Comments on: i prefer pleasant

By: krista

krista — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:02:31 +0000

i’m peeking up after quite a hiatus of commenting while i sat complacent in lurkdom to nod my head at how you managed to somehow slip into my thinking this morning before i even read you. i’ve started to wonder about my almost two year old daughter and how socialization will shape her, how she will shape it.
i moved in the beginning of sixth grade and went from the top of the pile to the girl standing in front of a new classroom listening to the other kids make fun of her for her clothes, her newness, her difference. i wasn’t prepared for the rug to be pulled out from under me and i will never forget how much it hurt to fall so hard.
i was thinking on this as i woke up this morning and wondering how my daughter will fare with the other hormonal beings she chooses to run with and then i came here and read this.
too serendipitous not to mention.

By: the new girl

the new girl — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:08:48 +0000

See? It’s posts like this that make me want to wrap you up and put you in my pocket and take you EVERYWHERE with me.

I loooove me some Elwood P. Dowd. One of my favorite lines is:

‘That Vita, she’s a whirlwind.’ I can slip that sucker into a surprising number of conversations…

By: Quadelle

Quadelle — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:04:21 +0000

Great quote. Being pleasant is the best kind of smart – people smart.

Grade 7 sucked. Actually, moving schools in Grade 4 in anticipation of moving house – but then not moving for 1.5 yrs – was the set up for a sucky Grade 7. I was already adrift, and Grade 7 just compounded it all. Gaining braces (including head gear), glasses, and a massive cyst smack dab in the middle of my cheek did not make it one iota easier. Oh, the horrors.

There’s a lot to be said for mixed-aged care. Given the mishaps at the preschool It sounds like the best situation for all of you. :)

By: cheesefairy

cheesefairy — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:23:05 +0000

I had that year in grade 6. Terrible.

And I was also moved up to grade 1 when I was in kindergarten. Because I could read & was being an asshole about it.

I think I would have been better off staying with people at my own emotional level. I was a mature kid because I was an only child (in part) and I see the same tendencies in my older boy…he looks up to people bigger than him. Adults, big kids, all of it. He has no time for the kids his age either. It’s almost like they have no value to him.

But to my mind, the value is in the learning of social skills with people at the same social level as you. Of building relationships with people who are on similar wavelength.

I *still* relate better to people who are older than me. And yes, I *do* blame my parents. :)

Anyway, congrats on making the decision and having it be made.

By: Damselfly

Damselfly — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:50:32 +0000

Oh, that’s such a tricky business. My younger brother was moved up a grade around 8 or 9 years old, and then moved back. My son will go to preschool for the first time next month — in the two-year-old class, as required by birthday cutoff dates, even though a couple weeks later he’ll turn 3. My husband and mother worry he’ll be bored and possibly cause trouble because he’ll be so much older than probably all the other kids. Guess we’ll find out … sometimes education is such an experiment, huh?

Your coming-of-age story could totally be a novel! I wanted to read more and more of it.

By: bon

bon — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:06:40 +0000

for the record…we’re moving them both to Josephine’s new home sitter first of August.

the teachers where he was are great, and the program pretty cool, and he’d eventually probably have made it work, esp if the ’06 kids dribbled in. but communications kinda sucked. and at the new place he’ll have a few peers he’s known all his life, plus i’ll know Posey has him around…

decision made. i am one of those people who is simply happier with a decision made. now we live with it. :)

By: pnuts mama

pnuts mama — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:51:01 +0000

i wonder about that gender thing- this summer pnut’s class enrollment has changed (olders off to kindergarten have left, others left, others joined) and there are only a few boys- one in particular whose mom i think took him out since he was the only one who spoke english as his primary language- all the little girls played with him but as she said to me “he wants to hang with the guys!” it’s sad- he was a sweet little guy. i’ll bet that oscar does better overall with the 06 kids in the long run, too.

i will do everything in my power to get pnut into the local public school by us that is pk-8 starting next year in kindergarten. anything, to get her into this small school and to keep her out of the shark tank that is middle school. it was horrid, and yes, i too did things to survive that i am so ashamed of now. if nothing else it gives me perspective and compassion but still, such sadness that i could have been as cruel as those i was running from.

By: NotSoSage

NotSoSage — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:45:59 +0000

Amen.

I was advanced a year. At five. Because I could read. Big whoop-dee-do. So I couldn’t have another year of nap time and alphabets? It was a bad idea. I think my parents knew it at the time, too, but didn’t know what else to do. We’ve heard noises from Mme L’s pre-school about how she was “ready for kindergarten this year” and, yes, being a February baby she would only have been a month or so younger than some of the others in her class but I am once bitten, twice shy.

I’d never heard that Jimmy Stewart line either, but I love it…words to live by.

By: misty

misty — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:51:24 +0000

Just follow your gut. Your point about no right choice but clear wrong choices sums it up well.
My financial plan also includes winning the lottery. When we do, we’ll hang out poolside and raise spoiled brats.

By: maggie may

maggie may — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:32:00 +0000

i hear this as a version of in the end, love is what matters. more than really anything else, in whatever form it’s expressed. it’s the connections we make in life and the way we carry our actions into the world that leave the profound mark in our psyche.