The Kinder Conundrum

Yesterday late morning I began preparing us both for the inevitable battle about attending kinder that afternoon. When I say inevitable, it has only been 3 sessions, but his distress is palpable. (A brief aside: gee it would be nice if kinder staff would refrain from snide criticisms when a child doesn't settle in well, all but accusing the parent of setting him up for failure by doing this or that, or, mainly, by not leaving promptly! When my child is distressed I absolutely reserve the right to stay a bit longer for comfort, not to mention to observe what it happening in the room. Oh, that I learnt to be so forthright with the years of dreadful drop-offs & pick-ups I had with P!). For the hours after we got home, he got much attention, we bought strawberries out of season for the fruit tray, new books from the library ... and then it was time to go. He is amazingly articulate compared with his older brother, & clear as crystal, if a tiny, breaking voice from a face pressed into my shoulder can be any such thing, told me he didn't want to go first because of rejection by a particular boy of whom I know he is very fond, & then because nobody wants to play with him. I did my best to respect his feelings & to give him some positive thoughts & strategies, then to assure him that nothing fun would be happening at home, then to bribe him with smarties if he went. I ended up carrying him sobbing. He didn't fight, but he didn't want to go.

I spent time looking at his kinder book with him. Some other boys came over. He relaxed, but when he spoke to one of them, a rather quiet little boy, he talked at full volume about 2 inches from his face. The boy just turned around & went to another activity. Eventually I had to just hand him over sobbing. I spent the time at home distracted & sad. When I picked him up, he was a different child. Apparently one of the teachers engaged him in a conversation about Bakugans, & that put him back into familiar territory. He was joyful, light-hearted, friendly, adorable. He told anyone who would listen that he was going home for his special treat, even the little boy who had rejected him, & who just looked away; I have to say that he doesn't seem to have very well developed social skills himself. He said heartfelt farewells to everyone he passed. And when outside, tried to climb the fence as he'd seen this little boy do many times; he does this after every session.

Shame that I got up this morning to a huge tantrum, but my goodness, how much easier it is to take an out of control child into another room and help them quieten when you've had some positive experience not long before. I think what gets to me are the long, long stretches where nothing seems to get better, or the same old difficulties keep coming back, and I feel like I must simply be doing a very bad job! But seeing my little boy happy & relaxed really gave me a shot.