My 2 oldest are eligible to start kindergarten in September, so I went online to get the forms required to get them signed up. Realistically, Robbie isn’t going to be ready since he’s got a November birthday, but I’m going to get him and Mike registered just in case.
So why all of a sudden am I freaking out?
I wasn’t planning on homeschooling, so not like it is a surprise that I’ll be sending my kids to school. And I’m also not in a “my babies are growing up so fast” panic. I think it stems from my own school experiences.
I hated school.
Sadness at home made me an unhappy, worried kid. School is where the weak get separated from the herd, and let’s just say the jaguars got me. I was the antelope with a persistent cough and a stitch in my side, and then I was lunch.
I think about sending my kids to kindergarten, and it feels like I’m throwing them into the mouth of some unholy kid-mauling machine. I recognize that this is totally about me and my background. But. I’m really going to have to work on my attitude before school starts so I don’t pass this bias on to Mike.
Mike is an incredibly efficient emotion-sponge.
I know most kids are, but he’s got it down to an art. For a year he was in a preschool classroom with this teacher who was really uptight, tense and depressed. I’ve got no problem with folks who have any or all of those qualities, but boy oh boy they are the wrong people to teach Mike.
After a long drama, I got him switched into one of the other two classrooms (apparently this kind of a move was unprecedented), and he’s having a completely different experience at school. For example, he likes it. He used to have a major meltdown in the car every day after school. He could only hold in the tension for so long, and then it would just blast out.
So what happens if he gets a crappy kinder teacher? When that happened in preschool all I had to do was make a total ass of myself for 6 months and I finally was able to get him moved. In regular school it is all about paperwork. And taking attendance. And “no excuses!”
And holy fuck, homework in kindergarten. That is the work of the devil.
So the question remains. Will I “adjust my attitude” and nicely fit into kindergarten-mom culture? Or will I be the one taking her kid out of school for long weekends and telling the teacher she can stick her kindergarten homework where the sun don’t shine? I honestly don’t know, but I sure makes my palms sweat just thinking about it.
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