Ramona was born with a flattened head, rather like ET. My midwife said in her 20 years of delivering babies, she had never seen anything like it. From that moment on, Ramona has had a hard time conforming to expectations. She is “very advanced for her age.” At 3 and some months, she happily works on “kindergarten level” work at home. The What to Expect From Your Two Year Old (or Three Year Old or Four Year Old) never did anything but make us feel abnormal. She never even fit into the growth charts doctors like to use, completely transforming her point on the chart with every visit (if that point was even on the chart). People find it highly suspicious that Ramona doesn’t develop to the professional guidelines.
Ramona started preschool early because she had a high interest in going. Because California has an age cut-off for kindergarten at 4 years nine and months, the age cut-off for preschool is 2 years nine months. Ramona started at 2 years 8.5 months and will enjoy three years of preschool. This year, they recommended that she stay back in the younger class so that she could make friends and keep those friends through the next two years of preschool.
Ramona was very upset because she loves her friend Jade so much and her other friends from class last year. All Ramona’s good friends are a year or more older than she is. Though I felt sad about separating her from Jade, if she goes with the younger class this year she can have two years with the same (albeit younger) kids. This idea makes Ramona cry.
The other day, however, I realized something was really amiss. As a coop parent, I do help work around the school for a discount on tuition. I took her with me to get the school ready and I noticed that she acted like a typical three year old (if that) at school. She asked me to put her shoes on! She has been putting her own shoes on for a year now! She was asking people the names of things like “fork!” I was really weirded out by her charades. Was she trying to conform to expectations? Or acting so she could get extra praise for “learning” new things?
So now I feel at a loss. I absolutely do not want to push her, but I also don’t want her to not be herself. As we were getting ready to leave the school I asked her about it and she told me she only wanted to be smart at home, and sometimes at Maria’s. I told her that her not acting smart in school was the reason that she wasn’t going to the “Big Kids” class this year in a very cold and snotty manner. It just popped out… and as soon as I said it I was sorry. I could see in her body and face that my words really hurt her. She quickly changed the subject by opening the mailbox and asking me why there was a wood block with screws in it in the back of it. Wow, she already knows how to stuff feelings…I answered her, thinking a subject change was a great idea. As I loaded her onto the bike I could see her watering eyes and she told me, “I want to be with Jade.” And a tear fell. “I want to go to the big kid class.”
I couldn’t get rid of the lump in my throat for most of the rest of the day. I am trying to loose the guilt. But those escaped mean words have acted as a red flag that something isn’t working out. The questions abound! Does it really matter that she dumbs herself down? I am going against Ramona’s wishes to put her in the younger class, but with the conventional wisdom of “child development” says she needs to be with kids her same age. I don’t feel like going against Ramona’s wishes corresponds with my ideal of letting the child have control of her own education, but at the same time, her “pretending to not be smart” behavior is what probably got her in the situation in the first place. Very young children do not have the experience to understand the full implications of big decisions like this, and isn’t it the parents job to guide her to the right decision? What is the right decision? Why is she acting? A lot of questions…
The big problem I have with the child development conundrum is that I see well-trained adults actually trying to fit children into the child development chart when they don’t fit. It is the backbone to the idea that it's good to separate children by age. It creates this whole world of abnormalities (gifted, special ed, etc) and organizes, pigeon holes and puts children in a sort of competition with each other, not to mention causes a whole plethora of insecurities in parents. Parents with “gifted” children are first looked at with suspicion, then animosity. Parents with “special ed” kids are treated like there is something wrong with their child (while holding off for a year on certain concepts might prove the child "normal").
Nearly everyone we meet asks Ramona what her age is, then they almost always make a comment about the way Ramona acts or looks based on what they think children of her age should be like. I used to be proud every time I would here how smart or mature or “present” she is, but then I started to get annoyed. We have a friend with a child who has a “speech issue.” Her mother feels quite insecure about it. People look at her as if they feel sorry for her and her daughter when they hear her difficulty with speech. That little girl creates the most beautiful art, several years advanced on the “development” charts. Of course, no one notices and the mother of the little girl didn’t even notice until I said something to her about it…and she even played down the art by saying, “I think she copied her older sister.”
In the end, I have worked out a few things to make my life a little less stressful. First, I have discussed with Ramona that when someone asks her age, she doesn’t need to tell them, and that she can say, “I don’t want to say" (she used to do this anyway). And then I wont say either. Of course she probably will say, because this is what people expect, but how nice it would be to make people think for a minute. We also moved Ramona into an afternoon class in her preschool, the one class with the full spectrum of 2.9 year olds to almost 5 year olds. I personally love the mixed age classrooms. I have also come to accept that Ramona is an actress by nature. She likes to try on different personas and be different characters. Maybe I don't need to worry about it and let her reveal what she wants to whomever she wants.
And I hope that one day, we will stop being obsessed with science, basing every thought on it. I think science is a tool, a way to get an idea. Science is soaked in human bias. Science is a piece, a fragment...we will never see the whole picture when focusing on just one piece of the complex puzzle that makes up humanity. In any case, how could we ever evolve or change as a species if we are always trying to fit into the boxes of yesteryear?
Ironically and coincidentally, as I write, Ramona is watching "Ages and Stages - Your Three Year Old" on PBS.
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