Two weeks in and I think I can give kindergarten a tentative thumbs up. I don’t think Mabel would give it such a wholeheartedly positive mark, but, as I have said to anyone who asks me how it’s going, I leave her in the classroom every morning and I don’t have to go back and get her until the allotted time, so I’m calling that a win. I haven’t been called in early to remove her, and though some partings have been a little more sorrow and a little less sweet, on the whole starting big school has been much easier than it was with her brother.
(Please, Fate, do not clobber me tomorrow, or next week, or next month, for this complacency. I know she can make my life hell whenever she chooses.)
Every morning until today, she has said “I’m not going to school”, but I’ve just pushed some breakfast into her mouth and put some clothes on her body and by the time it was time to get into the car she would be more used to the idea. Every night she’s said “I’m not going to school tomorrow,” and some nights, when she’s extra tired, have been more pathetic than others, but I have not yet broken down and said “Okay, okay, I’ll homeschool you,” so I count that as a personal victory.
The sad truth is that we all (all the parents, I mean) spent all summer selling kindergarten for all we were worth, with all the “It’s going to be great” and “School is such fun” and “You get to do all sorts of wonderful things” but in reality it’s just a whole new ballgame and fun is a relative term. I mean, PE might be fun compared to math, and art is definitely fun compared to spelling (don’t worry, kindergarteners don’t do spelling) and music is probably more fun than learning new classroom rules, and you have to get used to finding the fun parts to look forward to. I know Mabel’s not the only five-year-old who’s feeling a little betrayed this week, and I do feel bad about that. (Not bad enough to homeschool, no.)
Of course, Mabel says none of it is fun and she doesn’t like art and she hates music and recess is stupid and PE is boring and if I didn’t know better I might think she was just a big ol’ black hole of negativity; but ten minutes later she’ll volunteer the fact that the music teacher has a funny voice he puts on to make them laugh or that they made shapes with gumdrops and then they got to eat them, and I’m pretty sure it’s not as bad as she’d like to make out.
Stay green, Ponygirl
You got it in one here, and I think you and I have both got children who never really believed it was going to be that great, and now they know they were right.
I remember my third, who seems a lot like your little one was less than impressed. Having sent numerous children to this playschool before, ( not all mine, some were children I minded) so the teacher went to great lengths to look after her. One day they got new aprons and paints and the class were all excited. As she approached my daughter with a lovely new painting apron, she looked up at the teacher and said in a ‘don’t mess with me’ tone, ‘I don’t do painting’. And she didn’t, for 12 months!
She is a fab 17 year old now who can still scare teachers with a look of disgust.
One of the teachers bumped into me in the school yesterday and said enthusiastically, “Your daughter’s adorable!”
“Adorable?” I said. “Sure. Let’s say adorable.”
On their own heads be it.