My son started kindergarten the first week of October.
He was late for a two-fold reason. Back in February, when his dad and I still split custody 60/40, with Donovan there Sunday night through Wednesday evening, and the rest of the week with me, he started having problems in the pre-school he attended while at his father's. Apparently the behavior had begun the previous fall, and only got worse as the year progressed. By the time I got wind of it from his father's girlfriend, the school was requesting a meeting with his father to discuss their options. It was decided at this meeting that Donovan could no longer attend the school. They were small, and did not have the resources to deal with a kid who, for whatever reasons, lacked the desire or ability to listen or socialize, a kid who acted out with extreme anger at any perceived inconvenience to him.
This was, in some ways, I think one of the best things that happened to our family. Because their options for daytime childcare were now limited, and with the knowledge that kindergarten loomed in the fall (which we had always agreed he would attend in my school district, living full-time with me) his father agreed to rearrange the custody arrangement much sooner than intended. My son came home.
It was certainly a transition. He missed his dad and his family. But within a month, his behavior improved a thousand times over. He was no longer surly and defiant. Well. He was, but not in an unusual way. He was head-strong in the way that most 4 year old kids are. Out of respect for Donovan's privacy, and that of his father's, I won't detail too intensely why I think this is, but suffice it to say, I had a different kid on my hands.
But still, he seemed to have a lot of difficulty in social environments. He took it extremely personally when kids didn't want to play with them, but in turn would not LET them play with him unless they followed his very specific and detailed plan of action. He became frustrated and overwhelmed easily, shutting down when asked to do something that did not come naturally to him. In April, I registered him for kindergarten. When it became apparent that he still became almost completely non-functional in larger groups of kids, and after a lot of deliberation, I withdrew his registration in June. I figured we'd wait a year. Keep him in a smaller, home-based pre-school, and transition him into a larger summer camp type environment next summer. He'd start kindergarten when he was six, and hopefully he would have matured and adjusted enough to deal with it.
Around August, he started showing signs of progress. Both socially and academically. Once terrified by too many kids, he could run into a large birthday party and immediately make friends. Once completely averted to books and letters and numbers, he could now sit for hours making me help him figure out how to spell "house" or "The Fifth Element." (He saw it once and became utterly obsessed with it.) He wanted to learn to add, he wanted to practice counting to infinity. Nik and I began to wonder if we made a mistake holding him back. And right around then, right before the school year was due to start, we got the letter that the teaching faculty of his district had struck.
The strike lasted a month. By the time it was over, Nik and I decided that we'd attempt what we'd been told would not be possible - we would try to enroll him for this year.
When I called the district, school had been in session for about 4 days. I fully expected to be turned down. When I withdrew his registration in the summer, I was told that I could not change my mind. But to my surprise, they could not have been more helpful and accommodating. He began three days later.
And where I expected tears - at a big school with hundreds of kids, at his first ride on the school bus - where I expected fear and trepidation and a rough transition for everyone, I found only enthusiasm and joy, and a kid with a sunnier disposition than I've seen in a long time.
He comes home every day and regales me with his day. I make him talk about the things I really want to know - the lessons he learned, what he drew, what instruments he tried to play. He then tells me the things he really wants me to hear - who played Play-Dough with him, which song they sang and the dance moves that go with it. Where I expected difficulty, there was none. But likewise, where I expected ease, there was none there, either.
I expected it to be easy for ME. I expected to maybe shed a tear as I watched him embark to his classroom the first time, and then I assumed it would be me assuaging fears and concerns. It didn't occur to me that it would be me racked with fear now.
He comes home, and he's still my little guy. He's still ungodly annoying, he still shadows most of my steps in a desire to stay close to me. But now, there's 3 hours a day, (and that seems like so much for such a little dude) where he's standing on his own. 3 hours a day where I can't protect him. 3 hours that become longer every day that he's truly his own little person, and not an extension of me any longer.
And I worry. I can monitor and discuss what he's learning from the books, from the teacher, from the lessons. But what's he learning about life? Is he learning that not everyone is always nice? Is he learning that there are more hurts in the world than the kind you can cover with a band-aid?
I worry about his feelings getting hurt. I worry that the boys will realize that he'd rather play with girls and dolls than trucks and dirt and tear into him. I understand now why my peer's parents had been so controlling over their appearances and behaviors (my mom wasn't controlling over anything, including herself). There is a part of me that wants to change who he is to protect him. I am doing well so far at keeping that part of me silent, but it's still there.
And then my worries become more far-reaching, sometimes macabre. I worry about his safety. I worry about when he's older and the kids are more vicious - when bullying turns to violence. I am still young enough to vividly remember the high school hierarchy. I remember believing that if you didn't want to be a victim, you had to be a perpetrator. I wonder how to teach my son to be neither, to be the strongest of his classmates in his ability to be both an unavailable target and a champion of the underdog. I worry that if the worst happens, it won't matter.
Those who went before you tell you over and over to grasp those dependent moments of your children and hold them tight forever, because they will slip away from you before you know it. And you believe them, a little. But it still shocks you to your core when you realize there is a part of your baby that you can't hold forever. There truly are times when you cannot protect them. That it would not be in their best interests to try.
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