In school

The Little One started going to the play group this week. I had planned to send her in November but decided to enroll her anyways last Wednesday. The class for her age group is scheduled for three times a week, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

I've been debating with myself with regards to sending her school for the longest time. This is my second attempt. Some of my neighbours do not feel the need for sending them to school this young, saying that their children are too young to learn anything.

Personally, I do not feel teaching the Little One is a problem for me. At 20 months she enjoys books very much. We read to her as often as we can and as often as she wants to. Well I have been reading to her since she was a month old and she's quite used to that. She understands the concept of counting, her favourite numbers are 3 and 9. And she understand my instructions to her perfectly.

So I chose to send her to school to be socialize. I do recognize that she is very dependent on my company. Some might even consider her clingy. Well, I did practice attachment parenting thus it is no wonder that she is very attached. Furthermore she is still breastfed, something which is a surprise to many people.

I felt that she needed to experience some fun without me. Her nanny goes take her out to the playpark in the afternoons, but I guess she still gets 1 on 1 attention then.

By sending to school I wanted her to learn some independence and acquire the skill to interact with other children without being under my shadow.

Did it work?

For the three days in school, I had to accompany her in class for the first and the third day. It felt like we took 1 step forward and 2 steps backwards. I understand that being the first and only child The Little One may take some time to adjust and get used to it. She was crying non stop the two days I was called back by the teacher to school.

I understand that its early days but at the same time, at the back of my mind I wondered if more could be done to make her experience better. I felt that there some things lacking in the school. It is rather new afterall and it is only the first day of school but with a registration fee of 500 bucks and the cost of 60 bucks a day am I wrong to expect something better?

Perhaps what makes me more critical is my background in education and my determination in educating myself in the different approaches towards early childhood education.

The school owner jokingly told The Little One that if she insist that I come with her everyday then perhaps the school would have to hire me. Frankly, I know I would be capable in handling the children. I have more than enough resources. (Note to self; I have to thank Atenah for some of her pointers.) But for me the whole idea of sending her to school is so that we can spend some time apart. So she could learn that its possible for her to do fun things without her mummy. And that I can finally have some time to myself. To sew perhaps. Or even to start my private teaching again.

In just three days I have seen some changes in her behavior. She has been more talkative. From what I have seen she is a very observant child. She would watch what other children are doing and would slowly imitate them. She can now do a fake-cry She can now climb the steps of the slide and lean forward down the slide all by herself.

That little brain of hers is like a sponge taking in everything.

I do hope that her school would improve. I hope the teachers would come up with novel ways to stimulate the children, failing which I would have to do it myself.

Ramadhan starts next week, we'll have to see how things turn out then.