Hello,
Long time no post! This post is not going to be about my struggles and happiness about Dom but about his younger sister and my experience of her kindergarten screening........
I would like to start off by saying, yes Julia will be starting Kindergarten as a 4 year old. I am not one of those ignorant parents who just say sure i don't care what they say, your ready and you are going to school! I have struggled with this issue for the past two years. I went as far as taking her away from her friends at her previous preschool and signing her up in a preschool program where they have a UPK teacher that would focus on some academics to make sure she was ready. I would be in constant contact with her teachers to see how she behaved, how is she academically? how is she socially? can she problem solve? can she attend? does she speak up? You know everything a good parent or neurotic parent would do!
Her being a 4 year old in Kindergarten has been on my mind since she was practically born. Keep in mind I am also PTA President at her future school and I also thought, well what if everyone judges me for sending my little 4 year old to Kindergarten? Would they look down on me? Would they think i made the biggest mistake of my life. Ultimately i know that i shouldn't care what other people think but hey i am a bit neurotic, what can i say.
So, here brings me to her Kindergarten screening, which was this past week. I was pretty nervous about it, but i have been in this Elementary school for the past 11 years so i know practically everyone there so i was a bit excited about it. Julia goes in and i nervously just wait and see what they say and if everything that i have done for her in the past few years helped her to get ready for Kindergarten. As the teacher comes out, I stand up to greet her and she tells me to sit down. She does not smile, does not say hey you daughter is a very sweet little girl, or actually anything nice at all. She says to me that she is very very young to start Kindergarten, has a short attention span and that i should give her the gift of another year of preschool. She also says that if i send her she might end up hating school by November . As she is talking, i Just look at Julia and think I am the failure, I am making a mistake, maybe she will have ADHD just like her brother which is why she has a short attention span. Then the teacher walks away and i am just dumbfounded. My very special day with Julia is completely ruined and I am completely devastated.
I do realize that some teachers have their own agendas and how they totally dislike four years old in Kindergarten and I totally get it. I educated myself. Last year i joined the BCSD Kindergarten Entry Committee which we researched and decided not to move the Kindergarten entry date from December 1 to September 1. I learned that sending at 4 can affect them socially more than academically, mostly in 2-3 grade and 6-8 grade. But i also learned that it really depends on the child. Is she ready for Kindergarten? Will it have a great affect on her socially? My daughter is pretty social and academically ready. I feel that i didn't do such a shitty job raising her and that i did everything that i could to get her ready for Kindergarten.
I also do realize that some 4 year olds are completely not ready for Kindergarten and do need academic interventions in school since they have never been to preschool before and have never had exposure to academics, but should all other 4 year olds be punished just because of these children who are not ready? Should parents feel like complete failures and feel that everything they are doing is wrong?
Anyway, these are just my thoughts, not every parent in the universe. I wanted and needed to write this blog just to educate others who might be in the same situation as me or as neurotic as me. Because simply neurotic parents make the best parents, right?
