We recently had to decide whether or not to send Julia to kindergarten this year or wait another year. Julia is one those lucky individuals who has an August birthday, so she's on the fence about whether or not she can go after just turning 5-years-old or wait until she's 6.
It's a double-edged sword. If she goes at 5, she'll be one of the youngest kids in her class. If she goes at 6, she'll be one of the oldest kids in her class. Either way, she'll probably end up hating us for some reason relating to her age, like the fact that she can't celebrate her birthday during the school year, which will undoubtedly make it a lot harder to track down kids to know who to invite. It was a snap when I was in school. I had a March birthday, so it was easy to just bring all of the birthday invitations to school and invite kids that I wouldn't normally call friends to Bill and I's birthday party.
I used to think that having my birthday in March was pretty nice until I hit college. It was then that I realized that it sucked ass. Because Spring Break landed in the middle of my birthday week almost every year I was in college, I never got the obligatory "Let's go out and get Bob wasted because it's his birthday" night because my friends were home because the stupid dorm was closed that week.
Having a summer birthday will suck while she's in school. Then it will become cool when she's an adult because she'll get to plan a great summer party that's also her birthday part. See how it all works out in the end? I'll have to keep reminding her when she complains about her August birthday during grade school that one day she'll be throwing some kicking summer parties and she can thank me then.
It's not like she has the lame birthday on Christmas, which means she'll be getting Christmas/Birthday presents for the rest of her like. I always felt sorry for that poor bastard in my school with that situation.
But this post isn't about birthdays, it's about Kindergarten.
While I've been struggling about when to send Julia to Kindergarten, I thought back to when I went to Kindergarten.
Bill and I were 5 and 1/2 when we went to Kindergarten. I don't remember much about the build up to Kindergarten except for a few days when my Mom sat us down to practice writing our names.
The first day of Kindergarten was a little traumatic. I didn't realize that day that it would start a trend on never getting my Falls and Springs off again. I just figured that it was a short-lived experiment.
I remember the first day of school vividly only because of what I did wrong. I went into the wrong bathroom. It would start a trend where I would worry about bathrooms and their locations, but that's a different story.
In our grade school, the Kindergartens had bathrooms inside the classroom at the back of the class. I guess they figured that if you left the room and took a wrong turn, you'd never be heard from again. Maybe they were afraid we'd be hazed inside the bathroom and then we'd never want to go there again. Whatever the reason, we had them.
Unfortunately for me, they were not labeled as Boys and Girls. Rather, there was a picture of Charlie Brown on one and a picture or Lucy on the other one. Seeing as the Charlie Brown one was occupied, I had to go, so I went in the Lucy one.
I remember almost gagging because the last person that went there did not flush a number two silo. I still remember that it was pretty big. To make matters worse, after flushing the mess and then going myself, I had to answer the door with two girls outside telling me that I was in the wrong bathroom.
I'm sure that the teacher explained which bathroom was which, but giving the distracted nature of kids, it's a miracle that 90 percent of them hear your instructions let alone all of them. I should know. I student taught seventh and eighth graders. I don't know how many times, I would not only tell the kids at least two times what the assignment was AND wrote it on the board only to have them come in the next day and have several go, "Homework? I didn't hear about this!"
Another distressing thing about Kindergarten was the fact that I couldn't understand why I couldn't stay home and watch my shows, especially the Price is Right.
I loved watching the Price is Right when I was a kid. It had a format that was consistent, but the games the contestant played were also changed up to keep the show fresh. I loved them all: Plinko, the Rock Climber game, the big-ass dice game, the switch the prizes around game, the wheel segment and the Showcase Showdown.
Besides the Price is Right, there were other game shows like Password to bide the time over before the useless soap operas hit the screen at 11 am. I never could figure out why they ruined a great run by breaking into boring dialogue all day long.
So I'm sitting there thinking about my shows and wondering how long this was going to last. I literally thought this was going to be just a few days and then it was back to TV, but that was a wrong answer. We were stuck there... at least until lunch, when we went home. We were on half-day kindergarten schedules back then and I used to envy the kids that had it in the afternoon after we left. At least they got to see the good shows!
You may laugh at my feeling about kindergarten and it's show-blocking technique on me, but I mentioned this to a friend at work and he had the same realization.
"That's what I was thinking, too!" he exclaimed when I mentioned that I couldn't understand why I had to miss my shows.
Kids today don't have to worry about that as much. They have their DVRs, their DVDs and hours upon hours of cartoons and kid shows that run all morning into the evening on a handful of channels. Lucky bastards. Like any piece of technology that gives me a choice of more of what I want, I would have given my left nut, whoever small it was back then, to be able to have access to all the choices kids have today. Back then, if you didn't like it and it was the only thing on, you'd watch it anyway because it was better than nothing.
At least Julia won't have the transition period like I did. She already goes to a school-like day care in which she doesn't get to watch much television.
Her entire class (six kids) will graduate Pre School and go on to Kindergarten next year, but Julia will not. I hope she enjoys the extra year without the pressure of succeeding and moving from grade to grade. I think I would have enjoyed it when I was a kid. At least I would have gotten to see The Price is Right one more year.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
We recently had to decide whether or not to send Julia to kindergarten this year or wait another year. Julia is one those lucky individuals ...
-
I've lost the heart to do this blog the way I've been doing it. It takes a lot of time and effort to try to think of funny stories t...
-
Last Saturday, I mowed the lawn, took a shower, and came back outside to finish putting things away before I had to get ready for lunch and ...
4 comments:
Just happened upon your blog through google. My daughter has a late August birthday (28th) and I have been struggling with this decision as well. I go back and forth depending on what day you ask me. I'm making my husband crazy. She's in preschool where they have a young 5's class to go to, but like you, I worry she'll hate me for it later. She's very shy, a bit smaller than average and probably falls into an average range of intelligence (husband doesn't think so, but I'm keeping it real). Our cutoff date here in Texas is September 1.
Any advice for me about how you reached your decision?
Well, in some respects, I think that Julia is intellectually ready. She's a fantastic artist. I'm not just blowing smoke. Her teachers tell me all the time that she wows everyone on a daily basis with her drawings as she helps the kids draw a tree or something like that.
On the other hand, other kids that are 5 in her class can all name every letter and can print their name. Her teacher said that Julia is now starting to ask what something says (like a sign). The kids that are 5 and 1/2 were doing that six months ago.
I've heard from several people about this. I've bumped into people that started young (my wife for example) and those that started late and most weren't that upset about it.
However, my mother-in-law differs on this. She remembers a daughter that was miserable. Everybody in her class got to do something before she did. Everybody go to go on a date, get a bra, get a car license, go to see an r-rated movie, etc. I received the brunt of that when I first started dating my wife. I was 24 and didn't know how old she was when I asked her out. All I knew was that she had been in college for three years, yet she was 19 (but almost 20). She turned 20 a month later, but that's where the trouble began. All of her friends were 21, so guess who got left out of the bar scene? That's right, my wife. It's all I heard all year long was her lamenting about how her friends deserted her because they all wanted to go to the bar. At least we got to hang out at a pool hall/bar that allowed minors in, but you had to have your hand stamped and you couldn't be at a table that had alcohol. However, even that wasn't a viable option as our friends wanted to go to the bars and then she'd feel abandoned.
Also, my mother in law is a Kindergarten teacher. She put it to us bluntly. Her six year olds were the leaders and the five year olds were the ones that had to catch up. She said many are simply not ready for kindergarten mentally and that some of those kids have to repeat kindergarten. She told us that it would be much better for Julia to wait. At least if you wait, you could skip a grade, but being left behind because you're behind is devastating. This happened to a friend of mine who told me that her daughter kept getting behind and finally they had to hold her back for a second year of second grade. Her daughter was mortified, but is thankful for it now.
I do have a co-worker who is very opinionated on this. She was one of the oldest and actually hated it! She'd rather have been the youngest. I don't know. I think I'd rather have been older in school. Even with my March birthday, I always felt that I was the last to have something to happen to me, too.
For me, I would feel horrible if I found out that she was not adjusting well because she was trying to catch up and not meshing well with the other kids. So mainly, it was my mother in law's advice, her pre-school teacher's advice and our obvervations on how she interacts with other kids. Plus, she's a horribly picky eater, so we've also let her know that if she's going to want to go to Kindergarten, she's going to have to start eating other things. We have a year to work on that, too...
My mother-in-law is an elementary school reading specialist and my husband decided to ask her opinion the evening. Oh god. Now ANOTHER option has been put on the plate. Instead of having her do another year of preschool, have her do kindergarten at a private school, THEN public school K. (she's worried about her being bored) There's many problems with this solution: most private K's are half day, they're very expensive and I doubt I could get her in since they usually have waiting lists.
BUT, it looks like I'll be calling around to see if anyone has openings tomorrow. I sure wish I had a crystal ball sometimes. Just when I though I was getting close to making a decision. Aagh!
Thank you for all your help and good luck to Julia. Your blog is wonderful!
I thought I'd give you an update as you were so helpful! I talked with her preschool teachers and they're recommending she do another year before kindergarten. Yay! At least I have someone who spent all day with her in class backing me up. Thank you very much!
Post a Comment