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A. has settled in to school. And with that, has begun to get bored. (It’s happening earlier every year).
His ability to control himself is getting better every year — but it’s hard to explain that to someone who didn’t know him when he was three.
Part of A’s problem is that he’s pretty oblivious to what’s going on around him. He’s the classic absent-minded professor. And that doesn’t really work in a class of 24 and a school of several hundred.
They’ve had two psychologists or psychiatrists in to observe him, both of whom came to different conclusions (one said he should see a psychologist, the other said individual therapy would be a waste of time for him. Guess who I’m siding with?) and he has spend several afternoons in the Principal’s office, because they want to try to figure out what makes him tick and how they can make him fit in to school. They mention “Socialization Small Groups” and “neurotherapy” and reward charts and toss around labels like ‘persistent’ and ‘impulsive’ and “ADHD”.
I say, come over to our house and observe us for a day or two and you’ll see that the label you’re looking for is “Genetics”.
TheMan, like A, never sits still. Even when you think he’s sitting still, look closely and you’ll see that he’s surfing four websites and listening to a podcast. This is the man who came top of his year at University, studying on the sofa while watching Blind Date and Baywatch. But he also worked at Harvard (and not as a janitor), wins awards and gets all the Christmas presents bought and wrapped and ready to send before November even rolls around. Oh and he’s musical and funny and generous.
Then you get to me. I can explain complex sociological phenomena, analyze historical patterns, build you a website, gain a working knowledge of SEO Optimization in a week in my spare time, or play a Mozart sonata for you, but somehow I can never remember to put A’s library book in his bag on a Thursday or summon up the mental energy to organize the closets. I don’t see mess. I fail to realize that if I want clean socks I should wash them today, not tomorrow morning when I need them to be clean and actually dry. I put things down when I’m finished with them and walk away, and then spend the next three days looking for them. I’m aware of these things and I’ve made progress (my keys are USUALLY in the drawer where they’re supposed to be these day) but it’s taken me 37 years and I’m still not there. Oh yeah, and I have an MA, a successful, if accidental, career in customer service, and a brief career as a moderately successful freelance writer behind me. Plus people seem to like me.
I know how frustrating it can be to be around A when he’s in one of those moods. And I know they can’t spend all their time and attention on one child. And I really, really appreciate how nice they are to him and how much they like him and how much they talk to me and ‘keep the lines of communication open’.
But sometimes I just want to yell,
“He’s SIX!”
And most of the time I just want to take my little square peg out of his round hole and bring him home where he can be square today and round tomorrow and hexagonal for a week if he wants. And I think about the 12 years ahead of him and suspect he’ll never fit, and that he’ll spend that time figuring out how to get by, how to turn his mind off, or daydream, while still doing the bare minimum. And that it will dull his edges too much.
But the good news is that his father made it through school with sharp edges intact, and continues to push, so it can be done.
Remind me to ask him how.
P.S. Today’s title comes from a poem by AA Milne in which Christopher Robin has sneezles and wheezles so they bundle him into his bed. One of my favourite phrases is: “All sorts of conditions / Of famous physicians / Came hurrying round at a run”.
It finishes:
When Christopher Robin got up in the morning
The sneezles had vanished away.
And the look in his eye
Seemed to say to the sky
“Now, how to amuse them today?”
There seems to be quite a buzz out there about the homework coming, er, home with your kindergartners. So how much homework does your child get? Is it too much? Do you (and they) groan when it’s time to do homework?
My informal research suggests that most people are surprised that their kindergartner has to sit down and do homework every night. And for some, it’s already a nightly fight.
According to Sara Bennet, author of The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It
The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It,
there is almost no evidence that homework helps elementary school students achieve academic success and little evidence that it helps older students.
The Washington Post’s education reporter Jay Matthews even concedes that,
research shows little need for any homework in elementary school.
However, I would suggest reading the rest of his excellent article, which picks apart the anti-homework book’s research somewhat, adding,
For two decades I have been writing about inner city middle and high schools that have significantly increased student achievement. I have yet to encounter any of those programs that did not insist that school work extend significantly beyond the normal school day.
So how much do you worry about your kindergartner’s homework. Do you see any value in the act of sitting down to do a little home-study every day, or do you just resent the time it takes? Do you think it’s worth a fight if, once in a while, your kindergartner melts down and refuses to do their homework? Do you and your child love homework?
What are your opinions and your strategies for coping?
QUESTION OF THE DAY
How long did it take you to settle into the groove of leaving your ‘baby’ at kindergarten? Have you heard of any funny stories your child has told the teacher?
[Comment, retweet or link from your blog for an entry into the current giveaway]
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When school started 25 days ago — and for the next few weeks — we walked A to the door and stood and watched him walk in. Then stood for a fraction of a second longer, imagining that it helped, somehow. (It helped me, I suppose). My husband even went inside the school and saw A settled with his friends.
Today I pulled up at the side of the road, left the car running, opened A’s door, saw him across the road — and off he ran without a backwards glance as I blew him a kiss. As he ran the length of the sidewalk along the front of the school, I hopped back into my car and drove it slowly down the road alongside him.
I rolled my window down to shout a comment to him, but he didn’t turn around. He was focused on the staff member who ushers them into the hall. She greets him every morning with a cheery “Hi, A!” and a comment on something or other. This morning, as I rolled past I saw him screech to a halt beside her and start talking,
“My mom…” he began, but by then I was pulling out of earshot, past the crossing guard and on into the traffic.
I was struck by the sudden realization that my boy goes off into the world with all kinds of stories about us and our doings and opinions and he’ll regurgitate the most unexpected things with no prompting whatsoever. He doesn’t miss a trick (listening to news radio with him around is always a lesson in that very thing: “So Barak Obama’s the president, right?”).
I know my parents had some laughs, and some more awkward moments, at Parents’ Nights during my own, verbose childhood.
I wonder what A’s teachers hear about us.
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QUESTION OF THE DAY
How long did it take you to settle into the groove of leaving your ‘baby’ at kindergarten? Have you heard of any funny stories your child has told the teacher?
[Comment, retweet or link from your blog for an entry into the current giveaway]
QUESTION OF THE DAY
What did your kindergarten kid learn at school (or on the bus!) that you wish they hadn’t?
[Stay tuned to the end of this post for an announcement about our giveaway winner! To be entered in the next drawing, just comment on this article, then check out the giveaways page to find out how you can get extra entries!]
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It’s tough when your kids go off into the world without you. All those hours you have spent reading them books with morals, feeding them only quality TV, coaching them through playgroups and playdates at awkward ages (”we don’t hit our friends!”)…all of that is about to go out of the window as we entrust our darlings to a bunch of strangers, and worse: the children of utter strangers.
But hey, it’s a school (a Catholic school, in my case). Everyone’s qualified. The other kids won’t be that bad, not to kindergartners, surely? And how much of a bad influence could the other children be anyway, you ask yourself. After all, it’s only elementary school.
O-kay…
Let me take you back in time to last February. That evening I wrote in my journal about my just-turned-six-year-old angel:
So, A came home the other day telling me that a seven year old had been sent to the principal for,
“Doing this,” he says, flipping me the bird (i.e. raising his middle finger).
Now, where I grew up, the middle finger was nothing but an unorthodox way of counting ‘one’, (we have our own, home-grown obscene gestures, thank you very much) but I know enough about American culture to know that this is A Bad Thing. I dutifully expressed disapproval, concern and a little astonishment, before I emphasized that it was rude and disrespectful and that he was never, EVER to do it.
[CUT TO TODAY]
The bus arrives. The bus driver holds her arm out so the kids can’t get off, and beckons me over.
Imagine my pride when when she told me that, in amongst a lot of other un-busworthy behaviour, my darling six-year-old had been gaily flipping his middle finger around at all and sundry.
His response?
“I was doing it behind my back!”
Because, you know, that helps.
His admission of guilt was quickly followed by a desperate, “Don’t tell Da-a-ad!”
Not with a straight face, I won’t.
…
We have had a chat.
There will be no shopping trips this weekend.
(Or maybe ever.)
And he’s writing a letter of apology to the bus driver.
And so it begins…
And I know this truly is only the beginning. I’m going to look back on this in years to come and wonder why I got so embarrassed and horrified by this little semi-innocent transgression. I don’t like this knowledge, but let’s be realistic, shall we?
Still, at least I know I can definitely blame other people’s children for this one.
That’s some comfort 
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AND NOW, to the giveaway winner!!!
The winner of the fabulous, awesome 3-D chalk set is……. ONNA from TODDLERCRAFT.NET !!! Congrats ONNA, I’ll be contacting you by email to get your mailing address. I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun with this chalk set this summer.
To be entered in the drawings, just comment here and check out the giveaways page to see how to score extra entries.
I’m particularly pleased that Onna won because, apart from being an early supporter here, she runs a wonderful website (http://toddlercraft.net) that is full of simple crafty ideas for, you guessed it, doing with your toddler.
Next week’s give away is a set of phonics reader books. These have been a wonderful tool to help me teach my early-reader boys to read (the four year old is sounding out letters and words now, so I’ve been breaking them out again). Scooby-Doo is a big hit in our house, so I’ve chosen this set for next weeks’ prize:
Comment, comment, comment, blog about this, link, tweet, retweet…and win! Good luck!
QUESTION OF THE DAY
What is/was the ratio of teachers-students in your kindergarten? Were you happy with that?
[Comment, retweet or link from your blog for an entry into the current giveaway]
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Following on from my last post, I went and did some digging to find out the accepted wisdom on teacher-child ratios.
I found this excerpt from the report “Accreditation Criteria and Procedures of the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs” by the National Association for the Education of Young Children based in Washington DC. It says, essentially, that kids at 5 years old should have a ratio of 1:8 if there are 16 kids, 1:10 if there are 20 kids. Does the fact that it doesn’t go beyond that, mean there should never be more than 20 five year olds in a class? Fat chance, eh?
The aim of these numbers, the report says, is to have enough staff available to:
provide frequent personal contact; meaningful learning activities; supervision; and to offer immediate care as needed
However, the report has a ‘Get Out Of Jail, Free’ card for schools, because it goes on to say,
Variations in group sizes and ratios are acceptable in many cases where the program demonstrates a very high level of compliance with criteria for interactions (A), curriculum (B), staff qualifications (D), health and safety (H), and physical environment (G).
My son was in a class of 24 with one teacher and it wasn’t a disaster, even with him being high-energy.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
What is/was the ratio of teachers-students in your kindergarten? Were you happy with that?
[Comment, retweet or link from your blog for an entry into the current giveaway]
Question of the Day
What teacher/child ratio does your kindergarten have? Do they have helpers in the classroom? Do you feel the ratio is right?
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Pre-K was a lively bunch of around 20 kids, mostly boys, supervised by a high-energy teacher and an aide.
So when I walked into the kindergarten classroom to find one tiny, soft-spoken teacher facing 24 children, I was a little nervous to say the least.
As it turns out, they had a student teacher for a while and, in the afternoons, the AM Kindergarten teacher comes in to help with centers and other afternoon activities. Then there’s the music teacher, the art teacher, the computer teacher, a spanish teacher and someone who helps with small-groups reading, and parents often come in to read stories.
And, after getting to know her, I think his teacher could handle the whole class all day with one arm tied behind her back. But I’m sure she’s glad she doesn’t have to!
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Question of the Day
What teacher/child ratio does your kindergarten have? Do they have helpers in the classroom? Do you feel the ratio is right?
[Comment, retweet or link from your blog for an entry into the current giveaway]
QUESTION OF THE DAY
How prepared did you feel before your child started Kindergarten? Did you have a clue what was expected? Did your kindergarten communicate well?
[Post your comments (or retweet) for entries into the current giveaway]
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I was really looking forward to the “Early Childhood Back To School Night” at the boys’ school
I had already missed the Kindergarten registration open house in the Spring because of something I can’t remember now, and so was really looking forward to meeting A’s teacher and hearing her spiel about what to expect this coming year.
I didn’t go through school here and, although I don’t tend to ask questions, I like to hear other parents’ questions answered, because it gives me a clue about what to expect. Plus I was full of ideas about how I was going to be so much more outgoing this year and how I was going to approach other parents and be jolly and friendly and not wait until December to start striking up conversations. I was even going to start using people’s first names excessively when I talked to them, because I heard it makes people like you.
I reminded TheMan about ten times that he had to be home to come to this thing at 6 tonight.
Then I didnt’ feed the boys until 5.35 pm.
We were a little rushed, going in, but they made it.
Not knowing what to expect, we had decided to drag the children along and split up for the meet and greet bits for the two different classes: preschool and kindergarten.
Ours were the ONLY children in the hall over the age of nine months. How the hell did everyone else know the protocol and we didn’t? We checked the website. There was nothing. We called the school. No-one answered!) Naturally, our big boys were not about to sit quietly.
I heard (just about) the principal saying something about the preschool parents going that way, so I did. She didn’t mention Kindergarten, so I assumed they would stagger the presentations so that people with children both classes could get to both. I told TheMan he might as well take the rowdy boys home, since we weren’t going to hear anything anyway with them there.
I was already a bit jangly because I didn’t feel like I knew what was going on, or what I was supposed to do. Then I started the pre-school event really well by accusing one of the moms I knew from last year of being pregnant…and she wasn’t. AArgh! I felt horrible and we both blushed furiously and. Well. As I say. Not a good start.
So I sat down and listened to a presentation that I could have skipped, having been through pre-school last year. Eventually when they stopped talking I belted across the street to the main school…to find the Kindergarten classrooms dark and only a few parents hanging around.
Missed the presentation. Missed the teacher. Missed the whole damned thing.
I was mad. At them for no organising it better; at myself for not being smart enough to realize I should skip the pre-school thing (in my defense I wanted to go because it’s a different teacher and a different room); and mad at the world in general.
I was also upset. For all kinds of reasons.
For one thing, the school year seems like the perfect time to start afresh, to do things better, to be the perfect you. It’s like New Year’s Resolutions time. I had resolved to be totally on top of things this time, and here I am blotting my copybook before school even starts! I’m so mad. It’s like an ink stain on a brand new white t-shirt, right before you go out the door (and no, Alanis, that’s not ironic, just annoying).
I also felt foolish. Everyone else seemed to manage just fine. Why was I the only one running around like a headless chicken? Why was I the odd one out?
So I was too discombobulated to talk to any one at the pre-school meet-and-greet when I went back there, so I just bailed out and stomped up the road.
And here’s a word of advice to all husbands. When your wife comes in on the verge of tears, what she wants is someone to make sympathetic noises (”Oh, no! They didn’t? What? Unbelieveable!”) and to give her a big hug. She does not want you to tell her all the stuff she knows, rationally (or will in half an hour) about this really not being that big a deal. She knows it’s not. (Or she will, in half an hour when she’s had a chance to calm down or had a glass of wine. Half an hour unless you try to tell her it’s not that big a deal, in which case it will take three hours: two for her to stop being mad at them and another one for her to stop being mad at you).
[Men of the world: we do not want you to solve our problems. Except when we do. Which is NOT when we're still upset about them. Any other time, have at it. But if we're still all trembly-lipped, be the gay best friend. Good luck.]
Sigh.
Well, I thought to myself, it’s their Open House on Friday, where the boys get to go in and see their new classrooms. They each had a timed slot and guess what? They were at the same time again.
Let’s see, I thought as I finished a reviving glass of wine, if I can manage to split myself in two a little better on Friday.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
How prepared did you feel before your child started Kindergarten? Did you have a clue what was expected? Did your kindergarten communicate well?
[Comment, retweet or link from your blog for an entry into the current giveaway]
QUESTION OF THE DAY
What changes have you noticed in your kindergartner and their friends since last year?
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Having missed my chance, early in the year, to sign up to read to the Kindergarten class, I was starting to feel like I would never get a peek at what goes on every day. So, when the birthday rolled around I was quick to email the teacher and volunteer to come in with cupcakes and drinks and, of course, napkins.
And no store-bought cupcakes would do (I make a mean cupcake, if I do say so myself). So, the night before the big day, even though I still had gifts to wrap and cards to write, I started on the cupcakes right after dinner. Even though my throat was ominously sore…
And not just any cupcakes, but mini cupcakes so that it would seem like the kids were getting twice the number of cupcakes of any other birthday celebration. Of course, this means that it seems like I was doing twice the work (there are 24 kids in that class. That’s a lot of glooping of mixture into tiny cupcake cases. It’s a lot of baking, a lot of cooling and a lot of icing!), but I wanted to do my boy proud. He was so excited — in a cool kind of way.
I stayed up late, while TheMan wrapped the last of the presents. I iced cupcakes and watched TV to pass the time. I fended off the roaming insomniac three-year old brother. And all the while I ignored my sore throat.
Now, I don’t get sick much, but I do have a spectacular history with strep throat. I’ve had it in every flavor, from mild, to can’t-stand-up-feverish, to “Oh! I’d better give you the really STRONG antibiotics” bad. I can pick up strep throat, it seems, by talking on the phone to someone who has it. But this was Not Going To Be Strep Throat. Not on my boy’s birthday!
Only it was.
I knew, as soon as I woke up, achey and sore, the next morning, that it was strep throat.
I looked sadly at the miles of mini cupcakes on my kitchen counter and knew there was only one place they were going: the trashcan.
I gathered up Little Brother and dragged him off to an early doctor’s appointment so that I would still have time to get to the store for MORE cupcakes, and back to school by the appointed hour. (When the doctor asked why I was there, I said “the usual”. She flipped back through my chart and said “oh. Oh! OH! You’re right. Apart from that thing with the poison ivy three years ago, it’s Strep all the way!”).
When I finally staggered into the school, carrying my grocery bags full of supplies it was all worth it to see A’s face light up.
I explained to the teacher that I’d just be standing in this corner over here, trying not to breathe on anyone, and she very sympathetically got A and his little friend to set about serving cupcakes to the class.
It really struck me how different these kindergarten kids were from the pre-K howler monkeys I met last year. Of course, some of them are new, and the school uniform lends an air of gravitas, but still and all they were SO much more grown-up than they were a year ago.
The girls were especially unnerving. Maybe it was the millieu of the tea party or maybe I’m just not used to girls, but they were so…composed and polite. One of the girls at A’s table quickly took charge, helping my rather more excitable boy to hand out the snacks in an organized fashion, pointing out where he had missed someone, handing out napkins and even inviting Little Brother G to sit at their table, setting a place for him.
It was so cute, and pretty amazing.
Every time I think that their development is bound to slow down, off they go again, surprising me (babies change physically so fast, but then toddlers race through developmental milestones. Surely by kindergarten things would have slowed down, I thought, but no!)
I had expected to feel sad when my little ones were no longer babies. And, in the abstract, it is a kind of sad thought. In reality, however, watching them grow up and take on the world is pretty awesome and quite, quite a thrill.
Even when your temperature is 102 and you’re propped in the corner watching them through a febrile haze.
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QUESTION OF THE DAY
What changes have you noticed in your kindergartner and their friends since last year?
[Comment for an entry into the current giveaway]
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Did you have any choices about Kindergarten options?
[leave your comment for an entry into the current giveaway]
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It was pretty much a given, for me, that I would choose Catholic school for my kids. I’m Catholic and my husband is not. He was raised by wolves and, although he’s very supportive, I know he finds the whole faith thing a bit bemusing and it’s only because he likes me so much that he tolerates it.
I knew, based on my own tendency towards skepticism, that I would need some solid back-up if my kids were to be properly indoctrinated – especially when my children turned out to be boys. In the absence of any nearby militant Jesuits I settled for the local parochial school.
It helps that I’m a member of the parish, and it’s a very nice parish and a very nice school and that we can walk there. I grew up out in the country and that meant always taking at least one, sometimes two or three buses to my school. It was not a heavily Catholic area, so going to Catholic school there meant that your friends could come from anywhere in about a forty mile radius and pretty much guaranteed that none of your neighbors went to school with you. Consequently, the idea of not only living in the same town as most of your friends but being able to walk to school, really appealed to me. (Of course, it turns out that most of my kindergartner’s friends live in those big developments outside town and their parents think we’re odd for walking, but hey ho!)
Our town also has an excellent stand-alone Kindergarten Center, which everyone seems very pleased with. It doesn’t offer any choice (it’s half days, mornings or afternoons decided by where you live), but at least that makes things easy. The Catholic school offered many choices (which caused me some heartache).
My son wasn’t close to the cut-off point for birthdays, being a winter birthday, but I know some people who chose to repeat a year of pre-K, and some whose child is going through kindergarten for the second time this year. How about you?
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Did you have any choices to make on the Kindergarten front? (Public, private, parochial? Full or half day? Before and after care? Lunch options? Go early, go late, repeat a year?) How did you make your decision?
Were you happy with the options available to you? Did you wish you had more or fewer (or different) choices?
[As always, post your comments here, or in your blog with a link in the comments below. All comments earn an entry in to the current giveaway]
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Think back to the day you filled in the forms for kindergarten. How did YOU feel?
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“It’s time to fill in the forms for Kindergarten.”
“But it’s January!”
“I know.”
“But he’s not even five yet. I can’t imagine…”
“I know!”
This was the conversation in our house last winter. OK, the conversation was mostly in my head, rather than with my husband, but it still happened. (What? After four years hanging out with young kids, you weren’t talking to yourself too?)
It’s not quite as bad as trying to picture what your one-year old will be like in nine months’ time, but I still had a hard time imaginging my four year old two full seasons from now. Even worse, the school offered a choice of sign-up options: half day, full day, half day with lunch bunch, before care, after care.
(I hate choices.)
Half day or full day? How to weigh his needs and my needs and his little brother’s needs, and oh yes my husband too, and do it all in a crystal ball looking nine months ahead?
We were in a period where my high-energy, structure-loving boy already viewed Time At Home as time to run headlong into his two year old brother, head-to-head if possible, and I just couldn’t see that getting any better. The thought of another year of long afternoons peeling them apart sent several shivers down my spine, and made my head ache in that ‘I’m about to explode’ kind of way. To be honest, if half day had finished at what I considered a reasonable time, I might have signed him up for it, but it finished at 11.30! 11.30? That’s solidly ‘morning’ in my book, and ‘before lunch’ besides. 11.30?
Besides, I reasoned, he’d be six by the middle of the year and where I come from (Scotland) kids that age are in their first full year of school, no discussion. (”Who cares what thirty years of scholarship might have told us about the relative values of early childhood versus academic programs? I did it, and so can he,” my brain shouted, drowning out the sling-wearing, breast-feeding, co-sleeping, natural childbirth voice that had been in charge until now.)
I was leaning heavily towards full-day kindergarten, based partly on my perception of A’s need for structure and stimulation, combined with his love of learning, and partly on the needs of the rest of the family: my need to recover from four years of trying to keep up with him full time, my husband’s need to not come home to a basket-case of a wife every day, and my younger son’s need to keep his head in one piece.
Of course, my insane four-year old turned five and promptly spent the summer mellowing and learning how to make his little brother laugh (and worship him just a little more, if that was possible), and becoming a delight to spend time with.
I think now that we would have survived quite nicely spending the afternoons together this year, but of course, we’ll never know because I had long ago ticked the box for “Full Day Kindergarten”, 8 am – 3 pm.
As I handed in the forms I felt hopeful, excited, and slightly sick. I was worried it was the wrong decision. I felt guilty about sending him all day, even though I was (almost) sure he would be ready for it. I was really nervous in a generalized sort of way and second-guessed myself every time I thought about my decision.
But I am, after all, a mother.
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QUESTION OF THE DAY
Think back to the day you filled in the forms for kindergarten. How did YOU feel?
Comment below or post on your blog and leave a link here.
[Every comment -- until June 3 -- earns you an entry into this week's giveaway. If you tweet or link to this, add another comment to tell me you did, to earn an extra entry!]
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