Question: In response to your recent column about how to help a child prepare to enter full-day kindergarten, I'd like to share my own experience when I started first grade.
That first day put stress on my mom. I had no idea I had to stay all day. We only had half-day kindergarten the year before.
That first morning of first grade, Mom handed me my lunch box and I walked to school with my brother and the neighborhood kids. At lunchtime, everyone went to the cafeteria except me, because it was nice outside.
I went out the side door, headed to the park, ate my lunch and walked home. The school called my Mom and told her I was missing. Just then I walked in the front door and my mom started laughing.
Neither my Mom nor the teacher had told me to stay at school after lunch.
If this happened now, the police would have been out looking for me.
My mom, a former teacher, loved to tell that story as an example of what needs to be communicated to a child.
So I add a recommendation: Explain that the child spends the entire day at school. — S.S., via e-mail
Answer: What a delightful story! Stories tell so much, don't they? This one certainly says that starting first grade, or kindergarten, is always a big transition, such a big one that often neither child nor parent can bring themselves to face it.
We call it a touchpoint — a time of transition from one developmental challenge to the next and is bound to be a time of stress for the whole family. We wouldn't be the least bit surprised if your mother didn't prepare you thoroughly for a full day at school because she dreaded giving you up. And perhaps you didn't notice what the other children were doing because you were longing to go home.
Any child is likely to be homesick on his first day at school, though a little preparation, as you suggest, might have helped. Often we assume that children don't understand or don't notice things that we ourselves hesitate to help them face. Yet children usually are aware of far more than we give them credit for but need our help to make sense of the things they pick upon. Without adult explanations, they are left all alone to deal with challenges that exceed their abilities.
Because you were facing your first day of school, you might have been overwhelmed by noon, and preferred to eat outside, by yourself, rather than in a noisy cafeteria full of strangers. All of this — your "truancy," your mother's omission, and your teacher's — could have been understood in the light of the big transition for all of you, even the teacher on her first day with your class.
Kindergarten is a demanding transition for any child, but new kindergartners are ready for clear and simple information about this major change in their lives: The known is far less fearful than the unknown.
Question: With many years of teaching and six grandsons now in or just out of kindergarten, I believe that you overlooked the most important reason for deciding yes or no about full-day kindergarten: the child's gender.
Please set the record straight. Most little boys need a little bit longer to mature to the demands of kindergarten. Full day or half is not the issue.
Education should not be a drudgery for children. Why take that chance with immature 5-year-old boys?
The rest of boys' lives will not be solely determined by a year's delay. It may be inconvenient for working couples and mothers, but it is the right decision. — C.F., Dallas
Answer: You are right. In addition to the half versus full day kindergarten issue that some parents face, parents must also look carefully at their child to decide whether he or she is ready for kindergarten at all.
In some cases, when parents hesitate about a full day, they may do well to ask themselves whether their underlying concern is kindergarten readiness.
It certainly is true that many young boys develop more slowly than girls in the areas that are required for success in school. Yet parents of some girls also face the readiness question.
Most commonly it arises when a child is on the young side, just barely making the age cutoff, or when the child is smaller than other children of the same age (often parents of boys worry about this more than those of girls). Parents will also wonder when the child is rambunctious, impulsive or unable to get along with peers.
We couldn't agree more that there is no hurry, and that an "extra" year can make all the difference for a child's future school career and social life. Some parents choose against this for fear of the child's reactions, but how much harder to be "held back" at a later stage!
If a decision to wait a year before kindergarten is made because a child has a specific delay, waiting, or repeating a year of preschool, is not enough. A clear understanding of the delay, and extra help from professionals is in order — the sooner the better! Depending on the nature of the delay, it may sometimes even be preferable to move the child on to kindergarten with all the special services he or she deserves rather than to repeat whatever program had failed to help the child advance.
Your comment that learning should not be a drudgery is right on target. Shouldn't children be curious, hungry to learn, and barely able to wait to get going? This kind of readiness would be worth waiting for!
Questions or comments should be addressed to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and Dr. Joshua Sparrow, care of The New York Times Syndication Sales Corp., 609 Greenwich St., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10014-3610. Questions may also be sent by e-mail to: nytsyn-familiesAnytimes.com. Questions of general interest will be answered in this column. Drs. Brazelton and Sparrow regret that unpublished letters cannot be answered individually.
Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child's health or well-being, consult your child's health-care provider. © T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.
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