“Modern Kindergarten” is a tongue-in-cheek series based on my experiences as a new Kindergarten Mom.

We don’t need kindergarten orientation! We’re learning as we go!

Tomorrow night is my daughter’s kindergarten “Open House”.  This is also known to some as “Orientation” or “Meet the Teacher Night”.  This is a night where the parents and the child go visit the school, drop off school supplies, meet the teacher, be shown around the school, get to see the child’s desk, hear every little detail about what your child will do every minute of the day, etc. etc. etc.

At first I thought “Wow, that’s kind of a neat idea!”  But then I started to hear so many people either a) worrying about when orientation will be; b) annoyed at the time the orientation is scheduled; c) upset because the orientation is happening after school starts; or d) frustrated because orientation didn’t answer all their questions.  Not only does it turn out that this is expected of the schools, it is nearly traumatic if it doesn’t happen at the right time.

It is C, and the comments that that spawn off the idea of C, that I want to dissect a bit and maybe try to understand.

• “Kindergarten is overwhelming enough without a walk-through so the kids know what to expect!”
• “It’s a stressful time for the kids.”
• “It’s important that my son/daughter meets his/her teacher ahead of time.”

Let’s break this down.  First:  Kindergarten is overwhelming enough…

Wait…we’re talking about kindergarten, right?  Last I checked, kindergarten is where 5-year-olds gather and learn to read, write, and count.  We aren’t suddenly just tossing them out on the street to find their own dinner, are we?  We’re not handing them a rusty pocketknife and shoving them out the door to meet the wolves.  It’s kindergarten, folks.  Kindergarten.

Perspective…please!

It’s a stressful time for the kids.

Is it?  Is it?  From everything I hear, kindergarten is not a stressful time for the kids.  My daughter can’t wait to start kindergarten.  My nephew loved it last year.  No, kindergarten is a stressful time for the parents, which leads me into…

“It’s important that my son/daughter meets his/her teacher ahead of time.”  

Okay, sure.  Does little Suzie really need to meet her teacher ahead of time?  Or does little Suzie’s mother need to meet the teacher ahead of time?  Does little Suzie’s mother need to make sure that the evil tyrant kindergarten teacher will be kind and attentive enough to all Suzie’s special-snowflake needs?

(Note:  I don’t mean “special needs” in the sense that Suzie has actual, documented needs; I mean the needs like “It’s important that you never speak sternly to Suzie, no matter what.  We have taught her to question everything and never accept direction without making the personal choice to do so.)

As a mother, I understand the urge to shelter our children from anything potentially distressing.  But is kindergarten really such a traumatizing event that we need to hand-hold and baby our kids through it?  I would venture to guess that, with a few exceptions, most kindergarteners are thrilled to start their new class, are annoyed by mom hanging around with her Kleenex and camera, and come home at night exhausted but not remotely scarred for life.

These deep-seeded fears of the unknown, of not knowing the teacher or the exact schedule — these fears are ADULT fears.  These are the fears of the parent, not of the child.  Kids are meant to be flexible; they need to learn to just roll with things sometimes and not always have everything laid out in front of them.  And they will roll with it…because they’re kids…and kids do not have adult fears.

Let’s rename it to “Relieve the Parents’ Anxieties Night”.

Relax everyone!  Kindergarten is fun!

Author’s note:   I do realize that there are children that have real special needs, social anxiety issues, and other real conditions that would make starting school a more complicated event.

“Modern Kindergarten” is a tongue-in-cheek series based on my experiences as a new Kindergarten Mom.

School is starting all around the country.  For thousands of children, they are finally at the age where they can attend kindergarten.  Facebook posts, shares of Huffington Post links, and bloggers are all weighing in on this topic.  Kindergarten is a big deal, folks.  A huge deal.

Gasp!! The horror of the kindergarten classroom: let the stifling begin!

A MILESTONE!

But…where is the excitement?  The happiness?  Instead it’s varying degrees of sadness, which are definitely understandable from most perspectives.  My friend Jenna Karvunidis blogged about it very succinctly.  But even more than the sadness, what I am reading is major skepticism.  Criticism of the kindergarten experience that the child has yet to even start.  Apparently there is a lot of concern that kindergarten has gotten too advanced.

I have read about so many mothers reporting that their children’s questions about kindergarten include:

“Will there be toys?”
“Will I get a snack?”
“Will I get to play?”
“Will it be hard?”

With the exception of the last one, to be honest, I would be a little concerned about the maturity of my five-going-on-six year old if her primary concerns about starting school revolved around playtime and food.

My daughter’s questions about kindergarten are

“How fast will I learn to read?”
“Will I be able to count to 600?”
“Will they teach me to tie my shoes?”

Those are the questions of a child who is excited to start learning the things she encounters in her environment that she can’t do yet. “Will there be toys?” is something she would have worried about at age 3 or 4, not at almost-6.

Many claim that kindergarten has changed in the last 8-12 years from fun learning-through-play and social time, that kids are overworked, have too many expectations put on them, and are immediately given work they cannot handle with no rest or fun whatsoever.  I am 39 years old, which means I went to kindergarten 34 years ago, and I went for a full day, I sat at a desk, I learned to read and write.  I did not have a snack.  I did have a “quiet period” after lunch where we looked at books and listened to music, before the afternoon lessons began, but we didn’t sleep.  So I question where this sudden “kindergarten has gotten SO unreasonable and hard” perspective is coming from.

I don’t know what schools these parents are encountering where their kindergarteners are trapped in an airless room with no humor, no fun, no breaks or recess, and no individuality.  I have been around for a long time and have encountered a lot of schools, students, and teachers.  I have yet to see these horrible, evil schools that are talked/blogged about so constantly that you’d think children are just squelched and practically mentally abused day in and day out.  Yes, I will agree there is a small percentage of the thousands of schools in this country that have generated a bad experience for some children.  But the way people talk these days, it’s “send your child to school at their peril!”

I plan to continue my series on kindergarten, especially as my daughter is starting in a week.  I want to explore this phenomenon in-depth and compare her real, recent experience with the horror stories I am sure to start reading even more about.  I want to really see if life is just that awful for a kindergartener in America.

Stay tuned.

Join in the conversation!!  Share  your horror stories with me!