Kindergarten Chronicles: Not Ready

After the first month of school, I still wasn’t sure how Eric was doing in kindergarten. He no longer complained daily about attending school (as in, “What? We have to go back to dat school place again?”), and I finally stopped getting bad news daily. I actually thought we were headed forward.

At our goal setting conference, the school principal greeted us along with Eric’s teacher.

“We must be in trouble.” I joked half-heartedly. Nobody laughed.

Our plan was to have Eric repeat kindergarten next year if necessary. We were told this was a bad idea, and they proposed that we take him out and try again next year.

“Are you kicking us out?” My husband asked the principal nervously.

“We can’t ask that…” Her voice trailed off.

“What are we supposed to do?” I glanced over at Eric who was coloring nearby.

“I suggest you start calling pre-schools,” said his soon-to-be ex-kindergarten teacher.

The rest of the conference was a blur as I held back tears. He was having trouble in all areas—academic, social, as well as impulse control. The teacher and principal thought he was simply too young and next year he would be just fine.

His teacher seemed to think Eric’s issues were a matter of discipline and not ability. But I was wondering if Eric actually could do what was expected of him and was curious why he couldn’t.

He seemed to be getting more defiant, especially if he could not do something. Where in the past he would have just tried again, he was getting angry at his failed attempts and giving up without trying.

I was in shock as we waited on the playground for Paul’s conference.

I watched one of Eric’s classmates push him in the stomach. I saw this same child placed his peach pit in another child’s pasta the week before at lunch. How can this kid be doing better in kindergarten than Eric?

My husband and I talked about the situation for another week and decided Eric was going to have some of these problems wherever he was at school this year. No matter where Eric went to school, he was still Eric. Why force another transition? If anything was going to prepare him for kindergarten, this teacher was. They didn’t say we couldn’t repeat kindergarten, they just didn’t recommend it. But we were confident that he would do great in kindergarten next year in a different class with a different teacher.

When I told his teacher that we wanted to stay, she did not hide her disappointment. She told me I was “robbing him” and that he just wasn’t “getting it.”

She told me about the book fair.

Apparently there was jar of “gold” coins and the object was to guess the amount. Eric was not interested, but his teacher was.

“Guess!” she insisted.

“S?” He finally offered.

As I stared at her horrified face I could see why Eric believed she thought he was dumb.

The issues Eric was having were not the issues I was expecting.

One of the parents told me if every student were playing happily except for a few who looked like they wanted trouble, Eric would always choose the troublemakers. They seemed to gravitate toward each other like little danger-seeking missiles. They shoved each other and wrestled like puppies, then ended up being punished one after another by standing against the fence during recess.

I recalled Paul’s first few weeks of kindergarten as a shy but willing student. One day he told me solemnly why he did not want to be friends with a certain classmate.

“He talks too much and is always getting in trouble.”

Paul’s cautious nature has made him a good student. He has always been intent on doing the right thing and could usually figure out what that meant without my telling him more than once. In kindergarten he may not have known his own phone number or sums up to ten but he knew enough to follow directions, keep his hands to himself, and be quiet.

Eric still seems genuinely shocked every time I reprimand him for the most obvious infraction.

“No hitting? Really?”

I think some of Eric’s physical behavior has been misunderstood. He has always been a touchy-feely kid—quick to hug or shove but never in a mean spirited way. He is not aggressive but he does stand up for himself. He still seemed genuinely confused about what was expected of him at school. When he reprimanded a classmate for cutting in line, Eric was the one who got sent to the office. But wasn’t he the one doing the right thing?

I just couldn’t figure out what the problem was. He seemed as sharp to me as most of the other kids but was having such a hard time. A lot of it had to do with communicating. He refused to ask for or accept help no matter how much he needed it.

He was struggling with language arts. He could sing the ABC’s in perfect pitch but refused to identify any individual letters. He did not understand the difference between letters and numbers. His teacher was less interested in his beautiful drawings than with the fact that he still hadn’t mastered his pencil grip. Wasn’t kindergarten the place to learn these things?

Eric was convinced that his darling kindergarten teacher hated him. And he was starting to hate school.

I just knew I could not keep him in that kindergarten class. Whatever the reasons, Eric was not doing well here.

It was time to start re-researching preschools for Eric.

Read more from the Kindergarten Chronicles.

Tagged as: kids, kindergarten, kindergarten-chronicles, school