This year, a part of my roles is serving as a Kindergarten Planning Time teacher. It’s a unique position, one where I drift between classrooms, slipping into the children’s day like a background melody. I’m not their “main” teacher, yet I’m a constant presence. And over the months, I’ve realized something powerful.
We talk so much about academics, routines, and expectations, but underneath all of it is something deeper. That is, what children come to believe about themselves, their inner voice. The one that will one day whisper encouragement before a big test, calm them when they are overwhelmed, or remind them that they are capable and loved.
Since September, I’ve watched a quiet transformation. When I enter a classroom now, the children greet me with familiarity, comfort, and joy. They know me. They trust me. Many of them open up in ways they didn’t at the start of the year.
It made me realize:
Even in a short period of time, even in a shared role, even in just one period a day, we matter.
Our tone, our consistency, our reactions, our presence… all of it becomes part of a child’s internal narrative.
There’s one moment that has stayed with me this year, one I think about often.
In September, every time I walked into one particular Kindergarten class at the end of the day, one little girl started to cry. It wasn’t about me; it was about the clock. My appearance signaled one thing to her:
It’s almost home time.
And for her, that transition felt overwhelming.
Every day, she cried.
Not loudly, not dramatically, just an overwhelming feeling that sat in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
I sat with her. I talked to her. I told her she was safe, that she was okay, that she was brave. In the beginning, she would repeat it back to me as a question.
I didn’t push her. I just showed up consistently with the same calm voice, and gave her the same gentle reassurance.
And slowly, so slowly at first, her inner voice began to change.
Where there was once panic, she started to build predictability.
Where there was fear, she began to find comfort.
Where there were tears, she began to show quiet strength.
Now, months later, she no longer cries when I walk in. Instead, she greets me, accepts that it’s almost home time. She gets ready calmly. She smiles. She chats. She knows she’s okay. She knows she’s brave.
And somewhere inside her, a new inner voice has formed. A voice that sounds a little bit like her… and maybe just a little bit like the reassurance she heard from me all those times.
“This is routine. I can handle this. I’m brave.”
This experience reminded me that how we greet a child becomes how they learn to greet themselves.
How we respond to their fear becomes how they learn to handle fear.
How we speak to them becomes their self-talk when we are not around.
We are not just teaching curriculum.
We are teaching self-regulation. Resilience. Self-talk.
We shape their inner voice, one moment, one connection at a time. And sometimes, it’s the smallest roles, the smallest windows of time, that make the biggest impact.
