Ready or not, here comes Kindergarten!
Our oldest child, my first baby, is starting Kindergarten! I feel like I am supposed to be full of mixed emotions, but I am not! The truth is, I am more than ready and feel like my son is, too. Over the years we have built ourselves up to this moment through daycare, preschool, Pre-K and now it is time. In fact, he has been talking about Kindergarten for months now and is full of excitement. With all of this, I feel as though my son has coached me to be ready and eased any anxiety I would have had, which is awesome!
Reasons I Am Ready:
- I appreciate the routine. I love the routine. We all do!
- I like the school and the teachers. We feel like it is an extended family for our child!
- I can’t wait for field trips and class activities. Watching the interaction with his classmates in a different environment than at home is awesome. This is something I remember my mom doing and I appreciate those memories.
- I learn something every day too! The excitement of the things he learned each day in Pre-K made our nightly trip home exciting. I cannot wait to just listen to the randomness of the learning and fun that encompassed his day.
We are all ready for homework! It sounds strange to say, but my son calls it his daily project and asks about it each night. We utilize the Summer Bridge Activities which is a book of daily assignments my son must complete over the summer. The awesome thing is if he finishes all of the assignments in the book, our local toy store (Imagine That Toys) will give him half off of a toy of his choice! The bridge program is designed to bridge the previous year to the next year in school, so we used the Pre-K to Kindergarten book. The only thing on my mind as my children get older is if I am going to have to be tutored because I won’t be able to help them on their homework!
If your school offers a meet and greet or school event before the first day of school, I would encourage you to take advantage of it. We did this before we started Pre-K and were able to meet teachers and see friends that would be attending the school. This definitely helped us transition to school and allowed me to ask questions from other moms who had older children and have gone through the process.
With our family, we talk, and we talk a lot. Car rides to and from school are full of open-ended questions and I love the conversations. I often know all about what happened that day at school or any concerns they may have. If something is bothering him, he will tell me in a round about way. It may not be the exact issue or problem, but we eventually get there. One other thing that has helped our oldest be ready for Kindergarten is that his brother will be at the same school, in a preschool for children three years old. Listening to our oldest explain to our youngest all about the playground, the teachers and the school has definitely helped ease our transition. Probably will for our youngest too!
If you feel anxiety or worry about your child starting school, try finding a way to cope without your child realizing your concern. If it is one thing I have learned over the years of being a mom to two boys, it is that they feed off my feelings. If I am worried, they will be worried. So even if I am not confident, I will not show that to them. No reason for them to be worried about something they do not need to be. So if you are worried on the first day, my recommendation would be to not show that in front of them. The minute they are out of your sight and you are back in your car, you can let it all out! Talk it out with a friend. Then after the first day is over, enjoy hearing all about their day!
This article was originally published in 2019.
