I used to be the parent of a preschooler. That was last year. This year, I am now officially
the parent of something else – A School Aged Child. I’m not so sure about this breed of
little human. The expectations seem enormous, both on parent and child. Where we live,
preschool is a fairly lah-dee-dah sort of endeavor, unless you really want to focus on
academics, in which case there are preschools that will do that. We chose a play-based
preschool that was easy to get to, with a beautiful building and playground and wonderful
teachers whom we will miss very much.
Now, kindergarten is beginning. Granted, we’re only going to school a couple of
mornings a week and home learning the rest of the time, but in our neck of the woods,
this is when Official Learning (insert trademark symbol here) is supposed to begin. The
rest of those preschool days? Merely the last days of playing prior to the big time, baby.
Moving from preschool into the big time is a huge transition for both a parent and a child.
Our school district recently created full day kindergarten across the board, so five-year-
olds will go to school from nine to three.
We have very few stay-at-home-moms in our area, mostly because the cost of living in a
beautiful international city is astronomically high. Most of those of us who like to think
of ourselves as stay-at-home moms actually work outside the home part time, maybe in
the evenings, maybe on weekends, perhaps a little during the week. Some of us combine
parenting with working at home. Over the baby, toddler, and preschool years, we try to
spend as much time as we possibly can with our young children and pay the bills. It’s a
hard balancing act.
Kindergarten is an end to this. It’s easy to go back to work full time now, should you care
to do so. But for many parents, the transition into kindergarten is just as new as it is for
the children. Once all of your children are in school full time, that balancing act goes
away for part of the day. While you may volunteer at your child’s school, you’re not
obligated to do so. There are stretches of time that open up again, and frankly, it just feels
weird.
Have you gone through this transition? How did it work for your family?
Image courtesy of samlevan at Stock Exchange.