Back to the square one

The last two days have been not-so-good. BigGeek was away at school and Friday evening, Chip’s teacher told me Chip refuses to sit in one place wants to do things on his own, is defiant. Well, he is two, I wanted to tell her. Instead I asked her what she would suggest. She just shrugged her shoulders. I was upset, instead I said I will tell him to be a bit more obedient and told her to be firm with him. But honestly, this has left a bad taste in my mouth. Not because it is an isolated incident, but it is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. There had been the allergy incident. Then there had been a time when I went to pick up Chip and he was burning with fever (102F) and the teacher had no idea. A couple of weeks ago, when I was picking up Chip, his room smelt of a cleaner/solvent. When I asked the teacher if it was safe for the kids to be around such a smell, she just shrugged. I asked the vice principal and she said it was fine. The smell was pretty strong and with the cooling, there is no ventilation. So when she told me Chip did not want to sit for circle time and was defiant and she had no idea what to do about it, I had enough. Chip is a high energy kid. Like I say, he is more of everything. He is 20% more than your average kid. He has more imagination and is more curious than your typical 2 year old. He is also more stubborn and obstinate. He needs reasons. If I tell him, to not pick the dirty candy off the floor and pop it into his mouth, there is a good chance he will not listen. If I tell him that the candy has germs because it is dirty and that will give him a stomach ache, he will. Apparently the teacher doesn’t have patience for such reasoning, such as she is. I had been sold by the fact that she had brothers and sons and she would understand energetic boys. But no.


Also, to blame is my perception of center based care. I just thought Chip and I would need to get used to this standard of no-so-personal care. One evening when I went to pick up Chip, the class had been playing with zoo animals. A large tub of big plastic animals. Chip will probably play with these for 5-10 mins. He is too old to get enamored by their textures and colors. Once he identifies the animal, he has lost interest. He is too young to weave stories about the animals so he simply wanders off from the table and looks for something more interesting to do. The teacher should recognize this and give him another challenging activity. Or take their tot lot. The slides are as tall has Chip. He gets no thrill from sliding down those – actually he can’t slide down any of those because once he lies on the slide, there is 6 inches left to slide. We go to the park every day and he has a ball on the full sized slides and I have to drag him home everyday. Another point is reading. The teacher reads to 20 kids. I don’t know how the other kids sit without being able to look at the pictures. At this age, reading is an interactive process. Why doesn't the teacher understand that?


I spent the whole weekend being totally upset. Talked to my dad and my grand mom and my mom (who I finally was able to get through- she was visiting a cousin) and my mom-in-law. I also talked to a dear friend to who I told her all of the above. She was shocked. She has a high energy kid herself and she exactly understood what I was going through. She told me to get him out of that school. This is not how her kid’s (called A here after) school did things. So we are back to the square one. I am going to see if A’s school has openings. Some of A’s teachers have left so she has no idea how other teachers are in the 2-3 age group. I am beating myself up over giving up admission to the nice Montessori school. They just had too many days off and I did not have enough vacation. So I have to see if the Montessori has openings. It will also mean Chip will have to go through to another phase of adjustment. This is life, I guess.