The email to the old preschool. Names have been redacted for privacy.
Dear REDACTED
Based on our meeting last month we’ve had a great deal of discussion and have decided that Andrew needs to move to an environment which more closely tracks with his school path. He will start at a new preschool on January 16th and Friday, the 12th will be his last day at REDACTED.
It has been a very fun experience for Andrew and his joy and comfort in the pool makes us really happy for him. But we were really disappointed with what feels like his being dismissed as having more time, rather than being helped to get where he needs to be. I hope that our discussion will change the way the “younger” kids are viewed and handled. To us, responding to their immaturity with passivity encourages immaturity where helping them see and work toward bigger expectations will help to mature. We also think that the very loose cutoff date of January 31st for the 3-5/pre-k doesn’t make sense and the number of kids who don’t adhere to that date and enter the pre-k class skews the distribution in the 3-5 too much. And if asked I would discourage families from sending their children to the “5-day 3-5” class. It wasn’t clear to us initially that this really only consists of M/W/F and T/Th together. This breaks up his peer groups and teachers and doesn’t feel like a consistent environment.
We are giving this feedback because it is such a unique preschool experience and we want all kids in it to be successful…even if they are a bit wild and born in August. We hope that it will be taken in that spirit. Let us know what we need to do to end enrollment and billing.
Thank you,...
The above is 100% the type and tone of interaction my mom had MANY times throughout my childhood. I was child number two and benefited from many teachers and administrators who'd already been Vicky'd and knew not to mess with her. I LOVED it so much. Knowing that my mom had my back. I also feared it, because sometimes it meant doing something uncomfortable (changing teachers, not taking the bus to field trips, not doing detention that the whole class was given, being moved into advanced dance even though my Jr High school self desperately didn't want to wear electric blue dance trunks during assemblies).
I'm sad that Andrew had to do something uncomfortable because of it. I am not as bad-ass as my mom was and was totally cringing about how to face the staff there for another week.
But I really did want to give them my honest feedback.
This latest stage in parenting is constant feeling like I keep having big mideterms and completely missed every lecture(*).
It may just be universe payback. Because I never suffered
much parenting angst over my babies/toddlers. I kind of thought I was doing a
pretty good job and felt relatively secure in parenting decisions I made. Fast
forward to recently. I AM FEELING LIKE A DISASTER.
Every decision around school feels so big and consistently
like I am wrong. I think this comes from one of my deepest parental desires for my
children. I want them to like and be comfortable at school. They don’t need to
be geniuses or class president but I want them to feel good about going there
in the morning on most mornings. Because they will be in school for so many,
many mornings. It breaks my heart to think of the kids who felt like school was
torture- whether for academic or social reasons. Kids have so little power to
change their own situations and they are also pretty bad at getting adults
involved when there is some situation that needs changing. So even the most
interested parents may never know all the ways that school is painful for their
child. THAT SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF ME.
Well, we are one week into our new situation- preschool at the elementary school where he'll go in the fall. I'm pretty proud of how Andrew did this week and it is kind of exciting being at the elementary school everyday and seeing all the big kids doing their thing. Hopefully I will be able to get into a better rhythm for trusting myself and my kids throughout all of these school decisions.
*I am writing this entirely in my own voice because that is
where most of the crazy happens. In real life I have a partner who is working
through these decisions with me and is able to have slightly more perspective
1 comment:
I would totally share your concern about my kids feeling comfortable and positive about school if I had kids! As someone who regularly meets adults who were shamed and/or neglected in school (by teachers, by parents, by the system, etc.), I can tell that what happens to us in K-12 matters. You are doing an AWESOME job, and I'm sure the first time your mom stood up for her kids, it was just as nerve wracking! You'll get the hang of it. ;)
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