Being a first-time parent to a baby or toddler is challenging in more ways than one. But you know what? There are SO MANY resources out there to help you through. Doctor offices pass out guidelines. Countless books are written about the infant and toddler years. Don’t even get me started about the wealth of information (valid or not) that can be Googled.
However, have you noticed how the quantity of helpful information kind of fades away when your child gets to be school-aged? There are plenty of articles out there about the rigors of kindergarten but parents seem to be left to their own defenses to sort of the nitty-gritty details of what this means for their families.
Let’s face it, there’s always going to be a learning curve with your first child. But that curve doesn’t have to be so steep if we can share tips with one another and allow others to learn from us. Here’s what I learned the year my oldest started kindergarten.
Make friends with parents of several of your child’s classmates
I don’t necessarily mean invite them over for coffee, although that is great too. I’m talking more of a Facebook friend. Create a small pool of people you can turn to when you wonder if there’s an early dismissal or when that basketball camp form is due.
Follow your child’s PTO on Facebook (or at least read their newsletters)
Our PTO is super active, sponsors spirit day every Friday, and also sponsors special events for each grade level throughout the year. I can’t tell you how often one of their posts helped me remember to turn something in on time!
Check local garage sales or thrift stores for school spirit wear
Our community is FULL of school pride. So much so that every Friday in the school year kids are asked to wear school colors. Picking up some generic school spirit shirts last year at a garage sale saved me some money and helped my daughter have a little variety to pick from. Bonus, the styles are pretty gender neutral so when she grows out of them my son will be able to use them too!
Add the teacher’s email to your list of contacts the first week of school
Bless her heart, my daughter tried her best to relay information to me but sometimes she was just plain confused about what was going on. Having her teacher’s email already in my list of contacts made sending her a quick question a breeze.
Know where to go to look up school procedures
What number do you call to report absences? Who do you send a note to when your kiddo needs to leave early to go to the dentist? What time does school start if there’s a weather delay? Those were all questions running through my head the first time I experienced them. It was nice to be able to know ahead of time where to find that info on the school website.
Sign-ups for summer things start early and cost money
The months of March and April hit us hard with summer camp opportunities. Then forms about Vacation Bible School were due. Does your child want to be on the swim team? Sign up by the end of April! Wait, before you start summer, please decide if you’d like to preorder a box of school supplies for next year. Those orders are due in the middle of May. And oh! Here’s a soccer form for fall soccer! Be sure to have that in ASAP.
Be flexible with homework
As a kindergartener, my daughter only had one small bit of homework each night: read or be read to. I figured I wouldn’t have a problem with this since reading was already built into our day. What I didn’t count on was her reluctance to show off her reading skills at home. I started to realize that the school day wiped her out so much that doing any homework once she actually got home was going to be touch and go. I relaxed my stance on it during the week and tried to use the weekend mornings as a time to have her practice her reading skills outloud.
Know that the kids will come home tired
While I did expect this; I didn’t realize is that ‘tiredness’ manifests itself in different ways. I pictured my daughter being hard to wake up (she was) and falling asleep early (she did). But she also turned into a total grouch and displayed bigger than life emotions that caused me to question my parenting abilities. It took me a while to realize that this change in her personality was another way she was showing her fatigue and made a point to make sure she got more rest.
Be open to using an alarm clock
I naively pictured our mornings going smooth; me waking up my daughter with a gentle pat and greeting her sleepy eyes with a big smile. And it was like that…until the winter. Then we started our mornings in the complete dark and she attempted to hibernate. Enter: the alarm clock. Game changer! Perhaps it was the clock, maybe it was maturity but around the same time I presented her with her own special clock our mornings changed. She woke up on her own, got herself dressed before coming downstairs, and was ready for breakfast.
The bus
Before starting kindergarten, my biggest concern with my kiddo riding the bus had been if she would have to cross a state highway in order to get on. I didn’t count on the things she would be exposed to on the bus and was surprised when she came home asking if ‘bench’ was a bad word (it wasn’t actually ‘bench’ that was said, if ya know what I mean), singing songs with questionable lyrics, and talking about watching videos on older kid’s phones.
If you’re oldest has already been through Kindergarten I’d love to know your experience! Was there anything that surprised you or you wish you would have known about before school started?
