Parenting is often very uncomfortable. You need to do things you never thought you would do, like wiping a snotty nose on the sleeve of your best shirt or wiping bums or my personal favourite cleaning up vomit!

Parenting has become very uncomfortable for me personally as my eldest son, JC, has started kindergarten. In the time I am living in right now, full day every day kindergarten is the norm. My child has never been in daycare, but he did do preschool 3 days per week. (Everyone asks me that so I had to throw that in there for some sort of validation!)

With support from a letter from his preschool teachers, we are “that family” (words directly from our principal), that is having our son go to kindergarten only until lunch time. I know that we are the only family doing that in the school, and probably the whole town.

So here is my rationale:

1. Full day (8:45 – 2:45) is too long for 5 year olds in one room with 21 other 5 year olds and one teacher. They need to be with different ages with different adults.

2. My son naps in the afternoon.

3. School isn’t everything (quote me on that!) and I think he needs to be doing other things in the community.

4. School is not daycare (don’t get me going on that!)

5. When the school day for kindergarteners went from half day to full day a few years ago, the curriculum didn’t change, so why does he need to go?

6. I don’t want to deal with the screaming and crying and behavior issues that other kindergarten parents are dealing with in the evenings! I want to enjoy family time.

Enough said!