Dear Rockstar,
You gleefully started school mid last week in English Schools Foundation’s Kindergarten Year 1 class. Some friends and colleagues of your father’s expressed surprise because you’re 32 months old.
The minimum age requirement is 33 months (for many other schools it’s older), and every child Mummy has met in your year so far has been 3-to-3-and-a-half years old. Because your birthdate is very near Christmas, you will often either be the absolute youngest or oldest in your classes, something that will matter a lot less as you get older, but is relatively significant when you are a toddler and every developmental month counts.
Mummy didn’t plan it this way, she’s been feeling quite lost amid the private / international school furor that she and your father are encountering for the first time (we attended public primary and secondary schools in Seremban, Sandakan and Penang, Malaysia).
After surviving the first 3 days Mummy is allowing herself a little R&R time and a pat on the back.
Your teacher gave Mummy a rather stern talking-to after your first day, because she found you “still in nappies”.
(You were already partially toilet trained, barring number twos but, Mummy was too embarrassed to admit, you are sometimes in a diaper because she is really freaked out about you using public toilets. And on your first day of school, she had forgotten to put you in your regular training pants.)
“You can let him wear training pants for a few weeks but you really need to work at putting him in underwear…”
It took the weekend before Mummy identified a backhanded compliment: despite your height being in the lowest 5-percentile of the population, you had settled in without the shadow of a protest, deep in conversation with your teacher when Mummy left you in school.
At the end of your first day your teacher had not noticed (developmentally) that you are about 6-9 months younger than the median age of your classmates.
She has since cut you some slack about the training pants after Mummy mentioned your exact age in your daily diary.
There is a reason Mummy decided to put you in K1 at this age if (AND ONLY IF) you could pass the evaluation process without too much stress placed on your performance (you were blessed to do because ESF conducts their evaluation with a lot of care to not create a negative evaluation experience for the child – which allowed you to shine):
Mummy used to be a sickly child with bad posture before Grandmum sent her for taekwondo lessons.
At the time, there were usually no girls at Mummy’s level in the school where she trained, so she sparred and trained with the guys. (In fact, she became enough of a “guy” that many of them didn’t bother to look for a changing room when she was around.)
Mummy never felt the difference until she entered the Penang state championship one year and fought girls, not guys, and suddenly everything seemed a little easier. Mummy knocked out her first opponent cold in under 2 minutes and eventually won.
This is not a story about winning, it’s about the important role your perception plays, where you set the bar for yourself. Mummy was still rather sickly and could have used a permanent MC to exempt herself from phys education classes even in junior college, but because she had trained on a boys’ taekwondo team, she had instead set her expectations for her own limits at the boys’ levels.
When the boys weren’t tired, it didn’t occur to Mummy she should feel tired. When they did 20 knuckle pushups without blinking, it didn’t occur to Mummy she might not be able to do the same. (Back then, that is – now she can’t even do one haha).
Considering she is not naturally strong and healthy as a horse, Mummy often wonders how different it would have been if she had had girls on her training team.
Mummy wanted the same for you. You then came home from school on your first day and asked to do your number two in the toilet for the first time. Then you began working on jigsaws, counting and Putonghua that you have seen your older classmates doing. Nor have you had any “accidents” since watching your classmates use the toilet.
(Mummy still wishes you would eat cucumbers at home, not just in school, though.)
Also, she figured, you would have a whole extra year to wig out, in a worse case scenario.
If you ever form a lasting hatred for your ESF teacher (like you did the Wisekids Playroom song sessions – you have permanently decided not to play there, accepting any punishment rather than join in singing at Wisekids, what 2 ½ yr old does that!) Mummy has a whole year to prepare you and look for some schooling alternative.
A whole extra year is a lot less pain and pressure on you and your Mummy.
You are also in the wildly unpopular afternoon session with the weird timing. More competitive and on-the-ball mums have been turning down their slots (because it clashes with a lot of soccer, swimming, tennis etc lessons) and Mummy is enjoying the company of more laid-back mums whose kids attend the same session as yours. This can only be good for the both of us. Mummy doesn’t want you to feel any neurosis she might unwittingly pick up.
Another blessing – maximum class sizes are 22-24 kids. The popular morning sessions are chock-full, with waiting lists to boot. Your class size (estimated at a glance) in the unpopular afternoon session is 12-15, tops.
As the absolute tiniest kid in class (often even if you had not been the youngest!) Mummy would rather your teacher be spread less thin in case you encounter bullies (which you have, quite often).
As Mummy always says, every decision we ever make will be a package. You have to look at the whole package of goods and bads. Mummy’s liking the afternoon session package more and more.
Love, Mummy
Ps: Mummy will still be teaching you to defend yourself. She’s tired of bullies’ mums only stepping in when their own kid might be on the receiving end. She’s got a lot of time since you’re in a certain unpopular afternoon session…
