I [Heart] My Life: Schooling

Should We Let Our Kids Quit?

A few nights ago, I watched my little girl teeter on the razor sharp edge of her own comfort zone.

It was the night of her school's annual winter performance of Robin Hood. For weeks, the whole school had rehearsed, made costumes, painted props, memorized lines and sequences. Each day my Kindergartener had been so excited to go to school and participate in rehearsals, especially watching Robin Hood and Maid Marian iron out the kinks in their parts. At home she quoted the Sheriff of Nottingham (or, in this case, the Sheriff of Aptos). Each day we counted down the days till The Big Night.

And then the day was here.

We parked the car on the dusk-darkened school field and climbed the steps up to the gym, glowing invitingly in the icy stillness. Inside, the kids were a frenzy of costumes & face paints & props.

In the happy chaos all around us, Nia clung to me, suddenly unsure.

I want you to be with me, mama.

"OK, baby. Let's find your costume."

Once her simple costume was on, she re-affixed herself like a starfish to my leg.

I want you to be with me, mama.

I stalled. I was supposed to leave her with her classmates and wait outside. She was so nervous, but I knew she'd be ok. I knew she wanted to do this. (Right?!)

Finally: "Parents are supposed to be outside, sweetie. Look, do you want to get your face painted?"

She did, and so she un-suctioned herself and we parted with big hugs and kisses. I went out to stand in line with the other excited parents while the teachers helped the kids with their last minute preparations. The minutes ticked by. We rubbed our hands together and stomped our feet, smiled and chatted, eager to see our kids shine. Finally the doors were opened and we moved into the warm auditorium.

"April!" I heard my name shouted over the din.

When I turned, there was my sweet girl, tears streaking her freshly painted face, sitting in her teacher's lap. I rushed to her. Nia made no move to leave Rosy's lap, but she grasped my hand with urgency. "What happened?" I asked.

"She's going to try," Rosy said by way of explanation. Nia nodded stoically.

And then I understood. Anticipation. The icy fingers of stage fright were gripping my child's throat, stirring up the butterflies in her too-sensitive stomach.The ugly, bat-like ones.

I nodded and hugged her and tentatively found a seat close by.

Looking around, I realized my child was the only one crying. The only one looking terrified. The mama bear in me immediately bristled and I thought 9-foot tall Grizzly thoughts: What if she doesn't want to do this? Maybe she doesn't want to be an actress! I wanted to scoop up my cub and flee with her, deliver her away from the feelings in the pit of her stomach.

But I didn't.

I did not in that moment gallop with my child over the Aptos hills into the sunset (or moon glade, as it were). I sat there, teetering on the edge of my own comfort zone, uncomfortably waiting to see what would happen.

What happened was simple and predictable: the show started and my child became distracted, transfixed. Seeing her relax, my heart beat slowed and the adrenaline in my system was replaced with the oxytocin of an enjoyble time.

And when it was finally her turn to be part of the 9-person dragon (you didn't know there was a dragon in Robin Hood??), she rocked it. As the dragon left the stage, she lifted the costume, beamed and waved to the cheering crowed.

And no one was more proud of her for sticking with it than she was of herself.

And I realized that had I rescued her from her stage fright, I would have been robbing her from something even larger. Something truly valuable.

Maybe she won't grow up to be an actress, and maybe she won't seek out the stage, but what she learned that night was huge:

The satisfaction of seeing something through
Of being part of a group
Of working together to create something only possible by the accumulation of many smaller pieces

And yes, of pushing herself outside her comfort zone into new, sparkling territory.

After the fact, I researched & found great Washington Post piece that summarizes the importance of performing arts for children: Top 10 Skills Children Learn From The Arts

Posted at 02:35 PM in Adventures in Parenting, Schooling | Permalink | Comments (6)

Moving on to Kindergarten

By this time next week, I will have attended not one, but two preschool graduations this year.

Up until about six weeks ago "preschool" and "graduation" were not commonly -- if ever! -- linked in my vocabulary. And prior to having children up until about a year ago, I would have scoffed at the notion -- and lumped it in with "social promotion" and a cultural obsession with praising the mediocre.

But now?

Now I have a graduating preschooler under my roof.

Now, I get it.

To be clear, I don't "get" the pint-sized caps, gowns and tassels. As much as retailers would like to convince me, I don't believe preschool graduation is on par with college graduation.

But. I do believe it is a milestone in my daughter's young life. Maybe we need more milestone-marking. We Tweet and Facebook about every little thing in our lives, what about the big things in theirs? When we post about them, that doesn't do anything to acknowledge the event to them (assuming they are still social networking in real life, and not this online version we all love so much).

All that said, I do agree with author & lecturer Alfie Kohn when he says too much praise can be counter productive in growing happy, healthy children. For this reason, I try to match my enthusiasm to Nia's own pride in her accomplishments.

Case in point: Yesterday I saw her go further on the monkey bars than ever before. This has been a goal of hers for many months now, something I know she's worked hard at. When she dropped to the ground, I expected her to look at Joe and me with a big grin. Instead, she just ran over to another set of bars and did something else. She never mentioned her accomplishment, so neither did we. Had we focused on it and praised her, we might have embarrassed her, or diminished the accomplishment. Or -- worse yet -- made her think we were pretty simple ourselves for thinking something every kid should be able to do was amazing. (Maybe she's been doing this for awhile and we hadn't noticed?!)

But graduating was different. She was proud to participate in a "moving-on-to-Kindergarten" ceremony, to be part of a graduating group, but also recognized individually in a public way.

Some have criticized this graduation practice as being wholly unnecessary since the child didn't achieve anything extraordinary -- saying there was nothing earned, no adversity overcome.

And before having children, I might have agreed.

But watching Nia graduate -- and the build up of the days before, I realized something. Graduation ceremonies are as much about saying, "Yes! You did it!" as they are a gentle way of saying, "Your time here is complete. Whether you are scared or excited, it is time to move on." It is a time for saying good-bye to friends and teachers and the comforts of the familiar. Kindergarten is the Big Leagues. All preschoolers know that. (No less scary than the idea of leaping into the workforce for a college graduate -- and maybe even a bit more thrilling & terrifying.)

Kindergarten means a new physical building, often on the campus of a larger elementary school, a new teacher, new friends (and potential foes), new routines and challenges. It signals the true beginning of a school career.

Preschool has been the gentle introduction to the child's independent life outside of the family. This is no small thing. "She's different there... She acts differently than she does with me at home." I remember the first time I thought that, and the first parent-teacher conference where that point was made even more clear. Besides a few solo playdates, my child is rarely away from the watchful eye of a relative. With preschool, suddenly she was on her own (so to speak) for 25 hours a week, to practice what had been modeled for her, and to learn from her mistakes. You better believe those first few weeks were hard for everyone!

In preschool, for the first time children have the opportunity to forge friendships due to interest, not just circumstance ("our moms are friends"), and to learn from adults who are not their parents -- to learn to love and respect an adult who is neither family, nor a family friend. And also to trust that when we tell them their school is a safe place, that it is.

All of this is scary in the beginning.

When my child passed through the rainbow tunnel and received her congratulations card & necklace from her teacher, and then stood looking proudly at the audience while her teacher said, "I want to thank Nia for all her loving kindness" -- that signaled the end of something.

Your time here is done, little one. It's time to write a new chapter: a Kindergarten chapter.

And that deserves to be recognized.

Graduating from Midtown Montessori Preschool, June 2013 from April Stearns on Vimeo.

Midtown Montessori, Class of 2013

Surviving The Dog Days of the School Year

Yesterday I read a great blog post called "Worst End of School Year Mom Ever." Jen Hatmaker writes about experiencing the exact opposite of the beginning of school enthusiasm. I can relate.

Jen has five kids.

I have one.

In preschool.

The fact that I can relate to this mother's exhaustion startles me. I guess it goes to show that no matter how many kids we have or what level of schooling they are in (from formal to homeschooling), by the end of the school year, we -- their chauffeurs, chefs, personal shoppers, activity directors, tutors, relationship mediators, and guidance counselors -- are all running on empty. (And I can say all of us pretty safely given that last time I looked, Jen's piece had 300,000 "likes" on Facebook and had been shared 1400 times on Twitter -- and she only wrote it yesterday. That's a lot of tired parents.)

What to do?

I'm pulling myself up off the floor and resisting the urge to hit 'snooze' one more time. I'm digging deep, people. I'm pulling together the little tricks I've learned over this first year of schooling for getting my little one out the door fed, dressed, on-time, with a lunch in-hand (thankfully homework is not an issue yet beyond the occasional show-and-tell -- and let me tell you, this week, taking the little velvet-lined box and abalone-carved turtle that she took this week to anything beyond simply/literally taking it and showing it, took way more mental effort than I had in me).

So I feel you.

But we've got a couple more weeks. Say it with me: We can do this!

My first three tips fall under the category of "do what you can the night before, no matter how tired you are -- your Morning Self will want to kiss your Night Self."

Tip 1: Take Care of Breakfast The Night Before

With a tiny bit of initiative and effort you can let breakfast cook itself overnight and be ready for a few dabs of cinnamon & brown sugar by morning. How? Crock-Pot Steel-Cut Oatmeal, baby. Huge time-saver & a hot, healthy breakfast to boot. I posted about this awhile back -- recipe/method here.

Tip 2: Dress the Scarecrow (No, not the one from Batman. *shudder*)

You know you should lay your kids' clothes out the night before. It avoids all kinds of delay and drama in the morning. But it is tedious and maybe happens 2 out of 5 nights, right? If you're lucky. So here is a way to get your kids excited about doing this piece on their own. We call it "dressing the scarecrow" in our family. Basically it is laying clothes out with the extra step of hanging them on hangers so they end up looking like a Minny Me of your kid -- and they dig that!

Hang it next to your little one's bed & done. ('50s style poodle skirt and top are optional. As is the head-to-toe pink. Just sayin'.)

3. Plan (if Not Pack) Lunch the Night Before

In the very least, get out a piece of paper and jot down the kid's lunch menu. Look in the cupboards, the fridge and the fruit bowl. Know what you've got to work with. That way when you are rushing around your kitchen in the morning barely awake at least you have a game plan. I won't even mention packing the dinner leftovers the night before for lunch the next day -- that is clearly some September-type thinking, as is this.

Ok, so that's the stuff you can do ahead of time. How about the morning of?

1. Wake Them Up With Music

I know some kids who are up well before the sun (or at least, before their parents). We have the opposite problem in our house: Nia is the last to wake up and so0 slooow m o v i n g. To help wake her up and get her going, Joe has created several high-energy morning playlists. (I wonder, did you know, honey, all those years at KSCU would come payoff in dancing our preschooler out of bed...?) Our current playlist includes this favorite.

2. Breakfast in Bed. (Or, in the Car.)

Kids need breakfast. Studies, scientists, doctors, grandmas say it is important. But how do you get them to actually eat it (in a timely fashion)? Lately we've been doing breakfast in bed. This isn't so great if you need to fly out the door moments after your Little wakes up, but if you plan to do it, it works great. They can wake up slowly and eat at the same time. I'm a huge fan of reading aloud, so I read to Nia while she eats (one chapter = one plate of scrambled eggs). On other mornings when we are needing to move much faster, she takes her bowl of oatmeal in the car.

OK, moms & dads. Gather your strength this weekend. You can do a couple more weeks of school mornings, I know you can! What tricks are you employing? Are your kids sleeping in their next-day clothes at this point?

Posted at 01:39 PM in Adventures in Parenting, Schooling | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Kindergarten Question

I'm not exactly sure when it happened, when "Kindergarten" became the highest trending term in all my conversations.

Overnight it seems. Suddenly I am discussing kindergarten with everyone from friends who also have 5-year-olds, to family members, to random people in the grocery store who it is frequently revealed don't even have school-age children but even still want to know where Nia is going.

Everywhere I go these days, people want to know if we've chosen a kindergarten.

It is the $64,000 question of the moment.

And it is a loaded question: Are we sending Nia to our "home" school (the school in our neighborhood for which we are zoned) or are we sending her somewhere else?Are we choosing public and everything that comes with it (civic duty?), are we choosing to pay for something else (elitist?), or are we opting out completely (freak?).

I'll tell you right now -- since it seems you and I are now having this conversation right here on the blog -- we haven't decided. Literally every option is still on the table for us from our neighborhood school to private schools to transferring to another public school in a neighboring district to homeschooling -- the entire gamete of school options (and if there is some option I haven't yet considered, please don't tell me! Wait, nevermind. I can't not know. Tell me!)

I envy the people for whom this choice is obvious, those people who already knew long ago exactly what they were going to do when their child turned five. By the same token, I don't envy my friends who not only have to decide what school, but also IF they will be sending their child to kindergarten this year based on where their birthday falls. Nia is a May baby. She'll be a good, solid five by the time the school year starts, so that piece is decided. But where??

My therapist, where she here perched on my shoulder, would say I am giving this question entirely too much weight in the grand scheme of life's problems. And that is probably true, though it doesn't make me think about it any less. (And didn't I just conquer cancer for the chance to grapple with such questions, these "tiny" problems that make up the fabric of a rich, gorgeous life well-spent..?)

This is why it is a big deal: Because we're not just choosing a kindergarten, you see, we are choosing the next six years of our child's life, where she will spend 20-30 hours a week (and the people with whom she will spend these precious hours, teachers & peers alike), where the foundation for how she feels about schooling will be laid, brick by brick (worksheet by worksheet?).

What is the worst that could happen?

I posed this question to Joe and we both had different answers.

I say the worst that can happen is that her spirit, her desire to learn (which is so strong!) could be stifled. That she could go to a place where anxiety would over-shadow her ability to learn.

For Joe, the worst that could happen is that she would be utterly bored and completely unstimulated, as he once was.

So we asked her preschool teachers where they thought a natural fit for her would be. "She's very flexible and adaptable. She'll be fine wherever she goes."

Sigh.

That's reassuring... and completely unhelpful all at the same time...

This week we are touring yet another public option, meeting with the kindergarten teacher at a private option, and exploring further our homeschooling options. (This is my new part-time job!) At what point is it all just too much information? At what point do we say simply, it would be really nice to be able to walk to school each morning, hand-in-hand -- and voila! the decision is made?

If you are one of my friends, hoping to read this post and discover where Nia is going to kindergarten, I'm sorry to disappoint. The good news is that kindergarten registration doesn't go on forever. The season will draw to a close and when the dust settles, my big girl will be on her way.

And I'll have an answer to the $64,000 question.