I appreciate that you’re trying to normalize the experience so many parents of school age children have, especially at the beginning of the year. And I think remembering why these behaviours/feelings are showing up in big ways is extremely important (so we can respond empathically). But I wish parents could hold the education system to a higher standard of care for our children, and ask questions like, does this happen everywhere in the world? Are all school age children everywhere this strung out by schooling? That would be one way to measure the “normalcy” of the experience. Are there ways that school systems and teachers could mitigate the children’s stress by perhaps asking less of the children in the first week or two, giving them more time to move their bodies, periods of rest throughout the day, etc. just throwing ideas out there. I hate to overuse a word, but it feels a bit gaslighty to just call it “normal” and get on with the very hard work of raising little humans.
You are absolutely right. Though I do think overwhelm in any new situation is mentally taxing for everyone, including adults, and after a few weeks lots of kids do adjust and in our case, their school is absolutely lovely and very play based, so I actually have no complaints there - it's just exhausting for them in the first weeks of a new year with new lessons etc etc. And it's definitely not not the same everywhere (I started school age 6 not 4, for instance) Here they are legally mandated to do the full hours or the council gets involved. In the Netherlands there's a shorter day on a Wednesday and for the first year. But then again that doesn't help the parents where both need to work full time so rely on wrap around childcare too, which is also tiring for them - so what we could do is campaign for consistent high quality childcare in school settings (eg encourage calming activities). All this to say there's no easy solution that I can see except to keep supporting them when and where I can, but really appreciate your thoughts.
I appreciate that you’re trying to normalize the experience so many parents of school age children have, especially at the beginning of the year. And I think remembering why these behaviours/feelings are showing up in big ways is extremely important (so we can respond empathically). But I wish parents could hold the education system to a higher standard of care for our children, and ask questions like, does this happen everywhere in the world? Are all school age children everywhere this strung out by schooling? That would be one way to measure the “normalcy” of the experience. Are there ways that school systems and teachers could mitigate the children’s stress by perhaps asking less of the children in the first week or two, giving them more time to move their bodies, periods of rest throughout the day, etc. just throwing ideas out there. I hate to overuse a word, but it feels a bit gaslighty to just call it “normal” and get on with the very hard work of raising little humans.
You are absolutely right. Though I do think overwhelm in any new situation is mentally taxing for everyone, including adults, and after a few weeks lots of kids do adjust and in our case, their school is absolutely lovely and very play based, so I actually have no complaints there - it's just exhausting for them in the first weeks of a new year with new lessons etc etc. And it's definitely not not the same everywhere (I started school age 6 not 4, for instance) Here they are legally mandated to do the full hours or the council gets involved. In the Netherlands there's a shorter day on a Wednesday and for the first year. But then again that doesn't help the parents where both need to work full time so rely on wrap around childcare too, which is also tiring for them - so what we could do is campaign for consistent high quality childcare in school settings (eg encourage calming activities). All this to say there's no easy solution that I can see except to keep supporting them when and where I can, but really appreciate your thoughts.