No more handholding <tiny tear>
All potential parent volunteers joining the program were invited to a briefing about a month ago, it was my first day yesterday volunteering during school hours <proud>.
When the free play session was almost up (which is when we’re supposed to leave the floor), I was dismissed by Rockstar a few minutes early. “Mum. I think… we meet for Babycinnos later.” It’s like he’s trying to let me down easy. “I’m busy now,” he explains politely. <n-ot so proud>
For my first session, I sat down at the colored paper station (at the briefing we’re told you can stay at the station you’re assigned, or follow your child about especially on the first few rounds when everything’s new). Rockstar’s still having a snack, so I pop by the snack area to say hi. He says hi back, and he will join me when he’s done.
I look around and notice quite a few kids have extra snacks packed for them from home, so later I ask Rockstar (again) if he wants something from home and he says no. “I have the school crackers.” (I’d like to know how they did that so I can have him eat the “home chicken,” we got a talking to from the pediatrician at his last regular checkup because he still won’t eat meat and isn’t “carbing up” enough – his snack choices are fruit, hard-boiled eggs or cheese. Ah well. “School crackers” are a carb right?)
When he’s done with the crackers, I can see him craning his neck as he comes back in, We have a walk and are back at the paper station. Rockstar’s schoolmates occasionally stop by, folding and cutting, exchanging little child-friendly scissors. As I talk to Rockstar, they start looking at me expectantly and showing me papers.
“Squares and rectangles”.
Uh-oh. What am I supposed to say, am I supposed to blindly agree with them? But that one’s not a rectangle.
Come on, Aileen. Think. They’re children. Rockstar is also a “children”. What would you say to Rockstar?
I wouldn’t have let it slide. It would drive me nuts to let that slide. Even if they don’t remember it, I’ll remember it. And so would Rockstar. Catching Mummy out is like his new hobby. His little beady hamster eyes are watching me.
“Um… Technically that’s a trapezium. Only two of the sides are parallel.”
(Thinking: WHERE THE HELL IS MY LAPTOP SO I CAN CHECK IF IT’S STILL A TRAPEZIUM IF THAT THIRD SIDE IS AT A RIGHT ANGLE TO THE TWO PARALLEL SIDES LIKE WHAT ROCKSTAR’S CLASSMATE IS HOLDING UP?)
Okok (frantically cutting paper) I know if the other two are not at right angles that’s definitely a trapezium.
“This is a trapezium. This is a rectangle.”
Changethesubjectchangethesubjectchangethesubject
(hurried snip) “O-KAY, this one’s easy – what’s this?” Everyone knows it’s a triangle.
Yippee. Off the hook.
Rockstar kind of takes me aside while we’re tidying up the paper-cutting just before it’s time for me to go back down and that’s how he breaks it to me he’ll see me later.
“You’re busy?”
“I have school.”
Be careful what you wish for? Sigh. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little Really? Don’t Need Mummy? But you’re only 3!
But it’s the best reaction I could hope for.
There was a time when I was beginning to wonder if Rockstar might be color-blind, around the time when toddlers start learning colors he never got it right. Until we realized he’d been getting it right every time with people he wanted to learn with, and politely and deliberately giving wrong answers when he wanted to end the lesson.
(Coming home from work after long days in the office, we got the wrong answers. The neighbors’ kids who were “cool” older boys he wanted to impress got the right answers. We found out when we asked them to try and teach him colors and they replied he’d already known all the basic colors for several weeks now. When we told Rockstar, he stopped giving wrong answers.)
As a first time mum raising my son in Hong Kong, this really scared me. There are so many applicants to good Kindergartens, Rockstar’s school is also several times oversubscribed. Technically, I worried, good schools don’t really need to spend the extra care if little kids deliberately start giving wrong answers because they develop some inexplicable dislike for lessons or the building – if the child “flunks out” there are so many others waiting for a spot. And given Rockstar’s personality I was terrified if he developed a dislike for school at his very first real school experience, I might have a longer term problem.
When Rockstar began at ESF several months back, there was an “About Me” parents were encouraged to fill in asap and send back to the school. It took me more than 2 hours, carefully filling in as much detail as I could and hoping it would help the school get to know him better quickly. Nervously, I mentioned this thing about Rockstar’s personality of strong motivations and strong dislikes. In the same rush of starting school almost 2 weeks late (we were out of town) I then filled in the Volunteer Program form wrongly and forgot about it.
The school could have chosen not to allow me to volunteer during school hours, it was completely my mistake in blundering the form ages ago, but they did adjust. It makes me feel that oversubscribed or no, they remained approachable – which I value very much on the offchance I or my child do not do “everything right all the time”. The additional stress in believing we have to get everything right the first time, which I think Hong Kong sometimes has in abundance and it makes me worry, is something I think my child will be able to sense as well, he can feel the stress.
Maybe the “approachable-ness” is another reason he is motivated to take his lessons and schooling experience seriously.
His enthusiasm (and seriousness) in attending school each day is everything I could have hoped for, for his first formal start in school. I count the enthusiasm for learning more important than say, him memorizing the difference between Hexagons and Octagons.
I’m sure we’re going to face some other challenges in future, there always are – so I’m going to savour his current love of school.
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