So, just when you think you have everything figured out...well, you never do, right?
Our little nature school program isn't working out like we thought.
Why?
Well, we have had a few run-ins with the teacher. She is one of these awkward around adults people, more comfortable with the adoring children at her knees. She tries to tell us what we need to do to "fix" little man - which makes me bristle and immediately defensive.
More importantly, little man isn't really loving it like we had hoped. The first day he was ecstatic. Butterflies! Walks to the lake! Rain puddle splashing! The next week he was crying when I picked him up, and its been down hill since then. For the past three days now he has woken up anxiously asking "is today school?" and then when I say no he looks relieved and says, emphatically, that he doesnt want to go on the appointed day....
which is tomorrow....
or ever again for that matter... "Can you just ask for your money back?" he asks pathetically. (And I feel like crap that he knows we pay money for him to do this.)
So now you see our dilemma.
Do we stick it out and send him?
Here is the thing about that though. This isn't like kindergarten. He doesnt HAVE to go. Its not like day care either. I dont NEED him to go. This is supposed to be fun. Making new friends. Learning and growing. It's not school. It's a NATURE PROGRAM. Is it worth it if he spends three out of seven days each week dreading it, crying, and then the day of upset and, frankly, mad.
Last week his teacher even told me he cried on and off all morning, wanting mama, bravely trying to save face by telling the other kids he got "something in his eye." Doesnt that just melt you??? I mean, do you force that to happen every week??
And more, does he NEED to "learn to be away from mama" at FOUR, as the teacher keeps telling me? I mean, is that an important "skill"? I doubt he will be doing this at 12, or even 8 for that matter, so, is it that so crucial so as to force him to do it?? We are not "cry-it-out" at 6 weeks old because they "need to learn to self-soothe" kind of people, so this attitude just doesnt really feel right to me.
And he CAN be away from us. He goes into Sunday School every week just fine. He has friends there. He plays happily, listens to storytime, sings the songs. No problem. We have never had any screaming incidents. No tears of separation. (Although we didnt force him to go until he wanted to, our kids never go into nursery, they sit with us in church.)
And I guess you could say we should be teaching him stick-to-it-iveness (made up word, sorry) Don't quit even when its hard, etc etc. and all those good things. But....at four? Over something that literally makes him anxious for days out of the week? Why? What is he really learning? That playing in the sprinkler or going to the lake with kids he doesn't know all morning is an important life lesson? More important than his feelings?
And then I also wonder, is the whole new baby and changes coming up throwing him for a loop? Maybe he needs me, needs to be home?
So really. Here is the question.
Why is being at home so bad?
I mean, if we take him out, and GASP, do "nothing" next year (and I put nothing in quotes because everyone knows nothing is hardly NOTHING in the life of a SAHM) is that really so bad of us? I mean, are we stunting his development or something? Are we holding him back by well, holding him back?
I feel like I will have to justify his being at home the whole year with some kind of program or something. But frankly, the idea of driving a kid to school at 8am, preschool or whatever, with a newborn and toddler in a Minnesota winter....not too appealing.
But of course that is not the issue here, my convenience, its about him.
If he wants to be at home, still needs that, is that so terrible? This morning he told me he doesnt want to go now or in the fall, maybe when he is "bigger, like eighteen."
And if I am okay with that, and I really am, does that make me some crazy antiquated mother??
Sooooooo ready to move to my goat farm where there are no preschool programs for miles around and be done with the whole question already...dammit.