Starting Preschool

Against all advice of professionals in the adoption world, we started Kiera in preschool.  When kids are adopted, it's recommended you keep their worlds small by staying home as much as possible and limiting the adult caregivers in their lives to foster attachment with mom and dad.  For kids who've had multiple caregivers in their lives and multiple transitions, they need time to learn that we are mom and dad and that they can trust us to meet their physical and emotional needs.  Kiera has been slower to form a strong attachment to us, which is why the doctors, social worker and therapist we talked to about this advised to keep her home longer.

I go back to work next week and that fact further complicated the decision of whether to enroll Kiera after barely eight weeks home. If I weren't going back to work, it made more sense to continue the bonding process by keeping her with me.  After struggling for awhile with a decision, I finally came to the conclusion that the added benefits of keeping her home with our au pair were minimal in comparison to the benefits of preschool.  Attachment is super important, but it was the only factor being considered by professionals when I asked whether and when Kiera could attend preschool.  Never were other benefits weighed, such as improving her speech, interacting with peers or just plain old having fun.

Preschool is only two mornings a week for a total of five hours.  Those are five hours that are more language rich and stimulating than what Kiera would be doing at home. Our au pair doesn't often have time to do anything particularly exciting with the kids while Soren is at school, so they spend a quiet morning at home with the kids playing and our au pair doing chores. For a child with a significant language delay, singing, story time, circle time, show-and-tell and pretty much everything else they pack into two and half hours is surely not going to hurt her.

I felt even more comfortable with my decision after meeting with Kiera's teacher.  I talked about what indiscriminate friendliness could look like in the classroom (constantly wanting to be picked up, or instead of playing with the other kids in her class in the rec center gym, wandering off to see what the grandma and grandpa are up to who stopped in to let their grandchild play) and suggested ways to redirect her.  I asked her to contact us if she has any other concerns about Kiera's readiness for preschool.  Her teacher took my concerns seriously and was not phased by the idea of having a student she'd need to work more closely with.  She's known our family for a few years now and honestly seemed thrilled to have a third child from our family in her class. 

Kiera was excited to go to school and knew the routine.  She needed her book bag, water bottle and a dry pair of shoes. 

The first day of many years sharing a classroom with her brother. 

Kiera has accompanied her brothers to preschool often enough that she knew exactly what to do.  She hung her book bag next to her brother's and my friend's daughter, who adores Kiera, grabbed her hand and walked her into the classroom.  The sentimental (and slightly crazy) mom I am trailed behind her with my camera.  It was hard to get any decent photographs because she had no interest in posing for the camera and instead just wanted to play with toys.  The only tinge of doubt I had about my decision came when I tried to kiss her goodbye and she turned her head away from me.  Though she will probably do the same thing the day I go back to work. 

After all that fretting, her teacher said she did great.  She followed directions, participated in each activity along with her classmates and had a lot of fun.  She loves music and her teacher told me about how she was trying to sing along to the songs even though she probably had little idea what the lyrics meant.

That afternoon, I thought Kiera was playing in her brothers' room when it became too quiet.  That's usually a bad sign, but when I popped my head into the room to see what she was up to, I found this.

I think she had so much fun at preschool she wore herself out.