Monday, November 5, 2012

A kid in school

Having a child in school is like a whole new ball game when it comes to parenting. When Mia started PreK last year, all of my childhood memories came flooding back, and I wondered would Mia fall in with the right friends? Who would be the bullies in her class? Are the boys going to tease her? Are the popular girls going to tease her? Will she be popular? (this momma hopes not, by the way). Who will influence her? I actually started to understand why so many parents choose to home school. It's not something I would want to do, but that pull to protect my sweet girl from the big bad world is pretty strong.

And then on the flip side of worrying about Mia's school issues, a whole flood of my own insecurities crept up. Why did all the moms seem to know eachother already? Was I not involved enough at church and school? Is my shyness with new people making these moms think I'm not personable? What do I need to do to be a better school parent? Yeesh!! It kind of felt like teenage angst all over again.

However, I'm happy to report now that she is a quarter of the way through kindergarten, many of my worries for her (and for me) have been greatly lessened. Her teacher told us at conferences that she's very quiet at school and always serious (probably gets that from her dad.). But she's doing great behavior and grade wise so that's good. Mia's biggest worry each day is if any of her classmates get marked down for bad behavior. It makes her so sad especially when it's one of her good friends. She also pushes herself really hard to get excellent marks. She doesn't like getting wrong answers and she gets really frustrated if she does (gets that from her momma).

As for my issues, I've broken a bit out of my shell and actually become friends with some really lovely fellow moms at the school. And they continue to push me to come to different things and get to know others, so even though I'm uncomfortable, they're really good for me. Plus many of them have older kids in school so when I have a silly new-to-school parent question, they are BIG helps.

All in all its actually becoming kind of enjoyable to send Ms. Mia off to school everyday and hear all about it when she gets home. It's just taken us a while to get to that point. I still miss her like crazy when she's gone, but there are moments when it's nice only having two to grocery shop with or haul along for errands. I wonder how I'm going to be next year when my little Vincey starts pre-K??

3 comments:

  1. Maybe there will be a new baby in the picture by then?!?

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  2. It took me the entire first quarter to adjust when Simon started school. :) It's hard, with your first you just have done a lot of the things yet. You are well on your way to being a pro and ww WILL get you to Girls night out.

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  3. Good blog! And I think you and Mia are doing great! From the outside, school-aged moms seem like an army that no one would want to mess with--maybe that's the whole who's popular question? Anyways keep them coming!

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