What I Learned From Writing a Letter From the Tooth Fairy For My Anxious 7-Year-Old
It’s 10:17 pm, I’m standing at the kitchen counter in sweatpants smudged with spaghetti from dinner, half a cup of cold oat coffee sweating next to my elbow. Lila’s first loose baby tooth is tucked into a sparkly zip-top bag she decorated with unicorn stickers an hour ago, right after it finally came out while she ate a cherry popsicle. For three days leading up to this, she’d cried every time I reminded her to wiggle it, refused apple slices because the movement hurt her feelings more than her mouth, and cornered me after bedtime the night before to lay out non-negotiable rules: the tooth fairy couldn’t just leave money. She had to leave a letter, and she had to answer three specific questions, or Lila wouldn’t leave the tooth out at all.
I pulled the crumpled slip of notebook paper she wrote the questions on out of my pocket. 1. Do I have to be a big kid now that I have a grown-up tooth? 2. What do you do with all the teeth you get? 3. Can I have my tooth back to hold for just one night? I stared at those questions for five minutes, because my first instinct was to scribble the generic note I’d seen all over Pinterest: Congrats on your big girl tooth! Here’s $2 for your piggy bank! Keep wiggling! But that would have missed the whole point. Last month, when Lila cried about starting second grade because she didn’t want to stop being my “little girl that sits on the kitchen counter,” I brushed it off and told her she’d always be my little girl, no matter what. She stopped crying, but I found her that night looking at baby photos of herself and asking when she got too big to hold like a baby. I knew I’d messed up by brushing off the worry instead of answering it.
So I started over, wrote in messy cursive on the back of a grocery list, signed it “Your Tooth Fairy.” I answered each question one by one, just like she asked: 1. You don’t have to be a big kid any faster than you want. Your new tooth is just growing in because your mouth is getting bigger to fit all the ice cream and birthday cake and apple slices you’re going to eat in the future. It doesn’t mean you have to stop sleeping with your stuffed rabbit, or holding my hand when we cross the street, or asking me to sing you the baby lullaby. You can keep all those things for as long as you want. 2. I keep one tiny memory of every tooth to remember how special each kid is. The rest turn into stardust that makes the moon glow at night. 3. Of course you can have your tooth back to hold tonight. I’m just going to take the little cotton ball you wrapped it in to remember it by.
I tucked the letter under her pillow, left two quarters like we agreed, put the cotton ball in my junk drawer, and went to bed. The next morning, she burst into our room at 6:30 am, holding the crumpled letter and her tooth, her hair sticking up all over. She read every line out loud to my husband, then taped it to the front of the fridge with a unicorn magnet, right next to her kindergarten handprint art. She brought it out to show her grandma when she came over for brunch that weekend.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this since, because so much of the parenting content around tooth fairy traditions focuses on how much money to leave, what fun treats to add, or how to keep the magic going as long as possible. No one talks about how losing a tooth is one of the first really visible milestones a kid has that tells them they’re growing up. For kids who are a little more anxious about change—like Lila—that supposed magic moment isn’t exciting. It’s scary. It’s proof that their body is changing, and things are moving faster than they’re ready for.
What I figured out that night is that a letter from the tooth fairy doesn’t have to be perfect or cutesy or Pinterest-worthy. It’s just a chance to meet your kid where they are, instead of pushing them into the milestone we’re supposed to celebrate. There are a few small things I’ve started telling other parents who ask about this, because it worked so well for us, and they don’t take any extra time or money. First, if your kid asks for a letter, ask them to write down their questions first before you write anything. Don’t assume you know what they care about. My kid didn’t care about a generic congratulations, she cared about being scared of growing up too fast. Second, if they mention a worry in their questions, name it directly in the letter. Don’t dance around it. You don’t have to fix it right there, you just have to say it’s okay to feel that way. Third, if they don’t want to give up their tooth, don’t force it. Compromise in a small way: leave it back with them for a week, take a photo of it for the tooth fairy’s “memory book” instead of taking the actual tooth, or do what I did and take a small piece of the wrapping instead. It doesn’t break the magic, it makes the magic mean something.
A couple weeks ago, Lila’s next tooth started wiggling. She already has a blank slip of paper tucked in her nightstand, waiting to write down her questions for next time. I don’t know how long she’ll believe in the tooth fairy. Next year, she might figure it out, and the whole tradition will end. Some days, she still asks if she’s growing too fast, and I still don’t have a perfect answer. But right now, the coffee-stained letter on the fridge works. The tooth she keeps in her tiny jewelry box works. It’s not a perfect, polished magical tradition, but it’s ours.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What I Learned From Writing a Letter From the Tooth Fairy For My Anxious 7-Year-Old