For the Love of Scoot

Hello, friends! I hope that you had a great 4^th, whether you were celebrating America’s birthday, or just enjoying a Wednesday! Around my neck of the woods, we’re still attempting to settle into our new rhythm in our new home. It’s a delicate balance living with day to day tasks while still injecting personality on these blank walls! I’m itching to get my kitchen painted, and banish the Hershey’s brown walls that currently mock me every day. Seriously, guys, the people that lived here before us LOVED brown and green! Every room in this house is either brown or green, except for a pink tiled bathroom. That’s a topic for another day though!

As with every move, it’s come with some challenges. We’ve not only switched homes, but we live in a new town, in a new county. Yes, it’s only 25 or so minutes from our old home, but for a six year old that’s a giant leap. For Scoot, this move represents a lot of changes, and I think that meeting with her new principal at her new school this week has made it real for her. While for hubby and me, this move was imperative, and the best thing for our family, to Scoot it’s as if we’re changing everything in her little world. All she sees is that we’re ripping her away from her friends, her teachers, and the school environment she was already used to after one school year.

So, why did we do it, then? Why did we make the decision to move her from the school she was attending? It’s quite simple, really. We felt she needed more than she was getting at school. While she had an amazing kindergarten teacher that worked with her, and recognized how smart Scoot is, we also had quite a fair bit of problems and adjustments. You see, Scoot went into kindergarten already reading at a high level. She wasn’t challenged by the work that kindergarteners do, so of course she was causing trouble. Because she’d been at home with me since birth, she desperately needed kindergarten to learn how to interact with others, and how to succeed in a classroom setting. There was a period of time when her teacher and I were talking almost every day about problems in the classroom. Not that my kid is a bad kid, or even a troublemaker, but she was bored. She needed more. Her teacher was trying her best, but she is one woman with 22 other students to take care of, and her assistant was less than stellar. I kept noticing the same two library books were in  her bookbag for weeks at a time, never changing, which for a child that can read as my daughter can, that was concerning. She’d come home and tell us what this assistant had said or told students and I was shocked.

One such incident was when a student fell, and cried. This assistant instructed the class to taunt this child, and call him a crybaby. What educator does that? Another incident was shortly after that. Scoot came home with a mark on her face, and when I inquired about it, she told me a boy in her class had punched her. As any mother would be, I was furious. I called the principal immediately (who NEVER once responded to any call that I made to her) as well as her teacher and explained what Scoot had told me happened. Steps were taken, but I didn’t feel they were the right ones (Scoot was moved to sit beside the teacher’s desk, not the child that hit her), so I emailed the assistant principal. I let him know what happened, and told him the most damning piece of information I’d heard from my child. She told us that the TA told the children that if someone hits you, to hit back. While all ended up okay in the end, the incident has never left my mind. The assistant principal was wonderful, and I know he did his best, as did her teacher. Halfway through the year, the TA we’d struggled with was replaced with a different TA, and I did notice a huge change in Scoot’s school behavior. I learned near the end of school that the principal had actually pulled the new TA aside and told her that her focus in the classroom was to work with Scoot, and help her, because she was so smart. I wasn’t even aware that the principal knew of my child, but at that point, it was too little too late. We’d already made the decision to move.

I will forever be grateful to her kindergarten teacher and the second TA. Once the two of them were together, it was a dream team for my child, and the second half of her first year of school was largely without incident. Under their guidance and care, Scoot went from reading on a first/second grade reading comprehension level to reading somewhere between and 2^nd and fourth grade reading level. In AR (accelerated reading) she was one of only a handful of kindergarteners that participated. The program measures how many words are read by students, and she logged in over 17,000. Her score was four times higher than the 2^nd place kindergarten reader. She was thriving, but I also knew that when the school year ended, she wouldn’t have the same teachers next year. I knew she needed more tools, and a better education system.  

Tuesday was our meeting with the new principal, and while I immediately fell in love with the school and all the tools they’ll have available for my daughter, my girl isn’t so sure. I hadn’t counted on how much anxiety this would cause her. She’s worried about making friends. She tells me she misses her old friends, and her teachers. She’s broken down in tears, and it makes me feel like an awful parent for putting her through this stress. How do you explain to a six year old that her education is so important? That she deserves everything I can offer her, and this school is going to be so much better for her?  I’ve explained that it’s okay to be scared, but that it’s all going to be okay. So far, she doesn’t seem to believe me. All she sees is that I’ve taken her from a familiar world, with her friends, and plunked her in a situation where she doesn’t know anyone.  I understand her fears. After all, I don’t love new situations myself. I also know in my heart that once school starts, and she meets the kids, she’s going to be fine, but in the meantime I don’t want her to wallow in fear. Normally, she so sure of everything, so it breaks my heart to see her so clearly worried.

It’s a discussion we have nearly every day. We’ve taken her by the school, even walked to it (we’re that close!) and I explained that I’m going to walk her to school each day. We’ve shown her the playground, so she could see there is one that she’ll play at with her new friends. In a couple of weeks, we’ll go back for a tour of the school before the school year begins. I’ve stressed time and again that her best friends will still be her best friends, and she will have opportunities to play with them. I am going to make play dates for her with these friends, if at all possible. I’m trying everything I can to make this transition easier for her. I just wish I knew what words to say to her to soothe her worry.  This is just one of those times when doing what you know is best for your child is incredibly difficult.

Have you experienced this yourself, or with your own child? What was helpful? What wasn’t? Any tool I can use to make this easier on my family, I’m open to! If you have any tips or advice, I’d love to hear it. For now, though, I have a date with my girl so we can write a story. She wants to write about puppies. Until next time!