My firstborn daughter starts kindergarten tomorrow and my feelings, like hers, are a big ball of contradictions. Besides logistical worries that are sure to work themselves out in the first week or so, all of my feelings bounce down to two questions. Is she ready? Am I?
Tonight the Tooth Fairy will stop by our home for the fifth visit. Even though my daughter isn’t going to a Waldorf school, by Waldorf standards her lost teeth are indicators that she’s ready to read … which would presumably mean ready for kindergarten, awkwardly cute and hole-ly as she is!
The measures I’ve been using to determine her school readiness have been on a different developmental scale, though:
- Will she be able to handle the frustrations that will come her way?
- As she develops friendships, will her heart remain soft, and will she be able to keep her closeness to me, so that I can in turn protect her tender heart from peer wounding that may come her way?
After five years trusting in the developmental process, I’m seeing proof that Nature’s design indeed pans out when given room to work its magic. My daughter is at last developmentally capable of integrative functioning – holding two conflicting feelings at the same time. And as a result of these newfound mixed feelings, she is handling her frustrations better and better.
Her hits are slower to come out on her little sister, if at all. By contrast her sister, younger by 15 months, can still be pretty untempered. Or, to be more descriptive, claw-like with her tiny frustrated fingers. As a result, the shape of their sibling conflicts has changed. Literally. If I’m not right there on it, little sister will be poking crescent-shaped fingernail marks into her sister’s arms, while big sister does nothing to fight back – instead, just quietly sobbing to herself, waiting for me to come in for the rescue.
These helpless sobbing moments, while heart-breaking for any Mama Bear to see, show me what’s going on inside her growing mind. She knows she could whop her sister and end her own pain in an instant. Believe me, she’s spent many years perfecting the art of sibling defense … and offense! But now, in the heat of conflicts, she also remembers how much she loves her sister… and likely, she’s also remembering that she wants to please me by not getting aggressive with her sister. That’s a lot to think about in the few seconds it takes her younger sister’s frustrations to escalate into their fiery storm before I can swoop in – huge cause for celebration! This incredible growth has taken place right before kindergarten begins. For a time there, I wasn’t sure the day would arrive, but I kept putting my hope on it, anyway. Phew!
Of course, frustrations have to come out. That’s the other part of Nature’s design. I don’t want to send her off to school fretting that she’ll bury her frustrations and hurts – or take them all out on her sister when she gets home. Thankfully, she’s finding other outlets for her frustrations. The other day I heard loud banging noises coming from her room. I came running, thinking I’d find complete mayhem. Maybe she’d had enough of integrative functioning. Was her younger sister was getting pummeled? Instead, I found my daughter sitting on the floor by herself, slamming her tap shoes on her closet door – because “the balloons weren’t working right.” My first thought was to hand her a can of fresh paint and lecture her on the importance of caring for our personal property. Then I looked at the door, already badly dinged and stickered, its paint flecked where the loose knob chafes against it. I looked back at my daughter, full of calm sadness now that her frustrations were out, now that mad had turned to sad. She’d found a safe outlet for releasing the frustration to get to the other side: feeling the futility. What’s a few more scuff marks?
Frustrations in check, my other measure for determining my daughter’s school readiness is whether she has attached to me deeply, so that she can hold on to me during the school-day separation. This one’s easy to read, as I’m peppered with her precious love notes daily – a sign that she’s given her heart to me. Next to my desk, I’ve accumulated an array of my favorites – elaborate drawings of hearts, and more and more lately, full sentences extolling her love for me. With the help of both her grandpas, last weekend she even sent me her first email: “Violet. Love. You.”
Since my faith in the developmental process has proven itself out so far, I can continue to trust in it. With my daughter’s heart soft, I can help her keep it that way. She’ll confide in me her secrets, and know that when the world’s hurts get to be too much, I’ll be there to listen, understand, and love.
By my developmental measures, my daughter is ready to head off to kindergarten tomorrow. Now … am I?
From all the tears I’ve been shedding – while poring over baby pictures or listening to sentimental songs about daughters growing up too fast – you’d think I was sending my daughter off to college, not half-day kindergarten!
But as with each baby tooth she loses and each adult tooth that takes its place, this rite of passage into kindergarten is a blatant reminder of just how fast the process is… once I step back from the mire of day-to-day parenting and realize the years are blurring by, and see how quickly my daughter is maturing.
It’s been wonderful to be reaping so many fruits as she grows up. She brushes her teeth (and gummy holes) all by herself! She’s got the seatbelt mastered! But I have to keep myself in check from thinking she’s all grown up now.
The other day my daughter called me from the car while out with Daddy. It’s so rare for me to hear her phone voice, I almost didn’t recognize it. She sounded the same as she did when she was two, her high-pitched, tiny voice asking, “Mommy, are you there?” It shocked me to hear her sound so little, so vulnerable. I must have been growing complacent! I’d been duped by all-signs-looking-like-maturing into believing she was all good and mature! Phone calls will now be turned into routine through her elementary years, to help remind me of that young person she still is inside.
Because as much pride as my daughter and I share that she’s growing up and heading off to kindergarten, it’s not time to kick back and celebrate a job accomplished just yet. We all have a lot more growing to do, and I’ve got to keep seeing my daughter as young to remember that – for her maturing to continue, as well as for my own, as her parent. The more I meet and exceed her needs (sometimes at the expense of my own, which continues to grow me up) the more she’s able to rest in my love, sink into her attachment to me, and continue venturing forth on the path to becoming a fully developed individual.
My daughter was sad about something last week. Our giant exercise ball happened to be nearby, so I scooped my daughter up in my arms and began to bounce gently on the ball. We sat there bouncing together while she cried on my shoulder. I reminisced that it was just like we used to bounce when she was two months old, up all night crying, when the only thing that would soothe her was being held in my arms while I bounced on that ball and sang to her.
Last week as she sank into my arms, she may as well have been two months old again – not six years old. Once her tears stopped, she even let loose a little coo. We bounced together, and I reflected on our lives together so far. We bounced together, and I thought about what lies ahead. We bounced and we bounced. And I knew, as I held her close, that we were both ready for her to bounce off to kindergarten.
© Sara Easterly. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published as an editorial by the Seattle Neufeld Community.
