Forget Your Child

Are You Ready for Kindergarten?

By Linda Sharp

Each year at this time the media are full of authors, experts, doctors and clinicians doing what they do best: scaring the pants off a new crop of parents whose 5-year-olds are entering academia.

Listening to yet another psychologist expound on the tensions, stresses and strains to be confronted, I pondered how they make it sound like they are discussing deployment to Iraq, not enlistment in kindergarten. Taking every shred of what should be excitement and joy and leaving behind uncertainty and fear, they produce a new batch of anal, compulsive, questioning, frightened moms and dads who in turn telegraph all that fright and dread to their children.

I have two words for the experts, and for all the frightened, stressed-out, tearful parents who will soon be dropping their child off and leaving them in school: LIGHTEN UP.

Yes, that's right. Lighten up. I have three daughters of my own, which means I have lived through three separate milestones as each has greeted their new teachers and newfound independence, and none of them has spontaneously combusted under the pressure. However, all around me, each of those three years, and each subsequent year as I pass the kindergarten wing of their schools, I see drama and pathos worthy of a Greek epic, or at least a series on HBO.

Clingy children, weepy parents and frustrated teachers, most first days score a C, at best. But fear not. With a little personal homework of your own, you and your child can make the honor roll with an A+! Here are real-world, real-parent tips from my many years of application and observation.

Want to see more?

• Cooling Kindergarten Worries: Easing Your Child's Stress on the First Day
• The Kindergarten Blues: Moms Cope with First-day-of-school Sadness
• School Time? Determining If Your Child Is Ready for Kindergarten
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