Making Friends At The End of Kindergarten 1

And we're off to the races! (It was Dragon Boat Festival yesterday, we were in Sai Kung the day before)

So it was end of year school report week recently, and ever the glass half-full person, a benefit of worrying (at times unnecessarily)  over whether your child has to repeat a year now or later (this stems from watching an ex-colleague anguish constantly over her 11 year old, leading to fights with her hub because sometimes she had to travel for work and she felt he wasn’t doing a good enough job with the coaching) is the friendship among fellow mums as we encourage each other thru our children’s progress reports. (Kinda like when bank mergers/ upheavals were an opportunity to see ex-colleagues’ true colors fast – you can’t help that your bank employer is going belly up, but you can certainly find some use for it).

Big loud blessing ceremonies and all... (There was a huge altar with a larger-than-life-sized deity they were praying to, I didn't dare snap a pic of that)

Technically it’s a good opportunity to form some much-needed friendships, certainly the school repeatedly sends home playdate contact lists for you to set up dates with your child’s classmates, but it was only now that it really occurred to me why we are so encouraged to do this: Your child is often evaluated in a classroom environment, so even if you don’t go for a primary school interview along with a few classmates, helping your child make a few friends in the class is probably going to increase his responsiveness in class (and therefore earn say, a better school report I guess.)

I had of course not thought about this while happily making my own friends at school, some of whose kids aren’t in Rockstar’s class – and then one day Rockstar comes home with, “Mum. Your friend’s son fell down in school today. <Friend’s son’s name>”

“Uh, isn’t he your friend too?”

Rockstar considers seriously. “He’s a good guy. I just don’t play much where he always plays.” (At which point it’s hard to keep a straight face over your pint sized not-yet-3-and-a-half-year-old gravely referring to another Kindergartner as “a good guy.” And then looking at you suspiciously when you stifle a giggle.)

A British-born Chinese girlfriend who now lives in the UK (married to a Singaporean, I got to know her when I worked in Singapore, she is one of the more laid back people I loved to hang out with) explained to me how the whole making friends thing can be a lot more stressful with a little girl – she described how her best friend’s 4-year-old asked to invite the most popular girl in school home to tea. Apparently sometimes you have to do this if you have a daughter, help her not be a complete stranger to the popular girls at school, to reduce the chance she gets picked on. (And to answer the burning question – no, the popular girl at that school was not the prettiest, she was the most opinionated and verbose.) Y-eah, I have no first hand experience on this ok, I have a boy who describes schoolmates as “good guys,” what do I know…

Less-known fact - Sai Kung is also where some like to show off their pampered pets... I like this pic because someone lined up their 3 huge German Shepherds, and lotsa people were stopping to take cellphone pics - and then someone added their little Pomeranian right on top. No one seemed to mind (or try to eat the little dog)...

Anyway. Back to making friends over school reports. If Dale Carnegie were alive today he’d probably have to whip up a whole new edition on making friends at school. For the parents haha. In there somewhere would be cautionary notes:

1) It can be very hard to remain likeable if you brag about your child’s developmental stages to another parent whose child is about the same age. (Who knew? But my non-parent  friends/ friends with kids of different ages seem more gush-tolerant and so I gush more with them haha. Maybe from not raising any competitive hackles? Because I think no matter how laid back a parent is, there’s always some nerves, somewhere)

2) More often than not however, you will receive useful, thoughtful advice from a fellow parent if instead you dial down the gush and focus on seeking their opinion about any challenges you may be facing with your child. Because parenting can be tough. For all.

3) Get scary competitive, be prepared to lose all potential non-scary-competitive parent friends. Parenting karma – dump on parents who play nice, expect to only get to hang out with parents who don’t. No one else wants you except other scary competitive parents who don’t have anyone else to hang out with. And thank you Sorlo, for that affirmation.

It’s hard enough with massive over-subscription necessitating school interviews and such – like it’s not bad enough we live in an environment where our kids have to go thru things like that at such a young age… Bearing in mind your child has to have some classmates, who do you think other parents would rather have PTA drinks with? Hint: Probably not psycho-kiasu parent.

Funny how in helping our children make friends we learn to do the same.