A mother’s experiences, the observations made, from her interactions with the teacher of her son’s class, translated…
As I picked up my son from school today, the teacher prodded me, asked if my son enjoyed climbing onto the equipment of the parks? I’d not thought twice, and answered, “yes, he loves it, and he’s, very good at it too”. The teacher took a deep breath, continued, “mom, there are, two kinds of parents, one, that worries about their children getting hurt, the kind that wouldn’t allow their young to climb up too high, and, we will prevent the children from these parents to climb high; the other kind of parents are the ones that allowed their young to explore, to climb as much, as high as the children wanted to, that it didn’t matter if they hurt themselves, if your son is the kind, then, we won’t, prevent him from climbing, we’ll, let him climb.”
“We’d, allowed him to climb, higher, higher, and higher, he’d done amazingly too, at the same time, we’d, reminded him to be careful…………”, before I finished talking, the teacher immediately asked me, “then, I shall, let him climb upward then, so you think this will be, okay for your son?”
It’d, sounded nice, but, how come it felt like she was, having me to sign a consent to my own son’s unexpected injuries, like a guarantee, of how the teachers won’t be held responsible? The teacher present can still give out warnings………but, there are, thirty children in one kindergarten class, I know that the teachers, are troubled, and, there are, the various kinds of parents, even if she’d dealt with the repeatedly, she may not have the parents all figured out, her willingness, to ask me, I’m, more than grateful for her over it, and it would be, much easier on the teachers, but hard on the children, if she’d, just, banned him from climbing up altogether.
I’m very clear, that the teacher meant, that most of the kids in the class wouldn’t (couldn’t) climb, and my son is, an odd duck, like he would, stand on top of the chairs to play, how I’d taken him home at noon for naps, as I’d taken his hand, and left the classroom, the other kids are all, watching us.
Last night, I saw a post on a trendy parenting forum on FB, there was a four-year-old who’d just begun his second year of kindergarten, who’d, barfed every single day in class, after the teacher fed him his meals, he’d, barfed, the teacher worried the child might starve, then banged the bowl against the table, “why won’t you swallow your foods down! I’ll call your mom, tell her NOT to pick you up today!”, then, the kid became like this when he goes off to school in the morn, “mom, I want to barf!”
“I will tell your mom/dad to not pick you up”, this sort of a threat, is the usual way the teachers “deal” with the kids in kindergarten, and what made me sad was, the online community ganged up on the parents for spoiling the child, “my child barfed for an entire year, I’d still insisted she be placed in school for the whole day”, “She’s only in kindergarten, and you’d, allowed her to have it her way, I can’t imagine how awful she would be after she grows up!”, “Why is it after the kids come home, said bad things about the teacher, and, the parents aren’t on the same page as the teachers!”
illustration from UDN.com…
Is that so? If as adults, we’re not used to the ordered lunches at our offices, and couldn’t go out to eat, and, barfed for an entire week at work, we should be, well on our ways, to quitting our jobs? We should, empathize the chilren’s situations, to find the right way of resolving the problems, is this, really, spoiling our young rotten? Then, if the children never told, the parents would probably never gotten to know, the physical punishments, the sexual harassments, and the seriousness of the use of scolding would have on our young.
Every time we go to the park, I’d see three-to-five-year-olds, getting scolded, don’t run, don’t do this, don’t do that, even as they’d, tripped and fallen, they’d, gotten blamed too; and the babies that can’t walk yet, were, hovered over in their parents’ arms, from how they’d slept, to what they ate, to what they wore, the parents were, worried over them, and yet, why is it, that after the children started school, it’d become, a whole different story?
There’s, such a short period of time that kids can be kids, with their growing senses of themselves, when, they are, no longer gentle, compliant, it’s, as if, they don’t, deserve our love anymore; or maybe, all of these adults, raised their children like pets that they can, spoil, they never thought about empathizing with their young, to treat others delicately, when the others are their own young!
See the hardships of being early childhood educators today? There are, a wide variety of parents out there, and the teachers needed to, adapt themselves, to deal with all of these parents, some of whom are very irrational, very unreasonable, and yet, because the children are in their classes, they must, learn to deal with the parents too, and this teacher was right, in asking the mom if it was okay that the little boy climbs high up on the equipment on the playgrounds.
Life, the Obstacle Course 