Today, my daughter began Kindergarten. For the past several days, she’s expressed the typical fears and nervousness about starting at a new school with a new teacher in a new building with new friends to make and so on…. We talked about her feelings and I tried to help calm her anxiety by pointing out all her amazing qualities, her strengths, the fact that everyone in her class was feeling the same way and by praying with her.
It wasn’t until we were walking (well, I was rolling…) down the hall that I started having my own worries and fears. Kids stared at us and I received the usual range of facial expressions – some children smiled sweetly, others looked at my chair with terror in their eyes and others frowned at me. The ‘peekers’ were there, too – the little kids who slide behind their parent and glimpse out at me shyly. While this is part of my normal, every-day life, it got me thinking about the days ahead for my own little one.
As I got into my van, I wondered if my daughter was in her classroom fielding questions about me. Was she having to explain why I’m in the chair? Was she trying to answer a multitude of questions about our lives instead of playing with the purple play-doh that had been set at her desk? I worried she was spending time advocating for me instead of making friends. Plus, she can get quite loud and vocal since she’s very protective of me: there was an incident at her last school where a boy laughed at a disabled character in a story book and my child screamed at him, “Disabilities are NOT funny!” While this is a trait of hers I’m quite proud of, I don’t want it to distract from her enjoyment or engagement in the classroom, especially a new class.
I know that what makes up our ‘normal’ are the stares, the comments, the whispers, the looks, the questions and what-not. I know none of this is new to either of us. Perhaps I’m worrying for no reason (most likely the case!) but I simply want my daughter to focus on and enjoy her first day of ‘big kid school’ and not have to automatically educate a class full of five-year-olds.
The guilt, the illogical but real guilt is back today. My differences have the ability to make my daughter different. While growing up with a disabled mother has impacted her positively, I worry it can have negative consequences as well. I hope she’ll be treated like any other child by the kids at her new school. I hope kids at this school will be just as easy-going as at her preschool – but these kids are older and this is a new experience for her as well as for me as a mom. Will my daughter be bullied because of me? Will she be shunned?
So, there it is – I’ve got the “First Day of Big Kid School” jitters, too. They’re probably all just us unfounded as my daughter’s fears but they’re real to me just like they’re real to her.
*So, I just picked her up a couple of hours ago and guess what? She had the best first day ever! She made “SIX new best friends” and apparently, none of them asked about her mom’s wheels!! What were we both so worried about??*
This blog post first appeared at Modified Mama.
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