I remember being told that I had to be taken out of pre-school level as I screamed and cried so much daily that my parents probably thought I was being abused. In addition to causing an incident at crèche, where I was able to take all of the kids and dump them in cold water, in an attempt to bath them. Clearly I wanted to help their parents out with one less thing to do when they got home! I have experienced the opposite with both my children. My son was not difficult at all in going to pre-school, in fact he thrived in the environment and being the only child at the time, he enjoyed the company of other children. My daughter on the other hand shows me that she absolutely loves going to school, so much so, that when she is on holiday – “When am I going back to school?” is the daily question.
Her latest routine in the morning has become – “I will only go to school when they have special days” or “I miss you way too much mummy, maybe I should just not go to school anymore”. Either way, getting her dressed for school sometimes is a mission, she has to give me a performance before she actually surrenders to me getting her ready. I’m sure mort parents of 4 year olds experience the effect of our kids having more to say than wanting to do anything. Sometimes I feel like my 4 year old watches my soon to be 20 year old way too much! But then I sit back and think about the fact that our children have 3 more years at school than we did, of course depending on when you chose to let you kids go to play school. I personally think that it was completely beneficial for my daughter to be exposed to other kids and learning systems at an early age as I could see that despite me staying home with her, she needed much more. Its always difficult knowing whether we are doing the correct things for our kids, but it all works itself out in the end and we realise eventually that we put all that pressure on ourselves for no reason at all. With all the prayer, love and support we shower our kids with, they will turn out just fine!
