First Day SK…
Senior Kindergarten | Age 5
It was Pierce’s first day of senior kindergarten and his first day at his new school (we transferred him into a French immersion school). He was a little nervous, so to reassure him, his dad and I held his hands as we mapped our way through the halls and found his cubby. He slowly unpacked, hung up his belongings, and the three of us made our way into his new classroom.
Cheerful, colourful and bright, we shuffled our way to the middle where one of his teachers was sitting in a tiny chair at a tiny round table with tiny pieces of paper scattered in front of her. We said hello and introduced ourselves, and without missing a beat, she turned to Pierce and said, “Pierce find your name [tag].”
My husband and I froze. There were a sea of names on the table. Too many names! We kept our composure, but inside all alarm bells were sounding and we were both panicking. We weren’t confident that Pierce could recognize his name (even at 5 years old) and knew he would struggle with this most basic task since he’s been struggling with simple letters, and even beginner sight words like “at'“, “all” and “the”. Sorting through the jumble of names and finding “Pierce” was going to be like climbing Everest for him. We didn’t know we had a problem, but we knew we had a problem.
We sweated so hard (insert favorite saying). We were going to be outed as bad parents - derelict in our responsibilities to teach him the basic fundamentals of life and survival at school. And to think, this was only the first day of senior kindergarten. Rationally, we knew this was the furthest thing from the truth because we knew how hard we worked with him at home.
We looked at Pierce as he studied the names, looked at the teacher, and back at Pierce again. They were very long, angst-filled seconds. Every horrible scenario played out in our minds. As we franticly tried to prepare an explanation for why our son didn’t know his own name (and also plan an escape route in case of sheer mortification)…the clouds parted, and Pierce reached out, picked up his name tag, stuck it on himself, and beamed. Crisis averted!
This was our cue to leave on a high note. My husband and I said our goodbyes and walked out, heads held high and proud, giving each other virtual high fives and shaking off all the fear and doubt that consumed us just mere seconds ago. Our 5 year old crushed that name finding challenge! We now had the confidence that our son belonged at his new school and could go out into the world and find his name on his own - anywhere!
Looking back, one can only laugh at how utterly panicked and scared the THREE of us were in that situation. The teacher, fortunately, was completely unaware of the little hamster wheel of fraught and fear running through each of our minds.
Later that day when we rehashed this moment, Pierce told us he was so scared and completely terrified. Fortunately, he was able to spot the P to his name and…guessed. It was the only “P” name on the table. Good enough for us! He remains our little name-finding-All-Star to his day.