The families we know have completely different parenting philosophies. Some are very structured and have academic conversations whenever possible (around the dinner table, in the car, while camping). Some focus more on emotional and social intelligence; we discovered recently that the kindergartener in this family (who is almost six) doesn't know all of his letters by sight. In fact, we are pretty sure he doesn't know the ABC song. He has been in half-day preschool for two years! I'm sure he will blossom when he gets to school, however. (And if not, hopefully we can help him and be his "academic buddies". Every chance we get, we ask natural questions about letters and numbers; for example, "How many bugs are there in this page of the book we're reading?" "What letters do you see on that sign?" "What letters do you think are in the word bug?")
A preschool teacher told me recently that there are many right ways to parent. As we are starting to think about our own parenting philosophy, I find comfort in the notion that it's ok to have different styles from the parents next door. Or down the street. Or in our game-playing group.
The other night, a few days before one of our friends started his school career, his younger sister suggested that we "play school." We each put backpacks on and marched around. Then we decided what grade we'd be in. The kindergartener announced he would be in second grade, I suggested I could be in first grade, and the younger sister said that she wanted to be in "half grade." (She then decided she wanted to be in first grade with me since my "class" was going on a field trip to the zoo that day.) The rest of the school day play consisted of wandering around and scribbling in notebooks (not unlike my own academic career, I suppose)!
One last school story. When I was teaching sixth grade, my co-teacher told all of the parents at back to school night, "I promise not to believe everything your kids tell me about what goes on at home if you promise not to believe everything your kids tell you about what goes on in the classroom." I always found this a little strange since I had not had experience with children not being entirely truthful. Now, however, I think I understand. The evening after our friend's first day in kindergarten, I asked him if his teacher had read him a story. He nodded. "What was it about?" "Oh, it was about Batman. Batman flew around and got this guy and fought that guy and..." [at this point, I tuned out of his story and had to try to suppress a giggle]. When he finished telling me about the story, I said, "Wow, your teacher really told you a story about Batman?" He nodded. I promise not to believe everything I hear about kindergarten!
