Kindergarten: Valid Concerns or a Hard Adjustment Period?

I don't want to be the "difficult" mom that is always concerned or complaining about something that happened at school. I would like to believe that I've always been a very open, willing and eager mother. Throughout preschool/pre-k I would like to think that I was a good mom, very encouraging and friendly with his teachers. I've always made it a point to create a good relationship with my son's teachers, as they spend a large part of the day with him and have a huge impact on his life. That said... kindergarten has not been a great experience, for me. My son loves it, but he's also five and doesn't have to deal with the adult politics that seem to go with it.

Since the first day of school I've had a bit of distaste for his new school. I was yelled at repeatedly during the first week of school while doing carpool pick up. Maybe rather than yelling at the new parents that are not aware of the ridiculous rules and regulations regarding carpool they could explian in a FRIENDLY manner the chaos they've created.... after all they require me to have this bright red sign in my window with my son's name and grade level plastered all over it. Maybe even send out an email before the first day of school explaining the traffic pattern and rules. I mean, I get two to three emails, from Mooneyham Elementary, per week regarding all kinds of things that do not concern my family.

I suppose, at the moment, my biggest issue is my son's teacher. I've not had a great vibe from her since kindergarten orientation. When we went to meet her she wasn't very warm or open to talking about the class, and even speaking to my son.. she just sort of stared at us. I was willing to assume that maybe she was just shy. After all... she was dropped from her last school to come work at ours last minute. I've tried to communicate with this woman several times regarding homework and she has been little help, and very short/cold with me in through email.

Let's take a moment to talk about homework while we're on the topic. In KINDERGARTEN.. I do not find it necessary to load the children with an hours + worth of homework nightly. We literally have a homework folder with a monthly calendar detailing each nights activity. These things generally involve writing/drawing, pattern making etc... ya know the fun things you start really focusing on in kindergarten. Then we have a reading folder. In this folder we are required to read for no less than 10 minutes every day and record these readings. The readings must involve our son reading to us and us to him.. This, again, isn't a problem, as we've been reading with our son, nightly (for 15-30 minutes), since day one. Then you add in this ridiculous 500+ page State of Texas Kindergarten workbook, and things start to get a little crazy. It's a workbook full of worksheets. We do half a chapter every night. Each chapter is between 8-12 pages. The worksheets are rather easy, but what five year old has the capacity to sit for this long and focus on homework? My son starts to get a little nuts by now, so we've now had to break homework into segments throughout the evening in order to get everything done. That isn't even the end of it! We also have our sight words. Words like: at, the, my, me, etc. that he must memorize/become familiar with in order to help him read. It just seems like a little much for a kindergartner to be expected to do every single night.

Please don't misunderstand, I am all for teaching my son, and pushing him to expand.. that's something we, as parents, have really focused on (the importance of education). The problem is this: they're expected to do all of this work and be so great at what they're doing, but from what it seems hardly get to have any fun. I mean, the poor kid couldn't even wear his costume to school for Halloween! They also only get to have three parties per year..... When I was growing up these parties were part of how we learned about the holidays! We had a class party for every single holiday!

Not to mention these sight words. They've been the worst thing to happen to our house, other than my son turning five. Since starting this endeavor we've worked very hard on our sight words, and his teacher just seems unmotivated to keep my son progressing. During parent teacher conferences she introduced the sight word project. She gave us two sets of words on different colored paper. We were to cut the words out and put them on this ring so we could go through them with our son. Once he mastered a set we were to email the teacher to let her know, and encourage our son to notify her that he had mastered the set and was ready to test. He mastered the first two sets in a week. That Friday we let his teacher know he was ready. Not only did she NOT test him, but she didn't even respond to my note. That following Monday we sent the teacher another note letting her know we wanted him tested, and had Mase tell her he knew them. She blew him off and sent me a response stating "I only test on Fridays, so I will test this Friday". Well.... Friday rolled around, and we were very excited. We were very encouraging to Mase. We practiced right before school, and it's all we talked about the whole way to school. Low and behold when I picked him up from school.. he STILL was not tested. I, of course, emailed his teacher (again), only to get a response "I was too busy today, we had extra kids in our class (which i found extremely odd), and although I said I would test on Fridays, I probably wont be able to test every Friday". Number one, she should not have committed to testing on Fridays if she couldn't do it. Number two, it only takes 30 seconds to test on these words.. She sent home the new set with Mason that Monday (without even testing him). Again we worked hard on the words all week and he was ready to test on Friday. I sent a note letting her know he was ready, and he let her know. Again he was super excited to show her how good he was doing, and her response to him was "you don't know these, you're not saying them in sentences, I'm not giving you the next set, you need to work harder on the ones you have".... and I received a nice (snotty) little message of my own. We were NEVER told we had to make sentences.. this is KINDERGARTEN.. we were told we need to familiarize with the WORDS.. learn to spell them, sound them out, and be able to say what they are quickly by seeing them.. all of which my son can do. You ask him how to spell: help, jump, down, brown, etc.. he'll spit it out quickly and accurately. Of course, I sent another email, Friday to try and understand what exactly she was having issues with so we could understand what was going on and work on it... No response.

On top of this... the whole kindergarten grade level went on their first field trip to the pumpkin patch on Friday (yay!!). It was pretty cold that morning, and we received an email asking to dress our kids warmly so they wouldn't get sick. I sent my child to school in a coat, and beanie. We all know, as parents, that five year olds are not good at keeping hoods on, but if you get them a cool beanie that they love, they wont take it off, EVER! So, they had a great time at the patch.

I was a bit concerned after picking him up, and seeing the goody bag that was sent home from the field trip though. They took them to a church pumpkin patch. LET ME START by saying this is NOT a big deal to me, as we are catholic, and I encourage mason to learn about god, etc. What I was concerned with was the fact that they were going to a Christian pumpkin patch, at a Christian church and it was never communicated in any of the correspondence regarding this field trip. We're talking about a society that is fighting about the use of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools... yet schools can just take our children to a church event, without notifying parents? It just seems weird to me.... but again, my problem is not with the church, it's with the school not communicating with the parents. What about the children who's parents are uncomfortable with their children going to a church hosted event?

The other issue with the pumpkin patch was Mase's teacher (again). At dinner, Mase was fighting a stuffy nose, and I figured he had just played in some hay at the pumpkin patch... so I asked just that. "Honey, did you play in some hay at the pumpkin patch?? I'm sure that's why your nose is stuffy (he has incredibly bad allergies). His response was almost shocking... "No, my teacher said we can't touch the hay, because we'll get sick and wont be able to go trick or treating... but she didn't let me wear my hat, she said it was trash and it had to stay in my backpack". EXCUSE ME? After asking us to dress our children warmly, you don't' allow my child to wear his hat, because you dislike it.. and you have the nerve to tell my FIVE YEAR OLD that his hat is trash?

I'm livid. I have been brewing over this all weekend, coupled with the sight word drama. I don't' know how to approach the subject, because I don't want to be the mom causing problems, but this is unacceptable to me... As a parent what do you do to protect your child both from the issues I'm dealing with and the risk of him being labeled the "difficult" child if I complain? I'm completely torn..

I just have really had a hard time with this school so far.. it just seems like I'm dealing with this that other parents don't deal with.... I mean... is this normal, or is this a red flag?

Cold Hearted Little People

Well... I was beginning to believe that I didn't need this silly old blog. I hadn't had anything that really struck me as worth sitting down to spew words of frustration about until this morning...

As per usual we started our morning off with an argument about what needs to be done versus what doesn't need to be done (getting dressed versus playing transformers). I'm not sure if I'm getting used to being a "mean mommy" or if I've just heard it so much over the last several weeks that it is now background noise.

I don't feel as though we're abnormally hard on our children, and I don't think we set our standards and expectations out of reach either. Is it really that much to ask that we get showered, dressed (including shoes and teeth brushed), and fed before we play with our toys? It's odd, because although we don't have a laundry list of rules, expectations and chores you would think we torture our son. I FEEL like we torture our son. On several occassions I've stopped to wonder if maybe we are too hard on him. Getting him to do anything is like getting a root canal. You ask him to pick up his shoes "buuuuut whhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyy... I ALWAYS have to do evvvverrrrryyyyyyythinnnngggggg" (in the most whiny voice you could possibly imagine). What's worse is that he's not like this with anyone but us! He loves to go to grandma's and help out with chores (he just helped her clean out the GARAGE, last weekend, for pete's sake!), and at school rather than whining he tells his teacher "I'm very frustrated and upset, but I'm not going to whine about it. Soooo.. why the hell do we, the two people in the world that adore him the most, have to listen to this constant stream of whining and fussing!? It's driving me out of my tree.

This morning after asking him to get his shoes on, he continued playing with his transformers, and after being asked a second time to get his shoes on he comes running up with transformers in hand "mommy, mommy! can I bring TWO transformers with me today!?" (I generally let him bring a little toy with him on the walk to school to play with). My response of course was "absolutely not, we don't bring two toys, only one, and today we will not be bringing any toys, because you have yet to put your shoes on". At this point we're ten minutes out from my original request... Today, rather than getting the whiny fussy response, I received a huff, puff, stomp with arms crossed, lip out and no response to ANYTHING. That's right... I got the silent treatment. I hadn't even yelled at him!!! I tried the entire way to school to talk to him about different things....what they might do at school, what he was going to play with his friends, what he wanted to do after school... with each question I was welcomed with an even more intense scowl.
Does the kid not think I have feelings or something???? We're talking about my bug. My sweet little boy. The one that I would do anything for. What on earth has happened? Are all five year olds this way, or is it just mine?! I haven't the slightest idea how to fix it.

I always swore that I would be as close to my children as possible, as that wasn't something I had growing up, but wanted desperately. I feel like I'm already failing at maintaining that closeness, and Mase is only five. I can't imagine what the next 15 years are going to be like if we're already struggling the way that we are... it's quite disheartening.

As always I'll continue to push on, try to find a solution to this madness, and let the ugliness roll off my back, but ouch.

Speaking to the Universe

To maintain some sanity I've decided to create my own little space in the webiverse to moan and groan about the pains of being a mommy.

I have a five year old son, and a 10 week old daughter, and am quickly losing sanity. I've always prided myself on my relationship with my son... that is until he turned five. It seems as if the moment he turned five the sweet little boy that I had grown to love and appreciate was abducted and I was left with a mouthy, whiney, way too independent boy.

Although life with one child can be busy, and at times tricky I feel like our family unit was functioning well. Nothing could have prepared me for the chaos that has ensued since giving birth to my daughter. I've worked with children for the last four years either as an assistant teacher or teacher in a preschool setting. I felt like I was equipped to take on the responsibility of another child, and was waiting patiently for my fiance (yes.. fiance.. long term fiance that is) to warm up to the idea of another little person entering our lives. Needless to say when I found out I was pregnant with our second I was quite excited.

My 10 week old daughter, as sweet as can be, is the most demanding, stubborn, loud little person I've ever encountered. I've become a prisoner to her. She only sleeps if being held or sitting in her swing. She eats like we refuse to feed her regularly, and never.. NEVER stops pooping.

My fiance works... a lot. My son is unhappy with how much time the baby requires, and the baby is, well, a baby. In the middle of all of this is, me, my 1/2 sanity, and this new blog.

Hopefully the blog and I strike up something amazing and mentally soothing.