Kindergarten Chapter 2 :: “We Finally Did It!”
You hear about someone else’s child getting held back for Kindergarten until it is yours. My oldest son and I navigated many tears while doing Kindergarten over again.
In Spring 2023, I felt thrown into a closed door when I was told my child would not advance to 1st grade. Months before his first Kindergarten school year was over, he was diagnosed with ADD. At first, we thought it was ADHD, but he doesn’t experience the hyperactivity. Personally, my family and I decided not to medicate our son because, for us, the cons outweighed the pros. We gave him Saffron gummies and other vitamins instead to help our son during test days. Fast forward to the new school, Kindergarten again.
With the new Kindergarten school year (2023-2024), we sat down with a team of specialists at Dynamic Therapy Specialists (shout out to the best specialized pediatric therapist in Baton Rouge). We realized that he may not have ADD but may have Auditory-Processing Disorder. We started nine months of intensive therapy with our son to improve his ability to understand speech. With this therapy, we also enrolled him in Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy to help him improve even more. We equipped ourselves like never before this school year.
Even though my son did not want to repeat Kindergarten, this year was a breeze. He retained his school work and lessons like a champion. When we noticed that he kept and applied his Kindergarten modules quickly, his tutor and I decided to “step on the gas pedal” and give him 1st-grade work. He still struggles with ELA (English Language Arts), so blending doesn’t come easy sometimes, but Math is a “piece of cake.”
My son was sad and did not understand why he had to be retained, but I kept assuring him that this was only to help him. In my younger years, school never came easy for me. I had to have tutoring from first grade through college. I had to take statistics three times in college and finally passed with a “C.” I emotionally supported my son through this process because I had done it my whole life.
To the mom struggling with retaining her son, I see you. I know you may feel more defeated than your daughter or son, but I promise you, this will help. There are blessings in “trying again.” Last year, we sat at the kitchen table doing homework every night with tears from both of us. This year, we had time for more things that did not involve academics. For us, with this year being so accessible in Kindergarten, there was more time to play in the evenings and not so much doing homework every night. There was more time for watching movies, snuggling, and playing outside. My son even improved his soccer skills from last year to this year.
Watching my son grow up and significantly improve inside and outside the classroom this year brought happy tears to my eyes. He even received the honor roll and principal’s list. At the end of the Kindergarten awards ceremony this year, my son ran up to me and said, “Mom, we finally did it!” At that point, I was in full-tear mode. I told him, “We did!”
