Growing up
Duchess, as usual, had an excellent first day of school. She was delighted to see old friends and meet the handful of new kids in her class. She has some of her favorite kids in her class this year. She will have a fulltime PE teacher AND a fulltime music teacher this year, which feels to me like a minor miracle. Her teacher talks very quickly, speaks with a Chinese accent, is very strict, and has strong convictions about the way kids should dress and eat and behave generally (this was communicated directly to the kids as well as to parents in the extensive paperwork that came home with Duchess today). This is totally fine with Duchess, who loves rules and (while not actually being at all tidy in her person or environment) already follows all the teacher's preferred practices of hygiene, behavior, and school-supplies management. The teacher seems very warm, actually, and I'm also fine with rules as long as they come bundled with kindness and generosity.
Third grade is a new world of freedom, as it turns out. This year, Duchess's classroom is in the older kids' wing of the school, so she doesn't have to dodge unruly kindergarteners in the hall. She doesn't have to be transferred to the custody of an adult at the end of the school day, but is just released into the wild. There are other small liberties that are very exciting for an 8-year-old. She actually hopped up and down in excitement when telling me that third graders are allowed to sit ANYWHERE THEY WANT at lunch.
Meanwhile, Skipper is preparing anxiously for her first day of school on Friday. Her first day will be abbreviated, ending just after lunch, and only one-third of the class will be there. Monday will be her first full day of full-on school. Skipper is worried about it. She's working very hard this week on growing up; answering strangers and acquaintances when they speak to her, brushing her hair without being asked, mopping up her own spilled water without being asked, and generally trying to be more responsible. I really mean it; she is working HARD. We've talked a lot, too, about how she will have to advocate for herself, and ask for what she wants and needs, something that has always been hard for her. I'm feeling pretty anxious about it, too. I was excited to get her into the preschool mostly because of what it represents in terms of her academic future - six years at a good public school with a language immersion program. I didn't think at all about whether it would be a good fit for her right now. And after the orientation meeting last week, I'm a little concerned about that. There are a lot of kids and not very many teachers, and it all feels more like public school kindergarten than it feels like the kind of swanky, semi-hippie preschools that she's attended in the past. The teachers seem perfectly nice, but I think it'll be very easy for Skipper to just disappear there. When she's under any stress, she pulls everything into her shell and shuts down all outgoing communications. Standing in the classroom full of kids and parents at the orientation, I watched a kid climb onto a painting-drying rack and bounce enthusiastically on until it bent, and I felt a pang of worry for my little snail child. In a classroom of twenty-five kids, the furniture-wreckers are going to demand all the teachers' attention and trample the other kids. I don't want her to spend the whole school year in her shell.
But I'm borrowing trouble by thinking along these lines, and that's something I frequently (and wisely!) tell my kids to try to avoid doing, so I'm trying to follow my own advice. During the schmoozy part of the orientation, I stood for a few minutes near the Japanese teacher while Skipper pressed her face against my legs and aggressively refused to look at anybody. One of her classmates, who is apparently not a snail, was happily interrogating the teacher about how to say various things in Japanese. Half an hour later, Skipper accurately and spontaneously told me how to say "hello" in Japanese, which she had apparently learned while hiding. I felt somewhat comforted by the notion that Skipper, even if tucked into her shell all year, will still be learning some things other than how to hide. I also have to remember that this kid is very tenacious, and I hope that the challenges of the school year will show her how to use that stubbornness to her benefit.
Third grade is a new world of freedom, as it turns out. This year, Duchess's classroom is in the older kids' wing of the school, so she doesn't have to dodge unruly kindergarteners in the hall. She doesn't have to be transferred to the custody of an adult at the end of the school day, but is just released into the wild. There are other small liberties that are very exciting for an 8-year-old. She actually hopped up and down in excitement when telling me that third graders are allowed to sit ANYWHERE THEY WANT at lunch.
Meanwhile, Skipper is preparing anxiously for her first day of school on Friday. Her first day will be abbreviated, ending just after lunch, and only one-third of the class will be there. Monday will be her first full day of full-on school. Skipper is worried about it. She's working very hard this week on growing up; answering strangers and acquaintances when they speak to her, brushing her hair without being asked, mopping up her own spilled water without being asked, and generally trying to be more responsible. I really mean it; she is working HARD. We've talked a lot, too, about how she will have to advocate for herself, and ask for what she wants and needs, something that has always been hard for her. I'm feeling pretty anxious about it, too. I was excited to get her into the preschool mostly because of what it represents in terms of her academic future - six years at a good public school with a language immersion program. I didn't think at all about whether it would be a good fit for her right now. And after the orientation meeting last week, I'm a little concerned about that. There are a lot of kids and not very many teachers, and it all feels more like public school kindergarten than it feels like the kind of swanky, semi-hippie preschools that she's attended in the past. The teachers seem perfectly nice, but I think it'll be very easy for Skipper to just disappear there. When she's under any stress, she pulls everything into her shell and shuts down all outgoing communications. Standing in the classroom full of kids and parents at the orientation, I watched a kid climb onto a painting-drying rack and bounce enthusiastically on until it bent, and I felt a pang of worry for my little snail child. In a classroom of twenty-five kids, the furniture-wreckers are going to demand all the teachers' attention and trample the other kids. I don't want her to spend the whole school year in her shell.
But I'm borrowing trouble by thinking along these lines, and that's something I frequently (and wisely!) tell my kids to try to avoid doing, so I'm trying to follow my own advice. During the schmoozy part of the orientation, I stood for a few minutes near the Japanese teacher while Skipper pressed her face against my legs and aggressively refused to look at anybody. One of her classmates, who is apparently not a snail, was happily interrogating the teacher about how to say various things in Japanese. Half an hour later, Skipper accurately and spontaneously told me how to say "hello" in Japanese, which she had apparently learned while hiding. I felt somewhat comforted by the notion that Skipper, even if tucked into her shell all year, will still be learning some things other than how to hide. I also have to remember that this kid is very tenacious, and I hope that the challenges of the school year will show her how to use that stubbornness to her benefit.
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