My Preschool Jitters
Sep 12th, 2011
by Alexis Novak
I think I could conduct a Parent Teacher Conference whilst in a coma. I sat through hundreds of 6:30 a.m. ones with my same co-teachers until these meetings morphed into a script:
Parent: “I just can’t get Billy to do his homework. He plays video games all night long and then I can’t get him out of bed in the morning”.
Teacher 1: “Have you tried taking something away that he cares about? Like his XBOX?”
Teacher 2: “I think he needs a heart to heart about your expectations.”
Parent: “What can be done at this point in the semester?”
Teacher 3: “He can’t do extra credit now. He earned a D. Extra credit is just extra crap. He’ll have to try harder next grading period.”
Guidance Counselor: “I think Billy can do it, but he has to want it. Here are our recommendations so that Billy can be successful at our school…”
The parents looked exhausted. Frustrated. They would glare at their teen who stared at his shoes. Or worse, try to defend himself. Some ended with weepy moms pleading for help.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that exasperated parents were asking me, a green 23-year-old new-ish teacher, for parenting advice. I had no freaking idea how to make their kid come to school every morning. My skill set encompassed how to get 15-year-olds jazzed about Romeo and Juliet, how to show them that Eminem was poetry in disguise, and how to follow my only classroom rule, “Be a decent human being.” After that, parents were on their own.
Fast forward a decade.
Now I am the parent. And Punky has a 23-year-old teacher.
Punky, my introverted “Barnacle Babe”, became a preschooler three weeks ago. It felt like the little cocoon that I had protectively woven around my sensitive child for three years was bursting open and she was flying out into the big scary world, without me. Even though I love her school. Even though I am confident she has an awesome teacher.
Punky drew a picture that week that she described as, “It’s you Mommy, when your head popped off.” I had to remind myself that I’ve been her devoted teacher for the last 3 years, 3 months and 7 days, and it was time for a team approach. Or the whole village. She was bored. I was frizzle-frazzled-fried. Punky was ready to socialize; she just didn’t know it yet.
On the first day I couldn’t get feedback from the teacher soon enough. I wanted to hear from her the first few hours. Did she make friends? Did she cry all day in the corner? Did she play on the playground? Did I dress her correctly? Did she pee? Did I label everything the right way? My teacher self knew that this kind of communication expectation is straight-up Helicopter Parenting, a style I do not identify with, but, I now understood how anxious parents are about their kids’ school lives. Especially since kids are mum on the subject.
Grilling Punky that first week I never got anything more than, “I like it but I don’t want to go back. I want to stay with you and sissy all the time.” I took no behavioral notes in her folder to be good news.
This week her teacher said, “She sure is coming out of her shell”. My heart leapt. Punky’s been holding her head higher; she seems proud that she’s no longer functioning as one of my appendages. Since I haven’t cried to her teacher yet or written her an email a day I’m holding my head higher too. We detached. We really did it.
Next week: I explore why moms in our generation are homeschooling in droves.
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Written by Alexis Novak • 1 Comment
Andrew Thu, Sep 22, 11:51am