a child, who’d been, condintioned to like preschool…photo from online…
A child’s FIRST day of SCHOOL, and how the parents handled it, is VERY important!!! Translated…
The fifth day of school, they’d sent a notice home, that there was a child in the class who had an intestinal virus, and the next day, the child would need to go to school with a mask on, “Couldn’t it be, too soon!”, I’d thought, from when the schools started in September, to November, it’s, the high time for the intestinal viral infections, and, a group of children gathering indoors, like that petri dish that’s, cultivating the viruses, I’d thought about how my friend’s child, six months before school started, he’d been taken to the doctors almost by the week, and my neighbors told me, there was another kindergarten, with all the classes, stopped its sessions completely………
But, I was too naïve, without the school’s warning that the classes won’t be held, my son mentioned how he was willing to “drop out”. He said, “I just want to stay at home with you mom, so you don’t have to worry!”, but I’d just paid the tuitions, and, after I’d traded it in with him, several robot toys, he’d finally, gone to school, “I really don’t want to come back again ever!”, he’d tripped and fallen at noon, his teacher called me to pick him up, he’d walked outside the door of his class, and demonstrated for me how he’d limped as he’d injured his foot.
I wanted to know, if he must go to school, then, how can I, make going to school something he looks forward to? My son thought for a long time, said, “Daddy can watch me longer on the other side of the glass windows of the class, if I see daddy, I’ll be happy.”, this reply almost made me cry, and I am in awe, of all the other children who’d gone to school willingly.
MY friend consoled with me, that everybody had experienced it, that her son didn’t want to go to school, and he’d cried, for an entire week, and, he got so loud that the entire school had, heard him; another friend’s child was only three, but he would, cry all the way across the campus, and chased after his father as he leaves; and there was a couple who’d worked even hard, the father would rode his bicycle alongside the pickup busses, and the child who’d watched her dad through the windows, clenched on to the photos of the family tightly! How can this not be heartbreaking for the parents? But, for those of us who are on the clock and working, we simply, don’t have the time to be soft, we can all just, bite down hard, and leave our own young at school.
And, every instructor has a different way of handling a crying child who was going to school for the very first time, my friend’s two daughters goes to the same school, as the eldest cried, the teacher would hug and hold her, and had the rest of the classmates to help her put up her backpack and her water bottle, and after a month, the child stopped crying; while the second child had a meaner teacher, and the teacher screamed at her, “STOP CRYING!”, and the second born CRIED for an ENTIRE semester.
For a three or four year old, leaving home for the very first time, entering into life as a member of a group, in a strange environment, with different rules compared to home, this can make them nervous and anxious, and naturally, they would be, overwhelmed with the assortments of emotions, as we, adults, switched jobs, we may get nervous and unsettled too, and we would, want to, escape as well! So, put yourselves into your kids’ shoes, accept their emotions, and accept the fact, that you “can’t control your children’s emotions”, and, although you couldn’t promise your children that they will not have to go to school, but, we can discuss on how to make their transitions much easier to handle. Does he like how the teacher handles his emotions in school? Can he empathize the other children who also cried in class?
and yet, this, is what normally happens for a young child’s first day in preschool…photo from online…
I never forgot, that my biggest hope for my son was that he grows up happy and healthy, and if I’d ignored how he’d felt now, and convinced myself, that he will, eventually adapt, then, in the moments to come in the futures, I may start to believe slowly, and feel, that it’s no longer the most important thing in the world for a parents, to make sure that the child lives her/his life as happily as s/he can.
And, this, is a very important milestone in a child’s life, and, how the child adapts to the “group environment”, is entirely UP to the parents, because the parents here, play a very important role, like how the parents leave the children at daycare, preschool, or kindergarten, that, is very important, and how your kid turns out, is completely, reliant on HOW you handle this first day of school in their lives!
Life, the Obstacle Course 