As an educator, I have found myself sitting across the table from worried parents asking for advice about how to explain difficult decisions to their children. What should we tell him? How much should we say? What if she asks…? What if he wants to know…? I know that these conversations worry adults. I have helped other parents work through a plan for communicating with children about a wide range of difficult topics.
I felt, therefore, relatively prepared to have a nonchalant and factual conversation with our son about our decision for him to wait to go to kindergarten. I knew, of course, and my instinct here is being confirmed over and over again, that this initial conversation would not be the moment of realization for our child. Children tend not to be ready for processing the information we have decided to present to them as we put down our forks and clear our throats at the dinner table or as we smooth the sheets across them and sit nervously on the edge of their beds. Their minds are already busy doing other things. When we finish giving our talks and ask if the children have any questions, they do. They want to know if there is dance class tomorrow. Or why bats stay up all night. The real questions will come later. The initial conversation is really just the planting of the seed.
Nevertheless, if a family is making a decision about a child’s education that seems to go against the grain, one needs to begin the conversation somewhere and sometime. My next several posts will include a series of tips for talking with your child about a growing year.