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10 Wishes for Kids Starting Kindergarten

As another grandson begins this journey, I continue to worry about our current educational climate and the demands it makes on these little ones. So here are my 10 wishes for my grandson and all other kids starting kindergarten.
Laurie Levy
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Sharing insights & personal experiences on education, aging, special needs advocacy, community, love, kindness, caring, & acceptance.

Sharing insights & personal experiences on education, aging, special needs advocacy, community, love, kindness, caring, & acceptance.
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Soon my grandson, his face so young and cute and innocent, will join our nation's five-year-olds and start his formal education in kindergarten. I'm sure he's a bit worried. When his cousin started last year, he had three important questions:

  1. Will my teacher be nice?
  2. Can I get cookies?
  3. Do they have a tiger robot in their toys?
Of course, cookies were out because snacks needed to be healthy. Sadly, there were no toys, so tiger robots existed only in his imagination. Things began well enough. He loved his teacher. On the first day, she taught my grandson what was to become the highlight of his kindergarten year, the "Ants in Your Pants" song. She had them sing this to relieve the restless tension they all felt from so much sitting and so many worksheets. At first the song seemed to do the trick.

Yes, his teacher was nice. But as the year progressed, the prescribed curriculum and expectations took over, complete with homework that would have been challenging for most first graders. So while things began happily enough, kindergarten soon devolved into a high-pressured school experience that required external motivators to keep my grandson and his peers in line. And every week homework packets filled with developmentally inappropriate tasks were stuffed into his Star Wars backpack. My grandson felt betrayed. Somehow, Darth Vader had slipped into his kindergarten experience.

As another grandson begins this journey, I continue to worry about our current educational climate and the demands it makes on these little ones. So here are my 10 wishes for my grandson and all other kids starting kindergarten.

  1. Time to learn through play and time to play for fun. This should be obvious to educators who know anything about child development, but standards for what kids should know generally don't come with directions about the best way to teach them. Kids learn by doing, manipulating and playing. And in order to learn, they need time to play to recharge their batteries and discover important social skills.

  • Permission to color outside of the lines sometimes. Five-year-olds are amazingly creative if we allow them to express themselves. Worksheets and expectations of conformity undermine this. One of my granddaughters was berated in kindergarten for not finishing her "work" because she spent too much time coloring the pictures in the early squares. As my daughter explained it, she had no idea going fast was important -- it never had been before. Ironically, my father, my son, and I had similar kindergarten experiences.

  • Educators who have patience with developing skills. Zipping, shoe-tying, nose-wiping, opening lunch foods, and even toileting independently can challenge a five-year-old. Many teachers have told me dealing with these issues is the worst part about teaching kindergarten. So I wish this year's kindergarteners teachers who both expect and don't mind these challenges.

  • Schools that understand not all kindergarteners are not developmentally ready to read, write, or take tests. Even though we wish all kids could be readers and writers when they leave kindergarten, some will not be able to do this yet. And that's ok. When a child's mind is ready for reading, the light bulb goes off. Before then, the child is more of a parrot than a reader. Unless there is an underlying problem, kids learn to read when they are ready. There's no shame in not getting it until age six, or even seven.

  • Parents and teachers who expect occasional squirrelly behavior. It's really hard for these little guys to sit all day doing work. And not all of them have ADHD and need to be medicated. Valerie Strauss recently posted a good piece on this issue by Angela Hanscom entitled, Why so many kids can't sit still in school today. It's worth reading Hanscom's answer, as she is a pediatric occupational therapist as well as an advocate for more creative play in children's lives.

  • Teachers who understand child development. I always think of kindergarten as the year of sorting out everything. Children generally span over a year age wise, from the child who just turned five to the child who is already six and was held back. Add to that the huge range of skills and social/emotional ability for children that age. Mix in the fact that there will be kids with special needs and learning challenges yet to be indentified. And factor in that, for some children, this is their first exposure to any kind of formal group learning.

  • Parents who realize that the hardest parts are not the academic learning. Arrival, lunch, recess, transitions, bathroom routines, and rules in general are really challenging for children this age. Untrained personnel who often have little patience for the needs of 5-6 year olds often supervise arrival and lunch times. Recess (if allowed) can resemble Lord of the Flies, as kids with developing social skills are left pretty much on their own to negotiate peer interactions. The rules in general often don't make sense to kindergarteners. In particular, many have trouble figuring out when it is okay to use the bathroom, leading to accidents. If there are specialists (gym, music, art, drama, etc.), these teachers will have different rules and do not really know the kids as well as their kindergarten teacher. All in all, it's a lot to manage for such young children.

  • Kindergarten curriculum that meets their developmental and social/emotional needs. Kindergarten is definitely the year to differentiate expectations and instruction, as there will be huge differences in what children know and how they behave. The curriculum should still be based in early childhood best practices, not merely a push down of what was formerly first or second grade work. Teaching kids in large groups and expecting them to sit for long periods of time is unrealistic. Learning activity stations and play-based activities are definitely the way to go.

  • Schools that welcome parents as part of a team working in the best interests of the child. Parents must advocate for their young children who cannot do it themselves. School principals need to be available to parents and require teachers to listen when parents share anything unique about their child's needs, learning style, behavior, or life situation. Asking for and allowing help from parents will benefit everyone.

  • School districts and kindergarten teachers that are sensitive to the child who is chronologically young or has special needs. Among my eight grandkids, I have both issues. Two of the boys have June birthdays. These days, that can be a disadvantage because of kids who are red shirted (held back) and current educational expectations that may not be developmentally appropriate, especially for the youngest children. Kids with special needs who are included these days in general education classes still have different learning and social challenges that must be understood and addressed.

    • This is what I wish I could say to the teacher of my grandson who is about to follow his cousin's footsteps and begin his formal schooling: Please honor this little boy's energy, curiosity, personality, and unique interests. I don't worry about how much "stuff" he learns. I just want him to learn to love learning and be happy as he begins his formal education.

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