It seems ages that I never touched the blogging world, not just because I'm busy but my mind also wanders.I didn't write because I don't want to think of things that would made me worry and sad. This post was supposed to be last year but wasn't finished at all. So when I open my blog and see there's still a post left unpublished, I decided to just edit it and give my thought about it. This was my thought last year about my little boy's first kindergarten experience.
"Stress comes from different parts of our world. I would say mine would be this kindergarten thing. From the stage where your child would scream at the top his lungs just for you to stay, which unfortunately not allowed here till the adjustment period that your child needs which they call it ungewohnungzeit"
It was indeed a horrible experience for me and most of all for my child. Everything just clashed from culture to beliefs. Just to give you a glimpse of the experience, here it is. Since my boy is 3 years old, he should know how to put on his own jacket and shoes, no holding of toys during meal times, he should be sociable enough and should try to join with other kids and should be playful. Although I believed these are good things to be learned, these should not be imposed very early. The teacher and child should at least build a trust/friendship before learning will start. In addition to my child's agony, he understands no German at all and was immerse in a German kindergarten. It was indeed tough and hard for my child that within a duration of 1 month, he has never adjusted to his new situation. He's no longer crying when we bring him to school, but an outburst of anger and frustration when I collected him. To make the story short, he stopped in this kindergarten. We had discussions with the teachers and seems to agree that it's just the language that made it all difficult, and the teachers also recommended an ergotherapie for the little one because there are plenty of things that my child can't do yet or is not willing to do, that a 3-year old child should be able to do it already. So just to make sure, we refer it to his pediatrician. The pediatrician doesn't recommend to push through with ergotherapie because for him, he's too young to know that he can't really do such thing. He recommended to immerse our child in an environment where we think he could understand better, just to make sure that it's the language that hinders the smooth integration.
So then, we flew to Ireland and stayed there for 3 mos. and enrolled him in play school. We're so glad that he's doing fine and seems to like school after all. When we came back here in Germany we then enroll him in an English kindergarten here in Neufahrn and he's loving it. My dilemma is on how he would cope in the normal German kindergarten again.
I registered for the kindergarten and was given a slot for this school year. That started last September.Johann was screaming when we first visited the new German kindergarten.He's crying and keep on telling me, no!!! only English kindergarten.I was so curious on how things will go. At first I talk to the Directress and told her of what we been through and how that experience affected my little boy. We did several meetings on how to have a smooth beginning and indeed it was.
I thank God that this new kindergarten seems to understand my concerns and they are so patient with the "ungewohnungzeit" phase. Just days, my little boy is loving school now. He has now few German words and seems to enjoy his new environment.
I would say the horrible experience that we had of course was not solely to be blame of course on the kindergarten alone. Maybe Johann was not yet ready enough for school at that time. Although the Directress in this new kindergarten agreed that there are mistakes along the way with the first KiGa and is hoping that they'll be able to correct it this time.
It's indeed a happy ending. A happy child means a happy mom as well! :)
