Kindergarten

Friends have asked how's he at kindergarten. He was supposed to have started nursery end of June/beginning of July. But we postponed the starting date to August as we were concerned about the H1N1. August saw a steady rise in the number of deaths caused by the virus, so we postponed again to Sept. Now that it's Sept, we're postponing it again, to October upon hearing the news that there's a new strain that goes straight to the lungs. We're hoping the situation improves & that he does get to go. He's been looking forward to it.



Born at 32 weeks, his lungs & immune system were not mature. His episode of pneumonia when he was 1.5 months old landed him in NICU. He almost died. Now that he's older, he's stronger but still has relatively weak lungs & easily gets phlegm, coughs, bronchitis, bronchiolitis requiring frequent hospital trips for the nebuliser.



We had a hard time getting him accepted into the kindergarten. From the very first phone call enquiring about places, to the 2 visits to the principal's office, it was stressful on me. Many questions were posed on what he can do. To which the answer was mostly 'no, not yet'. E.g. no, he's not yet toilet trained. No, he doesn't speak audibly. It was discouraging & depressing. It felt like they were seeing his disabilities and not his abilities.


To be fair, they do not have teachers trained to teach special needs kids and hence had lots of concerns. And they had bad experiences with other special needs kids they took in previously. From what they said, it seemed those kids had behavioural problems e.g. autism, ADHD types. They also had one with mental retardation. They've not had any with neuromuscular issues.


My son is teachable. His therapists say he should be mainstreamed & not placed in 'special schools'. He has gross & fine motor issues. I'm working on that. It takes time. There are ways to work around his disabilities but it requires patience & creativity from the teacher. But teachers are always stressed and short of resources, in general.


The education system here poorly supports any kid with disabilities. From what I read, it's so different overseas. Developed countries adopt the 'inclusive' approach, where learning disabled kids are included with normal kids in the same classroom. They have teachers aide specially for the child. In UK for example, the government gave extra funding to the school for my friend's son who has Asperger's so that they can better cater to his needs. Isn't that fantastic?


Anyhow, I'm very grateful that the kindergarten has accepted him, on a one month trial basis, on the further condition that there be a shadow aide. I really am looking forward to him starting kindergarten. I do not know how far he will progress there. I do not know if he will be accepted for a permanent place. Time will tell. I'm being positive about it but have also taken note of other options.