One boy; one day; two emotions
Taking BTP to school last week for his first week at school was an emotional enough thing in itself. My little boy. Starting school. Stepping onto that production line…
But on thursday there were two specific moments, which tugged at my heartstrings in very different ways.
In his first week, he was just attending school in the afternoons. So there I was on thursday lunchtime, dropping him off at the school (we just walked up, it’s only a few minutes from our house), and waiting for the teachers to come and get them.
With him having been at school for three afternoons already, I asked him “so, who have you been playing with so far then, who are your friends?”
He looked at me, and with a sad little voice, said “Dad, there are all not my friends.” (Meaning of course that none of them were his friends, rather than they are all actively ‘anti-friends’).
I had to explain to my little boy — who was standing there with a brave face — that they would be his friends; they just weren’t his friends yet because he didn’t really know them that well (the day nursery he attended until recently was near where we used to live, so none of the children from there have joined his school). I also felt awful that my poor little boy felt he didn’t have any friends.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this, though: my mother says she worried about me not having any friends during my school days because I changed school so much, whereas I wasn’t that concerned because I always knew I would make friends — it was just a question of who and when.
Fortunately, I can quite happily report that by later that afternoon, he could report the names of several children he’d been playing with, and on the friday he’d played with “all of them”. So they might not be friends yet, but it’s certainly on the way.
And also when he came out that day, he had a gold star sticking to his jumper. Initially he couldn’t remember what it was for (translation: “Dad, I can’t be bothered to talk about it right now…”) but later he explained that the teacher had noticed that he had kept saying “excuse me please” when he wanted to be past the other children, and “thank you” and so on where appropriate, and she had said he had been so polite that she just had to give him a star.
And there I obviously feel immensely proud. Not that I consider politeness to be a massive virtue: I’d rather he was happy and successful than known for being unfailingly polite, but I certainly wouldn’t want him to be thought of as being particularly rude either. So if he can be polite to other adults, if he can be polite when we’re out in public, if he can be polite when he’s at school — and in all three cases it appears he can — then that’s a pretty good start, and I’ll forgive him being impolite at home now and again!
Hello. I am 
it’s amazing how different they can be at home. ours totally ignore us at home and never put things away after them, yet our lass took matthew to school yesterday and the first thing he did when he went in was tidy up someone elses mess - without even being asked!
little buggers
It’s a roller coaster ride for sure. Not sure who gets stressed out more - us as parents or the kids! For what it’s worth my eldest boy had exactly the same thing on his first day. Apparently he’s now “very popular” and “polite” according to the others kids and mums!
Also look out for the back-chatting, silly voices and general surliness. That comes after a few weeks of integrating with other people’s children