After agonizing for months, and a fair amount of encouragement from educators, I decided to put my three-year old in Pre-Kindergarten. Being that I work from home, I went back and forth with whether or not it was really necessary to start him in "school" so early. After all, by law, my son can't start school until he is six. Why push him into school so early?
In then end, I decided to send him to school for the structure, social development and discipline, but only three days a week. While I'm fairly certain the first day of school was harder on me, it turned out to be the very best decision. He got everything I hoped for out of school, and then some!
When we met with his teacher for the first conference, she recommended moving to five days a week. Ollie was learning at a great pace, had loads of fun at school and should I decide to move him to Junior Kindergarten next year, he would be ready for the five day weeks.
Again, I agonized over what was best.
I struggle because I want my kid to be a kid for as long as possible. There is absolutely no need to rush him along.
However.
My darling child is bat-shit crazy, always into something, on a constant quest for knowledge and needs to learn how to share and get along with other children. And, well, his school is only 3.5 hours.
That all being said, I still can't help but feel a sort of tightness in my chest when I think about my son starting school 5-days a week! Play school is one thing, but structured learning five days a week at three years old? Am I doing the right thing? Is my fear of change and my baby growing up causing this anxiety?
It's so hard watching my little guy become a big guy. Between starting school five days a week and turning four, i realize that it's time to get some sort of a grip, because I can't have a panic attack every time my kid reaches a milestone! otherwise, at this rate, I'll need a padded room before he makes it to kindergarten.
I swear, parenting is hard enough, the fact that I compound it with my own insecurities and anxiety is just plain dumbassery.
