By Debra Gilbert Rosenberg
The backpack is ready, the outfit selected; the first day of school is nearly here. Your baby is growing up! Most parents face this big milestone with mixed feelings; you and your child may be excited, scared, resistant, or proud. While you look forward to a few hours of freedom from childcare, you may also face your child’s first experience of school with ambivalence. Your child’s first day of school is bittersweet for parents. As those endless, lazy summer days draw closer to autumn, the anticipation of school is upon us. We may look forward to the structure school provides, but we are often also wistful and sad about the end of those seemingly carefree days in the sun.
The first day of school is a first not only for the child but also for you, the parent. My daughter doesn’t remember her first day of pre-school, but I do. Clearly, at least in some ways, it was a much bigger deal for me than for her. Fortunately, professional educators have figured out that most children are ready for the beginning of half day, formal social and academic education by age two or three, for a full day of school at 5 or 6, and to go off to college at 18. Unfortunately, many of the parents are not as prepared themselves for the big firsts in their children’s lives.
Most children greet the first day of school with a little anxiety and a lot of excitement. They may not want to leave Mom, but they usually adjust pretty quickly, as they definitely want to meet other children, play with new toys, and learn to be a “big kid.” The lure of circle time or the sand table is often more than enough to stop the tears of even the clingiest three year old soon after Mom leaves the classroom.
Parents face that first big day with anxiety and excitement also. I remember my daughter’s first day – I worried whether or not she would make friends, had I prepared her adequately for this challenge, would she miss me, would she do well (whatever that meant in preschool), would the school be nurturing enough, would she have fun. I wondered if each of us would survive two and a half hours, three times a week, apart from each other. I worried about whether I had dressed her cute enough. I fretted about whether the teacher would recognize and encourage her brilliance. I felt so proud of her, certain that she was the smartest and cutest child in her class, and then I was scared that maybe she wasn’t. I wondered if the other mothers and I would become friends or if we would become competitive. I was excited to have time to myself, but I was also scared that I would be lonely or bored or too worried about how my precious baby was doing to enjoy that brief freedom.
The first day of school is a very big deal for the child at the time. It’s perhaps the first time that the child is expected to live up to others’ standards and expectations. It’s also often the first opportunity the child has to become her own person, no longer under Mommy’s constant, watchful eye. School offers the child a world that is her own, a place to figure out who she is, what she likes and dislikes, how to learn, and how to get along with others. For many children it is the first experience that doesn’t include Mom or Dad, that is wholly the child’s own. School provides a clear step on the road to separation.
School may also be the first time the parents see their child through the eyes of others, the first time they must face that their child certainly is truly wonderful, but perhaps not as athletic or cute or brilliant or well-behaved or well-adjusted as they had thought. Attending school is also a time when the child is clearly expected to behave according to rules, and to learn according to someone else’s plan. When children attend school, there is no doubt that they have separate experiences and separate lives from their parents. While parents all understand that ideally, their children will grow up and become capable, independent people, the reality of that is sometimes hard to take.
So in anticipation of that first day, we pack the backpack and choose clothes carefully. We talk to our kids about what to expect from school and how great it will be. Privately, we worry that our children will struggle, not fit in, or not make friends. Silently we worry that we will miss them more than they will miss us, or that they will miss us more than we miss them. We want this first, like all firsts, to be glorious – fun and smooth. We want this beloved child to enjoy new challenges and experiences, and greet school with confidence and enthusiasm. And when the child makes the transition easily, as most children do, that first day will remain clearer in the memory of the mom than in the child’s own.
The first day of school is always exciting and, for most of us, at least a little anxiety provoking. But no matter what I worry about, my children will make these adjustments on their own terms. That first day, those first weeks, the many firsts in their lives are theirs. They will manage them, and so will I.
Debra Gilbert Rosenberg is the author of The New Mom's Companion and Motherhood Without Guilt. She is the mother of three, and is a psychotherapist and teacher.
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