Prepping for the first day of Pre-school!!

Having taught toddlers for almost 5 years now, I look back at the humorous situations I have put my 2 sons through in order to hopefully avoid that dreaded moment where you take your kid to his first day of pre-school and he pulls a fit.

My good friend, Otto Delgado,
from Venezuela holding newborn Owen Jazz

Our first born, Owen Jazz, must have been hours old when our friends from all over the world came to see him up in the mountains of Cartago, Costa Rica. I remember quite vividly the excitement of the moment being squelched by a silly despair to see him in everyone's hands....becoming social. As he grew up to be a whopping 1 year old, I decided it was time for him to start preparing for pre-school and so I tagged him on to the back of my bicycle down to the studio where I was helping mentor teens. A marvelous plan I believed to have conjured up, 2 or more birds fed with the same seed. His presence allowed for more than one of my adolescents to get their hands on some poopy diapers for the first time and also build up collective tolerance for the hungry/sleepy baby shrilling that new parents think they will never adjust to but, by the time the second one comes around, strangely miss and secretly beg for as a chance to prove they are still fit to snooze under cacophonic conditions.

I don't regret the comedy my kids have grown up in. My wife and I, just like everyone else out there, have had to mostly guess our way through parenting as well. Nonetheless, there are a few things to keep in mind as you prepare your toddlers for that big day:

First and foremost, don't stress about the cognitive, focus on the social.

For most kids pre-school is the first serious socially diverse environment that will co-exist in after the family nest: new adult figures to tend to, vast amounts of kids to share space and attention with. Here are a few quick ideas that help get the train on track:

At the playground:

a. Take your kids frequently to public play areas, once they are comfortably feeling their nitch, carefully observe them from afar, especially watching out for their interaction with other kids and adults.

b. If conflict arises check if you really must intervene. Find time to talk in the heat of the moment but more importantly afterwards, in a self reflective manner.   

c. Feel lucky if another caring adult speaks to your child. Encourage your child to listen to other adults. The old: "Don't talk to strangers", might need a balance check.
d. How about you showing up the parents in the park by hosting a group game for the pre-schoolers? Surely they are all in need of some prepping for group games. Pre-school is full of them, and it is always clear which kids seemed to have never shared in a round of musical chairs, let alone lost!

At home:

a. Nothing better than the 2 for one deal of a babysitter: Mom and Dad get some alone time out on the town and your kids begin their process of socialization, falling asleep to another voice, stretching out their trusting beaks to our birds.
b. Board games make it so easy and fun to develop patience in your child: Wait your turn!!
c. Plan activities that foster perseverance. For example choose a puzzle your child can finish and see him/her through to the end. He will love the feeling of accomplishment and the following challenge of doing it again without mommy's help or trying a bigger puzzle.

d. Make sure that there is always ample time for your child to develop his/her own routines: time to get dressed, to finish the food, time to clean up....especially cleaning up!

Now, I am sure many of you experienced parents out there have many stories and ideas of your own to share as well. I look forward to hearing from all of you!!

Spotlight Band: Jam #1

For the past few months I have been swarmed by toddlers bustling in their dream time hive which oozes with the inebriating nectar of the honey that keeps my pooh belly full and my grizzly beard sticky. Midst their buzzing I have heard their tiny human hearts ticking much faster than my own lethargic muscle and it seems to resemble the rate of change I see in their development. Like beekeepers of a healthy hive, us pre-school parents and mentors, are blessed to see our little bees week to week growth: scissor cutting skills, pencil grip, clean up routines, their first words in their second and third language........ad infinitum.

But as the tick-tock of the heart slows down it seems that so does our rate of change. I look back at the 4 years that I spent in Esparza working with teenagers and although their transformation is now clear, there were months where it felt like nothing was happening. With teens one has to trust much more in the seeds being sown, one has to have much more patience to see the first sprouts. Studio lingo often tickled our ears with the simile of teens and bamboo:  For 5 years bamboo grows its root work before cracking through the soil in search of sunlight.

Last week, my boss asked me to sit in on a few of the older kids' classes to get a feel for the dynamic of the environment. As to be expected I walked into a sheepish sea of eye-contact-avoiding adolescents. I love those first encounters. 4 years of mentoring grants me the confidence that I will win them over sooner or later. With this hand-fold of geniuses it happened much quicker than I thought.

It started off with a little chat with the girl next to me, "Do you like music?". She glared at me with the inflated eyeballs of a toddler under his first firework lit sky on a cloudless fourth of July, before turning away in a giggle to ask her friend in Chinese what the hell I was saying. I insisted a bit and got an answer from the braver one in the pack. Little by little the rest of the group started drawing into our ESL chit chat and after about 5 minutes we had a band: 4 clapping hands, 2 stomping feet, 2 dizi's, 1 erhu, 1 pipa, my piano, and 9 -angelic voices.

Our first scheduled rehearsal was for 8am this morning. I was blessed to spend 15 minutes with a group of teens that have hearts that still beat at the 175bpm that newborn babies do. I hope my heart can sync up with theirs and stay on beat forever.

Click on the video to see what we jammed out!!

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