In our household, our first born is getting ready to start her schooling. And it is a great moment of both pride and sadness for us. At one hand, we are proud of the bubbly young person we have created who is ready to let the school system mold her. At the same time, we are sad to lose her to the behemoth that the outside school system can be. Unfortunately, we can’t (and won’t) home school her for the rest of her life.
So we thought about all the unique experiences that she is likely to encounter in the first few days at school and how we could help her transition. It would make sense to have a list! We both sat down – she came up with some ideas and I helped her with the others.
* Making new friends – topmost! Friends we can choose (family we can’t)!
* Understanding and accepting discipline. Discipline in relation to other kids and to the teachers.
* Understanding roles and responsibilities. Different times in life require different hats!
* Finding new games and experiences.
* Learning to lead and learning when to be led.
* Being respectful of others – of their traditions, values and beliefs – which may be different than ourrs.
* Learning new things and ideas.
* Keeping safe. Understanding the dangers around her and how to find the best ways to deal with them.
* Handling stress. Yes, hopefully stress shouldn’t be part of her curriculum at the moment, but the better prepared she is now, the more helpful it will be in the future.
* Respect for the environment. This was a forced entry, as we wanted to round it off to 10 items. But this included inculcating into her the need to respect the things that are natural around her and leaving her rubbish behind, using recyclable items and taking care of nature strips.
We sat down and printed this on our own HP 8500 Officejet printer, and posted it in her room and kept one in her school bag. Hopefully, she will follow most of them. 🙂
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Disclosure: Compensation was provided by HP via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of HP.
