Kindergarten: The Screening

Today was kindergarten screening day for Aidan. Our appointment time with his teacher was 9 a.m. We arrived in the school parking lot at 8:52. Aidan started crying and screaming at approximately 8:53. In between his cries and general hysteria, he refused to get out of the car and yelled he didn’t want to go to kindergarten anyway.

“I’m not going!” “I’m not going!” He yelled repeatedly as his screams got louder and louder.

I sat in the front seat, taking deep breaths, furtively looking around the parking lot for other parents with their calm and happy kindergartners who would now be witnesses to my parental ineptitude. As I did this, I also fought off the temptation to just start screaming right along with him.

A good mother would have known how to calm her child down. A good mother would have been able to reason with her child. A good mother would have validated her child’s fears, but still manage to get her child to be brave.

What did I do? I smiled at him and through a clenched jaw told him that if he did not get out of the car right this very minute, I would call up his preschool and reenroll him for another year of pre-k. I went on and said, “And if you aren’t in Kindergarten, this means you can’t do many of the big boy things you like to do. Including playing Star Wars Legos on the XBox!”

He was out of the car one minute later. I didn’t reason, act calming or validating. Nope. I just threatened. Great parenting technique.

Once we were in the building, he did great. Not a tear or a hiccup in sight. I am convinced children have multiple personalities that allow them to turn their emotions on and off at a whim. They are like little Sybils.

Monday morning, the bus arrives to pick Aidan up at 7:30 a.m. I am not sure if even the threat of a world without Lego Star Wars is even enough to get my child on that bus.