults don’t even have.”
That hit me harder than I expected. I’d only ever seen Lila’s big feelings through the lens of how inconvenient they were for me. I’d missed all the parts that weren’t inconvenient. Like when our next-door neighbor’s cat died back in April, Lila spent an hour after school making a memorial out of river rocks and macaroni art, and dragged me over to leave it on their porch before I even had a chance to grab a sympathy card. She noticed when my husband was quiet after a bad work call before I did, and would immediately start doing silly impressions to make him smile.
I went home that day and started making small changes, nothing big or fancy. The first thing I did was cut the phrase “stop being dramatic” out of my vocabulary. I swapped it for one simple question: “Can you tell me how big that feeling is?” It sounds small, but it changed everything. Before, when Lila would scream that the bump in her sock was the worst thing that ever happened to her, I’d say “it’s just a bump, stop overreacting” which would just make her scream louder. Now I ask the question, she’ll tell me it’s as big as her whole body, and I’ll say “okay, let’s go get a new pair of socks” and it’s over in two minutes, not 20. Naming the feeling takes all the fight out of it.
The second thing I did was give her a dedicated spot for all that performance energy. We had an empty corner in our playroom between the bookcase and the toy box, so I grabbed an old cotton sheet from the thrift store for $3, hung it from a $5 tension rod, and called it Lila’s Stage. Any time she needs to act out the entire plot of Encanto, or put on a 15-minute concert about her favorite dinosaur, or mourn the “loss” of her stuffed rabbit that just fell behind the couch, she can go do it there. I don’t have to stop stirring dinner to be an attentive audience every time. She knows when I’m done, I’ll come clap at the end. It’s a tiny adjustment that took 10 minutes to set up, and it cut down on so many little daily annoyances.
It’s not all perfect, of course. Last week, we had a full meltdown at Target when the self-checkout machine yelled a loud alert at her for scanning an item too early. She sat down on the floor right by the cereal aisle and sobbed like her world had ended, and a woman waiting behind me gave me that tight-lipped look that says you need to control your kid. I felt that familiar flush of embarrassment, and I almost said the old “stop being dramatic” line before I caught myself. I knelt down, asked her how big the feeling was, and she said it was so big it was going to pop out of her chest. We waited a minute, got a free lollipop from the cashier, and moved on.
I still have the little paper “Most Dramatic” award taped to the fridge, right next to Lila’s macaroni cat memorial. I still worry sometimes. Next year, when she starts senior kindergarten, will her new teacher see her big feelings as a gift, or as a problem? Will other kids start to tease her for being too much? I don’t have the answer to that. But what I do know is that right now, her big dramatic heart makes our house a little louder, a little messier, and a lot warmer. Last night, when I was tired after a long day, she dragged me to her stage and did a whole skit about a mom who eats ice cream for dinner. I laughed so hard I forgot how tired I was. I don’t need her to tone it down. I just need to keep learning how to make space for all that big, messy, wonderful feeling.
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