school days

I've been thinking about and wanting to write this post for a long time, and today I just decided to do it. Unfortunately, both little girls are getting close to "potential wake up time" in their afternoon naps, so I'm guessing that I'll start now, and finish later (this evening? tomorrow afternoon?).

So, here goes...

Julianna starts preschool on Tuesday.

It's been a long road for Matt and I as we "traveled" to this decision... here's a brief summary of the path we've walked:

First things first, the road started long ago (maybe even before we had kids?) when we knew we wanted our kids to be in local schools. We've watched many families here and one conclusion we've drawn is that kids in local schools are kids who like the local culture, who are part of the local culture, who are equipped to interact with nationals, who speak the local language well, who thrive here long-term. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, so it's not a simple formula, BUT... there does seem to be a consistent pattern.

[quick disclaimer: We do realize that local schools will not provide for all of their educational needs... after all, if they've inherited their father's tendency towards poor spelling, they are going to need a lot of help in that department and I can't really expect a local teacher to teach my girls to spell correctly in English! Our tentative long-ish term plan would be to do local school for a while, then a combo home school/local school plan sometime during the elementary years.]

Ok, so, that's the deal with that. We really want the girls to speak Chinese well. And we want them to love living here. And we want them to be able to interact with local children (no need to limit friendships to the other white kids in town, you know?). And we think that being bilingual is a great "gift" that we can help give them.

But, of course, the next big question on the road is WHEN?????? When to start? When is the "right age" to send a kid to preschool? Or maybe you never do the preschool thing - and wait til kindergarten?

I realize this big WHEN question is certainly not unique to our circumstances - everyone with children asks these questions. But there are additional layers of complexity to consider when "preschool" happens to be 幼儿园 and the teacher happens to speak 中文, and the entire schooling culture in your host country is distinct from the one in America in approximately 1000 different ways.

Honestly, if we were in America, I don't think that we'd even be considering preschool right now. For one, it's expensive in America. And I like to save money. And spend it on things like trips to the Olympics. Second, if we were living in America, I would not be concerned about Julianna's language acquisition. I speak English quite well, and assume she would just learn English from me :)

But, we don't live in America. That's for sure. So, this summer, the preschool decision hits the radar screen. And the big WHEN question looms. And after much prayer and discussion and two trips to the preschool down the street, Julianna starts on Tuesday.

Here are a couple of the "whys" behind the WHEN = NOW decision.

First, my dear, precious, charming, naturally bossy oldest daughter is frustrated by her inability to speak Chinese well. It's very difficult to boss around a bunch of three year olds when you speak like a two year old. [My current assessment is that her Chinese is about six months behind her English - she can string together some simple sentences, tell brief stories and communicate about simple things, but speaks with much less animation and much less detail.]

Second, she WANTS to speak Chinese. She asks me how to say different things. She initiates speaking with Chinese people (especially when she's playing outside and she wants a toy that another kid is playing with).

Third, we had very strong feelings about how much time she would spend in school (not very much, at least compared the local children, who start day-long programs at very young ages.... you probably won't believe this, but preschool is academically competitive here!). And, the local school worked with us - they are willing to let her attend only two mornings a week.

Fourth, she WANTS to go. In all honesty, 90% of the attraction is the playground at the school - it's the only one in town. Apart from that playground, the KFC a 25 minute drive from our house is the next closest playground - if you count their slide as a "playground". What little girl wouldn't want to go to the school that's home to the only slide in town??

So, those are all great reasons to send her along. Preschool here we come, right? But there are other factors that made us hesitate. We know these first few years with our kids are precious and formative in many ways. I really do love staying home with my girls. I love knowing every detail of their days, everything little thing, like how many bites of lunch they ate, and how many times they giggled at one another. I'm jealous for these years, and don't want to treat them lightly.

I reduced it down to a few numbers to help me really understand what we were talking about. Julianna is awake for about 75 hours in any given week. Two mornings of preschool at 3 1/2 hours per morning is almost 10% of her wake-time! Parting with 10% of my little girl's week wasn't an easy decision.

One additional big reason to hesitate? Several foreign children have had really difficult preschool circumstances that didn't work out well at all. Like the teacher treated them super special, and the other kids resented it. Or they just spent the entire time frustrated by the language issue and playing independent of the rest of the class since they didn't have a clue what the teacher was saying. Or ....

But we both feel confident that this is the right choice for all of us right now. And she's so excited to go! Will their be tears? Most definitely. She's spent very little time in childcare environments and two weeks ago cried when I dropped her off at Sunday School.

So, she starts Tuesday. I'm really excited for her. And a little nervous about whether or not it will be a successful experience. But mostly excited.

I'm also wondering what I'm going to do with all my "free" time now that I'll only have one little girl to care for on Tuesday and Thursday mornings!