Please calm me down, feeling some mixed emotions about new school....
So, as some of you may remember, we just moved to a new town to be closer to my dad who is going through chemo for advanced bladder cancer. And my boys started a new school today. Gator is 7yo, is in first grade (summer birthday that we held back) and he's a sensitive kid. He is very sociable and loves making new friends. But he's not all that confident in school. At his last school, he was doing great. But I'd always had some concern that that school was behind. I mean, he was in first grade and very slowly starting to read. He would bring home a weekly assignment to learn 6 new words which he'd be tested on on Fridays. The words were ones like cat, find, like, this, pond.
Well, the boys started their new school today. And Cha Cha fits in PreK GREAT. Absolutely no concerns. But Gator came home with a group of spelling words to learn to be tested on TOMORROW. The words are bathtub, footprint, bedtime, eggshell, pancake, weekend and done. Also, the math is advanced and they have timed drills. The drills aren't graded, but I could see how they'd make him feel like a failure if he's not doing as well as he would like. Also, he wants to make friends and he's aware that he's not doing as well as the other kids are doing.
So, we did his homework tonight. He's exhausted and frustrated. The words are hard and the math is too advanced for him. This school philosophy is a great fit for us. It's a conservative Catholic school which fits with our religious beliefs perfectly. It's very small and his class size is 7 kids. But the work is advanced for him. I want to work with him and get him up to speed but part of me is saying get him out of there NOW before his confidence is shot. Part of me is saying home school him to get him up to speed. But he's such a social kid he NEEDS lots of social interaction.
I am tired, frustrated with myself and emotionally exhausted (spent the morning with my dad at chemotherapy) and was worried all day long about their first day of school. Also, I got 6 hours of sleep last night. And Gator was exhausted too. So, when we were doing his homework toniight, he wasn't trying as hard as he could, I was getting worried, and I freaked a bit and said, 'well, maybe you will need to go back to Kindergarten at this new school." Well, he nearly started crying and said he didn't want to go to kindergarten. I calmed down and promised him we'd work together to get him up to speed and he'd do great because he's such a smart kid and this is just a different school. Then he went to bed.
Ugh!!! Advice? comments? Suggestions? Please don't beat me up about snapping at him and saying he'd need to go back to Kindergarten. I know it was the wrong thing to say. I know I need to be more patient. It was just a hard day for everyone.
" I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent." Mahatma Gandhi
"This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn't solve any problems." Martin Luther King, Jr.