Banty wrote in message ...
In article , Noreen Cooper says...

Kimberly wrote:

: Need any and all advice! My 5 year old boy just started
: kindergarten last Tuesday. My problem is every morning when I drop
: him off at his classroom, he goes into a horrible fit mode, he's even
: ripped my shirt on one occasion.

If your child has not shown this degree of separation anxiety before, I'd
make sure you volunteer to help out in the classroom ASAP.


Or the child's other parent can volunteer to help out in the classroom for this
scouting mission ...

If for some
reason you are unable to volunteer during kindergarten hours, seek out
another parent who volunteers quite regularly in the classroom and ask
what they perceive to be the problem.

.. even if he doesn't volunteer 'quite regularly', no?

Banty (yep - I'm ever aware of the common presumptions, and think it useful to
point them out ...PIA I know ;-)

I'm even more of a PIA. I would go one further and say that it is the
school's responsibility to help with this. I'd say that asking a
parent - any parent, really - to "volunteer regularly" is asking a
volunteer to do what paid professionals are supposed to do: evaluate
your child, educate them intellectually and socially, comfort them
when needed, etc.

Of course, my husband and I WOH, so that very likely skews my
perception of what it means to be asked to "volunteer regularly." It's
not that my child isn't worth my vacation and sick time. But that *is*
all some of us have - limited vacation and sick time. We *can't*
"volunteer regularly" or we'll get fired. So it's a choice between
volunteering and feeding our children, clothing them, paying the
mortgage.

Anyway...enough ranting. School is starting right after Labor Day for
me and my oldest has "issues." "Issues" that the counselor has
suggested could be helped if I "volunteered regularly." Thus my rant
proclivity.

- Bev