When I worried about whether my firstborn was ready for preschool the year she turned 3, I didn’t fret about whether she’d have separation anxiety or get along well with others. I was terrified that she’d pee her pants.
That spring, after I enrolled my diaper-wearing daughter in her first preschool class, I told myself that we could get bedwetting help and that it wouldn’t be a problem to potty-train her by the fall. The summer that followed remains the single most stressful season of my adolescent parenting life. When I close my eyes and picture those months, I see a newborn Jackson, abandoned and screaming in his bouncy chair as I hustle Sophia past the towel-covered couches into the bathroom to shake colored sugar crystals into the potty chair so her urine can magically turn blue sprinkles into green liquid. And those were the pleasant days.
I also remember mounds of moist laundry, Sophia’s wails of despair after each accident, and waking up in a cold sweat with the thought that not only wouldn’t my daughter be ready for preschool in the fall, but that she’d be the first kindergartener on record to arrive in Pampers.
Parents Do Survive Child Development Stages
Just in the nick of time, Sophia did become a responsible citizen. Ever the confident parent, I took her to the first day of preschool with extra underpants in a bag. The experienced teachers chuckled and sent me home with Soph’s princess panties, assuring me that they had stockpiles of every size, and that if Sophia had an accident at school, she certainly wouldn’t be the first.
That year turned out to be full of surprises. Before then, my impressions of preschool were from my own childhood experience, when it was called nursery school and involved nothing more strenuous than a round of Simon Says before group naptime. And that was advanced for my neighborhood — most of my friends had no formal education before stepping foot into kindergarten.
Preschool Ideas Have Changed Over the Years
Once Sophia was born and I began to read parenting magazines, I started to comprehend how much had changed. I quickly learned that many parents these days send their kids through not just one but two years of preschool before enrolling them in kindergarten.
As it turns out, I was educated right along with Sophia during her two years of early ed. I found out that she prefers to learn at her own pace, that although she isn’t fond of taking direction from me she’s willingly guided by teachers, and that despite being a ham at home she exhibits a bit of stage fright in public.
Parent's Development Moves With Children
Preschool also proved to me that Sophia was ready for kindergarten — but was I? On her first day of “big kid” school, the house was strangely quiet. Two-year-old Jack and I hardly knew how to act without a bossy big sister running the show. We could push Thomas around the train tracks, but who would be Sir Topham Hatt, directing all the engines this way and that? We could play make-believe, but who would take the role of teacher, telling us where to sit and what pictures to color?
Faced with such daunting questions, we threw together a sack lunch and fled to a local park, where we found a mob of under-5 kids and their moms — several of whom seemed as shell-shocked as I was. We worry so much about preparing our kids for their first day of school, but it’s the parents who seem most affected by the sight of their babies climbing onto school buses and not returning for seven endless hours.
Preschool Projects Reveal Child's Growth
And Jackson wasn’t far behind. He started his preschool career at a parent-tot class, where once a week he explored a fully stocked classroom and I tried to keep up. There, I found out that Jack could count to 10, knew most of his ABCs, could tell red from blue, and was pretty handy with a paintbrush. These were discoveries I hadn’t made at home because, A.) I was too busy with sister and father and house and job to really crouch down and focus on Jack for too long, and B.) Give a 2-year-old paint in my house? Are you kidding?
Fast-forward a few years and I’m the mother of two elementary-aged children, a fact I can hardly fathom. Those early years seem at once eons ago and as if they happened just yesterday.
The issues that were so major on Sophia’s first day of preschool or Jack’s first day of kindergarten have melted away with the years. Am I the same mom who bribed her potty-reluctant daughter with M&Ms? The same mom who organized an elaborate all-class party to ensure her son would have a friend on the first day of school? I’d like to think that I’m more easygoing now, and that my kids are benefiting from their mom’s confidence. Each step forward is easier, even though it’s a step farther away from home.
Rebecca Kavanagh is contributing editor of START, EduGuide's early childhood publication written for families with children ages 0-5.