T’was The Month Before Kindergarten: Supporting Children with Big Transitions and Big Behaviors

Illustrated by Leia O., Age 6

There are two moments I look back on every school year as we creep closer to summer and look forward to graduating a group of children from preschool. Two memories, in fact, that live in my consciousness as my own graduation from Micah: Inexperienced Preschool Teacher to Micah: (Slightly More) Experienced Preschool Teacher. 

The first took place in my first year as a lead teacher. I’d taken over a classroom left by my beloved mentor teacher that March, giving me precious few months to establish relationships with the children and families before many of them would move on to Kindergarten. In the hopes of making the transition as smooth as possible (hahahahah!), I spent hours pouring through the notes I’d taken as a student-teacher and trying to remember all the information my mentor had loaded my brain with before she left. I made special lesson plans for each individual child and tried to pre-plan strategies for those children who usually presented “challenging” behaviors. I kept those children who usually needed extra support close to me, and we waded through the next few months as best we could, trying to hold those particular children’s heads above the waters of change. I was doing an adequate job, too, until - all of a sudden, it seemed - things changed. The children changed, starting with T. 

T was the type of mild-mannered child novice teachers rely on indirectly, figuring they don’t need the overbearing surveillance novice teachers think the others need. No, when you’re new to teaching, you look at the quiet, calm children, see that they are independently engaged, smile, sigh in relief, and then turn your immediate attention to the child beating on the “Peaceful Pat” puppet you bought at Barnes and Noble with your own money. T was the child I mostly ignored. 

So imagine my surprise one sunny afternoon when a child approached me crying, apparently devastated over T rejecting them from a game of family. Being that I also didn’t know how to support a child in engaging in play on their own, I, of course, marched right over.

T was stomping up the play structure stairs, Twinkle Toe shoes flashing red with every step.

“What’s going on, T?” I asked, expecting a reaction in line with her calm character. Perhaps surprised concern about the miscommunication and clear overreaction of her playmate, or just “I wanted to be the dad.”

Instead, T turned around and howled; her face contorted into a mask of pure rage or some other, more primal emotion (something akin to the angst that inspires moshing at a Slipknot concert). She took a swipe at me, punishing the air around us for my insolence, and ran up the play structure sobbing.

I was stunned. So much so that my only response was to turn to the other teacher in the yard and say, “Did you just see that?! What the eff just happened?”

The teacher said, “Oh yeah, well, she’s going to kindergarten in two weeks. They get like that.”

They get like that? That was her explanation?!

“It’s fine,” the other teacher said. “Just let her.”

The Perfect Teacher in my brain was deeply unsatisfied. How could I just accept the fact that they get like that without doing something? Wasn’t I supposed to intervene? Act with authority whenever a child behaves in such a way? Perfect Teachers should know how to fix moments like that, don’t they? 

And guess what? Over the next few years, I started to see the proof. Every year around summertime, pre-kindergarten children just...got like that. The calmest, most predictable children would have moments of pure, unadulterated push-back against their care-takers and friends, strange bouts of anxiety before school or during drop-off, and sometimes they’d have accidents again after being toilet-learned for years. I started to call this phenomenon kindergarten feelings. Just the idea of such a big, impending transition in the air caused the children to feel an anxiety or restlessness they couldn’t describe but could only feel. Over time, I learned how important it is to just let them feel. Sorry, Perfect Teacher Micah. You can’t fix another person’s feelings, but you can learn to be a supportive companion and guide to get through them.

A few years later, I put the theory of kindergarten feelings to the test. Or rather, the theory tested me.

It was my first day working as a long-term sub at a new school, and I was supervising the outdoor space. Playing there was a group of roving, pushing, chasing children who’d clearly outgrown the playground, just generally making a scene. Upon my reminding them of the school agreement to go up the stairs and down the slide, one of these children turned and shot me in the face with a finger gun, calling out, “Shoot her! Shoot her!”

“I am not playing that game,” I said, starting to feel outnumbered and unjustifiably nervous (I was still the adult, right? Right).

Now, listen up. I told you this was the moment I felt experienced, and this is why:

I recognized that I was getting (literally) triggered to react rather than respond to the play of these children. 

So, for a second, I did nothing. I let them circle the play structure and shoot at me while I considered the situation. I didn’t know these children, and they didn’t know me. I had no idea what their lives or needs were like. I also realized it was really just this one child who was riling up the others. This one child who must have been...about five years old. In May. Must be...kindergarten feelings. 

I put my arm out and stopped him mid-fire, and said, “Hey, how old are you?”

“Five,” the child said with obvious big-kid pride and then tried to wriggle away. 

“Oh, then you must be about ready to go to kindergarten.”

The child froze, suddenly not so sure. “Yeah…” I could practically see the stomach ache starting. 

“Have you ever been to kindergarten?” I asked.

They looked down. “No.”

“Well, my name is Micah. I used to be a teacher in a kindergarten, and if you have any questions about it, you can ask me.”

Without a second’s hesitation, the child looked into my eyes and blurted out, “Is kindergarten big? Are there a lot of kids there?”

I smiled. “Kindergarten is a little bigger than your school now. But don’t worry, there won’t be so many children in your class. Come find me if you have any more questions later.”

The shooting stopped, but more importantly, that child gave me a shy little wave whenever they saw me from then until graduation. A relationship was built in the place of a reprimand because I was able to separate the developmental from the situational and respond rather than react to the children in my care. 

It took years of practice, but I’m proud to say that when summer comes and many subsequent changes approach, I get like that.