Thursday, January 12, 2006
School & Spanish & Sensibilities
These past few mornings, I am remembering how the Lone Star Baby actually cried when I dropped her off almost every morning for at least 13 of the 15 months that she attended her old school. Just because she had finally gotten into a school-morning routine she looked forward to at the end and I had gotten used to her not fussing doesn't mean it isn't going to take quite a while for that to happen at her new school. Mornings are hard, very hard. She wants to nurse and cling to me and she cries so piteously when I leave. I worry about her being unhappy. The teachers say she stops crying quickly, but I think it is hard to know whether that is from contentment or despair. It is a lot of adjustment for a tiny little person to make. I worry, also, that the adjustment is harder because no one there speaks to her in a language she understands much yet. It is hard not to think that would be very stressful. They say it is not at her age, though, that children her age just accept that different people say things differently and that since her relationship with her teacher has never been in any language other than Spanish, she just accepts that as the way her teacher talks. I want to believe that, and I do, really, but it is hard not to worry some. There are other things that make me think it is all going well, though...only after today will she have been there for a week, but she is already adding Spanish words to her vocabulary. She has always said frio and viento and agua, but now she says flor and zapatos and pez and la luna, as well. And even though she is clingy and exhausted with the adjustment of it all, she is eager to tell me about her days and yesterday, on the way to pick up her sister after picking her up, I could hear her in her carseat, singing: Amerr-ka! Amerr-ka! Shh...gace...eeee! (the Lone Star Girl has been practicing America The Beautiful in case she decides to try out for fifth grade choir next year), in the sweetest little way and it is hard to believe she would be singing away to herself like that if she were really unhappy. Arg, these adjustments! The Lone Star Baby is such a sensitive little one that I find myself always concerned about what well-meaning bumbling of mine could harm in her...she is one who needs a lot and I am trying so hard to be the parent who can find it all for her.
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2 comments:
pDo you think children that young stop crying from despair? It seems so often that they cry and cry because they think that the pain (disappointment, anxiety etc.) will go on forever and ever. I'm guessing from what you've written that the LSB does enjoy her school, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't be thrilled if you were there, too.
You're doing your job. You're a parent, and you're working at an occupation that allows your children to have health insurance. You are doing the very best you can, and any bumblings just come with the job.
(Now, if I could just take my own advice...)
Thank you. I needed that. I do, though, think that kids that young stop crying from despair. I don't think that's happening with her really, when I'm being sensible, because she has a super-persistent personality and would cry for days, not minutes, before giving up. But, yeah, I think kids cry until they realize that no one is going to help them and then they stop because they give up, a lot. And she's the kind of kid that would decide that the world needed to be punished someday if her psyche tipped to that sort of pain, I think. Probably has some limbic system issues, there. But yes, I am doing the best I can. My job contributes to my ruminations. I see so many kids whose parents did the best they knew how to do but for whom it wasn't quite enough...occupational hazard. Thank you.
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