The Forgotten Art Of Puddle Jumping

In schools, we often find ourselves at this time of year anticipating endings and saying goodbyes, as Year 11 and 13 prepare to leave us later this week.

This year, more than ever, we are feeling this on a deeper level with other significant losses and endings to process as a community. Even the ending to lockdown restrictions may be stirring up some complicated feelings of anxiety and unease.

I don’t often reveal the private worlds of our teenagers, hence the very nature of my job.

However, this week I wanted to share with you the musings of one of my Year 11 students, who encapsulated this time of transition beautifully with a message I think we could all learn from.

Let’s call him Smith.

Smith spoke about feeling down on a random day two weeks ago, in the wake of our prolonged grief period. It was pouring with rain (the term ‘pathetic fallacy’, we shared). Smith said, despite his feelings of sadness, he jumped in all of the puddles on the way home from school.

He tells me he was dripping wet, freezing cold and got an earful from his mam when he returned home soaked to the bone, his uniform rendered useless. And he did not regret a thing!

Smith spoke to me about never losing his inner child — that part of him that seizes the moment and lives in the now. It balances him out against the pressures of school and an unknown future. It reminds him that he can’t change his past or worry about the things he can’t control.

Our inner child (we all have one!) allows us to be spontaneous and forget about what we look like, whether we will ruin our shoes or how cold we are. Because jumping in puddles is fun! When we are actual children, we don’t worry about insecurities or overthink our actions — there is more room for play.

Smith, who has had a lion’s share of loss in life so far, reminded me that we don’t know how many experiences (or puddles) we will miss, if we do not jump into them.

Smith’s eyes were full of confusion when I asked, ‘why did you do it?’. He looked at me in only the way a promising young adult can — ‘Well, why not?!’

Happy Monday 🙂