School is back with a resounding bang. A noise that reminds me how when you have school-age children, your life is broken down in to the spaces of time that represent school terms. It never used to matter to me whether it was term-time, but now - term time is all.
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| Olivia P... |
I attended a parent's meeting last night where the teachers were outlining the importance of this academic year and how as parents we had a pivotal role to play in support. I started to get the creeping feeling that I could have done more to support; more homework help, more subtle coaching, more confidence building. Then I corrected myself (as I find I often need to) and remembered that it's not me trying out for these schools, it's her.
She has to stand her own feet and hot-housing children to perform for interviews and exams, I have always felt, kind of defeats the object. I have completed my education; I can't do it again through her. Yet I observe so many mothers who are plugging any gaps in education and well-roundedness with extra tuition, extra activities, extra work. I figure (maybe naively) that if a child can manage entry to a school based on their normal work-rate, then all the better. If you flog a child to get in somewhere and then find when they arrive that they can't keep up, then surely that is a disaster? This feels like uncharted waters of motherhood to me; I feel like I am having to trust my instincts and cross my fingers in the hope that it will all turn out OK.
So, in short, she did great in the interview. Just when I thought I had her every nuance clocked, she pulled a confident little performance out the bag, despite the lack of preparation and hot-housing on my part. Fingers crossed...plant the flowers and hope they grow.
