Learning What To Expect

The afternoon after Brenden's first day of preschool was hard for me, to put it mildly. I wanted his experience to be wonderful, to pick him up from school and have his teacher gush about how smart he is and how much he seemed to love school. Obviously that didn't happen, and it bugged me until I talked to Tim and had time to process everything and understand just how much I overreacted.

I should never have expected so much out of him. It was the first time that he has ever been in that type of environment and the first time someone that wasn't his grandparents or one of our good friends watching him. He was so excited and when he's excited he can't sit still and he definitely doesn't listen. He was trying out new skills, around new kids, and at a place that he's never been before. The fact that he came home happy and didn't do anything outrageous should have had me jumping for joy.

I was definitely hard on the teacher, which I think was a combination of the above mentioned overreacting and an inability to ask the right questions. When I dropped him off this morning I told her that we had worked on listening, coloring and cutting and that I thought that the excitement had worn off a bit so I hoped he'd listen just a little better. I explained that I'd love to know what I can do at home that would help him in class and she really seemed to appreciate it. I don't want to be one of those crazy parents that hounds the teacher over and over and drives her crazy, I just want to be involved and helpful.

I think today, and the rest of the year, will be a lot easier now. I've always been a perfectionist but I don't want to push that onto my kids. I don't think I'm setting the bar too low for him, though. I still expect him to be kind, polite, and follow directions, I just don't expect him to be the most perfect 3 year old ever. (No matter what his grandmas may think.) :)