This week is spring break from kindergarten. Last night as she was falling asleep, my older daughter ("Darling Daughter 1/DD1) remarked, "Mommie, I don't like it when my sister wakes up from a bad dream, because then she wakes me up and I start thinking about school and my "over zealous classmate" (OZC). I don't think I want to have to be friends with her anymore, but I don't know how I can stop having to be her friend." Leave it to my DD1 to express herself so poignantly. It has not been the tasks of learning to read, or write, or add, or subtract that has been challenging for my DD1 in kindergarten this year. No, instead, my older daughter has met a different kind of challenge; she has come up against a classmate who is determined to be her "friend" and who has thrust herself upon my daughter at every opportunity (Please see "What is Bullying in Kindergarten, Takes 1-3). How can my DD1 get her OZC to back off so that my daughter has the space to choose for herself whether or not she wants to be this classmate's friend? How can my daughter learn to shut down her compassion for her classmate, and instead, become cold enough towards her OZC that it is clear that my DD1 is no longer interested in participating in this "friendship." How can my daughter muster enough internal courage and force to deter her classmate's willful imposition of "friendship"?
While my DD1 has struggled to manage the demands of her OZC, my husband and I have struggled to navigate what we can expect from the staff at our local elementary school in terms of assisting our DD1 with this challenge from her peer. As a kindergartener, is it reasonable to expect that our daughter should have the social and emotional skill set required to repel a forceful classmate? Given that my DD1 has a sweet-natured, accommodating temperament, is it only by shedding some of this disposition towards being 'nice' that my older daughter can learn to stand up for herself fully? Is it reasonable to expect that our DD1 should be able to manage all on her own without some help from the adults at the school? Or should we be able to to turn to the personnel at the school for assistance? And if so, what forms of assistance might/should be available to our older daughter and to us?
With each round of conversation with the various staff members at the school regarding our concerns about our daughter's on-going struggle with her OZC, my husband and I have met with some empathy for our daughter's strained relationship with her classmate. And yet in not one interaction with either the classroom teacher, the guidance counselor, the assistant principal, or the assistant principal, have the members of the school staff who are responsible for our daughter's growth in kindergarten communicated that it is either an individual or a collective priority to attend to our daughter's development socially, emotionally, or interpersonally. So my husband and I are left wondering: if the focus of the school personnel at our local elementary school is almost exclusively on the academic needs and progress of students, then what about the other development areas in which children need coaching -- are these, by default, left solely to us as parents to guide and nurture?
And thus, my husband and I are also left wondering whether there are alternatives within the system of public schooling with a more holistic approach to working with children, particularly in the primary grades? How might we go about detecting if one of our other nearby elementary schools has a broader focus? And if so, should we be starting the process of requesting a transfer to another school?
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