The Five Things We Learned in Kindergarten

Welp. It's August. Already. And the camp plans that we all made back in January are beginning to come to a close. (On the upside, we will no longer have to dodge out of work at 3:45 to pick up our kids at 4:00 p.m, seriously, whose work day ends at that time?). As we finish up our late-night Amazon scrolling buy our back-to-school supplies with one click, I'm starting to think about what I've learned from my son's experience in Kindergarten last year. 

To be honest, for us, it was pretty rocky. 

I think we both thought that entering Kindergarten would not really be that big of a deal. Our son has been in a daycare setting since he was 12 weeks old. Sharing? Done. Taking Turns? He's got that. Sitting criss-cross applesauce? No brainer.  Put a bubble in your mouth? Well, okay, that one was a new one. Overall, he new how to make friends, generally followed rules, and was overall a pretty good kid. What else is Kindergarten about? 

A freaking lot more, apparently. 

Here are the five things we learned as parents-in some cases the hard way- in Kindergarten. 

1. It's Not About You

This one seems pretty obvious, right? But, every time I received feedback from the school about our son, I translated it into feedback about me as a parent. I basically replaced the phrase, "What we noticed about [your son] is that" to "What we noticed about your parenting is [fill in the blank].This simply isn't true. Feedback that you receive from the school about your child is simply that- feedback. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your son, on that day, in that moment, within that context. Pour yourself a glass of wine and do with it what you think is most appropriate. You know your child best.

2. News Is Just...News

I knew that adjusting to a new drop-off and pick-up routine would take some work. Although always hectic, we did get to go into their school each day, chat with his teachers (for like 10 seconds), and get an overall sense of how his day was. A friend of mine with older kids warned me about the adjustment and said, "Well, once you get into the public schools, you hardly ever get to go inside, barely see the teachers, and you really get very little information about how their day was...'No News is Good News'." Fast forward to week one of Kindergarten, an unknown number on the phone, and guess what? We're getting news...and then a few weeks later we got more news...and a month after that I got more news. Turns out, news is just news. Teachers, like all of us, will be more or less communicative. If there's something that they want you to know, they will call you or email you. See the last two sentences of Point 1, above.

3. Volunteer in the Classroom

If you are ever wondering why you are getting news, spend some time in the classroom. Do you want to know why the "self - to -self" rule is such a big deal? Because Kindergarten teachers are basically herding 24 little humans all day teaching them math, reading, and science skills that we probably didn't learn until we were in middle school. The kids are constantly shuffling between activities to keep their attention spans active and if you're getting feedback on your kid's behavior in class, even if it's not that big of deal in your eyes, it likely makes the world of difference to the teacher in that classroom.  

4. Create Down Time at Home

Initially, when we got news about our son's behavior, we would give him a consequence. We heard from Ms. X today, no screen time. We heard from Ms. X again today, no toys in your room. We heard again from Ms. X, no beyblades (these things are ridiculous name, by the way). And, honestly, none of the consequences worked. We started to notice that they made him feel isolated and maybe even more upset. What we came to realize (by like the May -  sorry, honey), was that he just needed down time. He needed time to unwind as much as we did. Kindergarten is not like it was in the old days, you know, the 1980's. These five and six year olds are learning all sorts of new rules, new systems, new teachers, new friends, new skills, and I think that, as adults, we forget how hard that can be. Give your kids some grace and talk to them when they are relaxed - for us it was bedtime. We wish we learned this sooner, it would have saved us all a lot of stress and tears.

5. Give them Time

When I went to Kindergarten Orientation the year before our son started Kindergarten, I remember one of the presenters saying, "Don't worry, you'll get your children back by Halloween, if not, definitely by Thanksgiving". What she meant by this was that, in her experience, Kindergartners typically come home from school pretty tired and cranky as they adjust to their new routines, but that they usually adjust within the first month or two. Well, our son adjusted by Spring Break. And you know what, that's okay. The changes that we've seen in him in terms of maturity and confidence just over this past summer has been remarkable. Give them time to learn and to mature. Give them your love. 

Our kids are going to be just fine. Sometimes its us as parents who need the lessons.

With Love,

Megan