Today my daughter's elementary school is participating in the National Mix-It-Up Day program.

The kids will be wearing mismatched clothes and changing up their usual lunchtime seating arrangements. The goal is to promote "inclusive school communities" with activities aimed at encouraging tolerance and new perspectives.

I'm not sure anyone will be able to tell that my 9-year-old is specially dressed for the occasion. My girl's personal style is, well, dissonant.

As she proudly tells anyone who asks, "I don't like things to match."

I, in turn, will proudly tell anyone who asks about this charming eccentricity of my daughter's. The truth is that I would be a little disappointed if she and her brothers weren't a little quirky.

After years of being mocked for my strangeness, I have come to embrace it as a part of my identity.

It wasn't just that I looked dorky and read a lot when I was a kid. What made me weird was the way I obsessed over things and people - Archie Comics, my sixth-grade nemesis, the Tudor monarchs, my best friend's older brother - that made no sense to anyone else.

I was happy when I was in my own world, but when I tried and failed to fit in I was miserable.

My mom puzzled over my lack of patience and my inability to identify with other people the way I did with characters in books. My father wondered why I insisted on being different.

But my grades were good, and by the time I got to high school I started to seem more normal.

My kids share a lot of my traits, positive and negative. There's the one who's perennially marching to the beat of his own (metal) drummer. There's the anxious overachiever. There's the sarcastic, logic-obsessed one who sounds like he's being sarcastic even when he's sincere.

It's so easy to recognize myself in my kids that I sometimes forget: they aren't me. What worked with me when I was a kid may not help them.

In fact, the things I thought worked for me when I was a kid may not have done me as much good as I thought. (Check out the latest Muppet Labs research on parent involvement, for example.)

I got through my weirdo youth without psychological help, I tell myself. My kids will grow up just fine.

Does that sound familiar to you?

In my last column I wrote about mental health and families. The sad fact is that many children go without the psychological care they need. Some would say that's because people are ashamed to seek mental health services - me, I think it's because people underestimate the importance of getting an outside, professional look at what seems like a private family problem.

My spouse drinks too much, but at least he is a regular presence in the kids' lives – I grew up just fine, and my dad was never even there.

Sure, Granny screams at the kids, but at least she isn't beating them like she did me when I was their age. And I grew up just fine.

We each carry some secret weirdness inside ourselves. When well-meaning observers tell us unpleasant things – about ourselves, our children, our lives – it's a challenge. Who wants to feel like they're not just weird but actually wrong in how they're relating with and raising their kids?

We can take a cue from the kids at my daughter's elementary school. They will be sitting at different tables during lunch on Monday to help them "identify, question and cross social boundaries."

This is supposed to encourage them to examine the assumptions that underlie their social choices.

I wish there were a parenting Mix-It-Up day.

We do the best we can, sure. But we think we know why we do what we do, just like kids think they know all the reasons why they sit with one group of kids at lunch and not another.

Growing up “just fine” is just the beginning. Being the kind of parent you want to be means stepping outside of your own childhood experiences and adult fears to think about what it is that your children need to feel safe and to grow up a little bit finer.

It means asking the pediatrician or the school psychologist, “Is this normal?”

It means listening to the teacher's concerns when she calls instead of writing them off because “my kid is just like that.”

It means asking for professional assistance when you don't know
how to help your child overcome academic or social problems.

Sigh. It would be a lot easier just to show up at work in
mismatched clothes today.

On the other hand, who would notice?