Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Don't Cry, My Baby!

Cry baby cryImage by tostadophoto.com via Flickr

Maya is still crying in the morning, telling me that she doesn't want to go to the gan (kindergarten in Hebrew). This morning I could hardly peel her from myself as she cried so hard. I ended crying myself, my husband got pissed off and said :"I thought I had one child and now I have two" (isn't he considerate?). So I cried harder and told him to f*** off and leave me alone. Half of the kids in Maya's gan are still crying in the morning. Of course, even if Maya's in a good mood, seeing them triggers her tears too and when I leave I can hear them howling from a distance. Of God, I didn't know it would be so hard...
Maya loves kids and loves to be among them, I think the fact that she doesn't like to be told off and that she doesn't understand everything in Hebrew make her miserable. And the teacher doesn't help much, not being able to understand Maya's handicap. We live here in a country of immigrants. There are a lot of kids that go to the gan and school without knowing the language. For pupils and students they have ulpanim (ulpan, singular - a special school for learning the hebrew language) and because usually kids Maya's age pick quickly the language, they are just put in gan and they learn there from interacting with other kids. When Maya started kindergarten, she knew her basic Hebrew and now her vocabulary expanded seriously. But she still has problems understanding, for example, stories or long poems. So she gets bored quickly when they have story time and being Maya, she doesn't want to just sit and listen...imagine yourself being forced to sit through a lecture that is spoken in a language you still have difficulties understanding. You'll get bored or even worse, frustrated. But you, being an adult, will sit it through. Well, Maya is three years old and haven't yet mastered the science of sitting quietly just because she "has to". She usualy wanders away and when I go to pick her up at noon, I am given a lecture by the teacher and advised to take her to a phychologist. I try to reason with her, but I am speaking to a wall in most of the cases. Well, what next?
I love Maya very much, she is really the reason why I wake up in the morning, I also know that I have to let her go, but I don't like the fact that going to the gan doesn't make her if not happy, at least pleased. And I am not pleased at all by her teacher. I think I'll have to make inquiries and take her to a private gan. It is more expensive, but from what I've heard, they have only 10 -15 kids in a group...
That's it for now...See you all later, with better things, I hope...
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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Way back when... we found that crying when going to óvoda (gan, pre school, kindergarten, whatever) was really a ritual and the kids calmed down within minutes of parents leaving.

I do agree with you, however, that in your case looking for a private gan might be a very good idea.

L. J. Lowe said...

I've mentioned homeschooling before. Have you looked into it? There is a growing group of homeschoolers in Israel.