One New Friend

New situations can be a challenge, especially when it feels like everyone else has a place in the scene. Feeling anxious about what will happen next and how life will play out with each new step is common for a child in a new school. Sometimes just being seen and then extended a small invitation can be a moment that means everything.

Change is happening all the time but big changes can be tough to manage. New rooms, new furniture, new teachers, new kids, all of this can feel like a lot. Being included can have a big impact on how all of that change is viewed. An invite to play can turn what feels uncertain into something joyful, if one is brave enough to accept it.

Mary Kauffman was born into a military family in Sacramento, California in 1973. As an Air Force Brat life took her all over the world to 13 countries, 14 schools and 22 states before even graduating high school. Mary has earned a BA in Psychology, an MS in Leadership, an MA in Human Services Counseling with a focus in Life Coaching, and has worked professionally in Communications, Retail Management, Human Resources and state government. Immersed constantly in new cultures and environments both in her youth and as an adult, Mary has been able to identify some things that are universal in the human experience and capture the feeling from a child's perspective. Mary lives with her family in WI and spends time working, raising a family, writing, exercising and finding humor in even the smallest moments. She is still pursuing higher education and studying the behaviors of the people, and the details of the scenes that surround her every day.