My oldest is in Kindergarten, in a program for what they used to officially call “gifted” children. The teacher says she’s terrific and a fast learner. She grasps concepts quickly and knows how to apply them. She’s also well-behaved in class and works well with her peers. And she’ll probably end up experimenting with cigarettes at 13!
Okay, I hope not. But the other day she did not want to go to school. She was crying about it. When my wife spoke to her in the car, she finally got the explanation.
The kids write little stories in class and draw pictures about the stories. They are encouraged to sound out words and not worry about how they are spelled (this is great for our girl, who is always very concerned about “getting it right”). They have been introduced to basic sentence structure, including ending sentences with periods (the teacher is very good at having them realize that the books they read are models for how they should write).
My daughter’s stories are very complex for her level. This we can see, and her teacher has told us so. The story she was working on this past week about a classmate was giving her trouble because she just could not express what she wanted to. She could not find the language. And it was frustrating her. So she did not want to go to school and deal with it.
Our teacher told us that it would be okay once in a while to take the day off. She agrees – it can be stressful. The program has set objectives and the kids work hard. While the teacher believes our girl can handle it fine, there’s no question that there will be days like this. She reassured both child and mother.
I don’t know if we’ll actually give her a day off. My mother-in-law never allowed her kids to stay at home unless they were very sick, and then only for one day. My wife also wants the girls to feel proud of accomplishing something like going to school every day (and I think the children do get some kind of award from the school, too). What will help is that the school day will get shorter next month.
I wish one day I could play hooky with her. I’ll bag work, she’ll skip school, and we’ll go to the ball game. Okay, she’s not really a baseball fan, and they almost never play day games when school is in session, but you get the idea!
We have not overstructured her at all. She has no extracurricular activity like gymnastics or dance class. She comes home, does her homework, plays, has dinner, plays some more, and is asleep before 8:30. She does love being at school, and having a teacher that likes her and cares about her is a big help. And despite my reservations, I liked what I saw on the report card. It seems to me a bit crazy to give out a report card in Kindergarten, but it does serve as a useful check-up. She’s doing fine and is a delight in class.
I have some more thoughts on these issues to share another time. I was also in the same kind of program for “gifted” children, and I don’t want that experience to influence how I parent my children. I was correctly placed in that level, but the burdens and stresses I have felt over time have truly had a crippling effect on me. That I don’t want to pass on.