I took the day off today to chaperone my son’s pre-k trip to the Pumpkin Patch. I had two other boys to follow around and it felt like a five hour game of hide and seek. Or to mix metaphors, like they were blobs of mercury and could divide and flow into every little space in seconds. Except for my son, of course, the boys were heedless, running wherever their little brains thought they could find pleasure. One second, it was the bouncy house, then the slide, then the hay maze, or the hay ride. I was prepared for a lot of pleasure-oriented seeking, but not the heedless running, oblivious to either my yells or stern lectures. What a change from when I did this three years ago with my daughter’s kindergarten class.

I was one of three dads who took the day off, among perhaps ten other moms. The odds seem to be getting better. All in all, we had a grand time, fitting in all the clichés of autumn harvest, except the Halloween allusions. One of the kindergarten teachers mused, “If aliens landed and saw us out here communing with the hay and pumpkins, what would they conclude? A religious rite, preparation for war (with catapulted orange missiles?), or a harvest of the mainstay of our diet, the nutritious pumpkin. It was better not to dwell on this for too long or it would drain the entertainment value out of it.

The New York Times reports on parents who are foregoing the first year of school, usually known as kindergarten, for a looser, experience-based at home schooling experience.

They are part of a community of like-minded parents who are opting to enrich rather than formally educate their not-yet-school-age children (6 is the age that New York City law requires parents to register their children as home-schooled). They discovered one another through the New York City Home Educators Alliance (nychea.org), a home-schooling bulletin board.

…theirs is an ad hoc, day-by-day exploration into what it means to be a stay-at-home parent and child in an accelerated culture like New York. In a city where the race to be on top can start in infancy, the disconnect between these parents’ choices and the New York City norm is vast, as Ms. Rendell learned recently.

[From Home-Schooling Grows in New York City - NYTimes.com]

If I had the time and flexibilty, this sounds like an ideal way to continue those care-free years of babyhood on through age 6, with benefits for both mom or dad and for the child.

It’s hard to imagine what goes on in a little one’s mind when he goes to the big school, but you can help him overcome some fears by talking to him before hand.

For example, many kids at pre-school and even kindergarten level, are nervous about the bathroom. Reassure your child that he can ask to go any time. Some kids have accidents at school, and he should be aware that this type of thing can happen, and does happen to a lot of kids. If you have given him strict instructions on other people touching him in the bathroom, make sure he is aware of how changes in caregiving my change that policy, for example if a teacher has to wipe him. Some kids will time their bowel movements to avoid school time. Discuss this with your doctor if it becomes and issue.

Buy clothes for your child with easy closures. No child at this point wants to have to ask their teacher to help them button their pants. Just at the moment you are trying to teach them autonomy, don’t burden them suddenly with shoelaces that need to be tied by an adult.

School is an ideal time to teach about making friends. You don’t have to be a car salesman to know the value of walking right up to someone, pointing to something you have in common (your love of sand or the color of your tennis shoes) and introducing yourself. This is not a skill that comes easily, but kids can learn these skills to, especially if you show them how it works, by introducing yourself to other moms and dads.

Lunchtime might also be stressful, if your child has never had to eat on her own. Many kids get stressed at lunchtime because they don’t have the leisure to drag it out like they do at home. Make sure your child has items that are easy to manipulate on her own rather than complicated foods that need to be reheated and might be hard to eat.

Your child may be scared of other small details that don’t worry you at all. He might think the school nurse means lots of shots. Or the school bus looks like a big scary tunnel he might get lost in and never find his way back home. Explore and discuss things like this with your child by asking him about his likes and dislikes about the school.

With a very small amount of putting yourself in their shoes, you can easily take steps to ease into the transition to school.

Here are some tried and true tricks for easing separation anxiety on the first day of school, or for any upcoming separation.

1. Be positive. Your child will key off your emotions about the event.

2. Give your child a preview. Most schools have orientation or visiting day. Make sure the first day is not a completely new experience.

3. Schedule some playdates before the start of school. Seeing familiar faces on the first day will go a long way to averting anxiety.

4. Pack family photos and a small stuffed animal so your child has a little bit of home to take with him.

5. On the first day, don’t hang around longer than needed. Reassure him that you love him and that you’ll be back to pick him up, avoid the drama, and move quickly out the door, no matter how hard this is.

6. When you pick him up, don’t overdo your joy in the reunion because this will just remind him of the pain of separation.

Be reassured that separation is a necessary part of growing up and that you’re actually teaching your child a valuable life lesson, no matter how painful for you both at the moment.

If you’re sending your toddler off to daycare or preschool, be prepared for tears on the first day, and perhaps many after that. Separation anxiety is normal, as is a meltdown when you reappear (reminds them of the pain of the separation). There are many ways to ease this. See our article Ten Tips for Dads, Kids, and separation anxiety on the first day of school.

Here are five ways not to say goodbye:

1. Don’t be sad - while you may want to be empathetic, you will be communicating that it is a sad event, which reinforces your child’s fears.

2. Don’t be mad - sure, you’re getting late for work, and need to pull away. But it’s not the time to show this frustration to yours child.

3. Don’t hang on - it may seem more gentle to hang out for a long time to ease your child into the situation. But a clean break is actually better than prolonging the agony.

4. Don’t leave without saying goodbye - the worst thing is to disappear without one last reassurance that you’ll be back.

Someone had to invent this because it was sorely needed. For a dad who packs a lunch every day wondering whether the good stuff will get eaten, finding variety is a big issue. And, it doesn’t help that the school has banned peanut butter. I could never pack bananas because by the time the lunch box was tossed around the playground a few times, the banana was too mushy to be eaten. The Banana Bunker solves all that. It’s just a simple little sleeve for the banana that protects it from bruises. $6 from Amazon, though the shipping will add another $5 on.

Since my wife has a 9-5 (or 8-8) job, I’m the one in the carpool lane, at the doctor’s office, and often in the basement office volunteering for some school function. Some of it I complain about since driving kids around town for playdates does seem like very underpaid taxi work, but it all does have the advantage of providing more time with the kids and insights into their lives.

This week, it was time for the annual pre-school coffee and organizing event. In the past, I’ve been the only dad present and had a lot of fawning women telling me how much they appreciated that I showed up. This time, however, no fewer than three other dads were there. Two of us came alone and two were there with their wives. The objective of the event was to get us all to sign up to volunteer for various school events, including “Mom’s cooking,”"Moms’ night out” and “Dads reading day.” There were some nods towards the sexist nature of the project titles, but mostly appreciation that, once again, dads don’t always think like moms. Moms need an excuse like a “moms night out” to pull the plug and stake territory on an evening without the kids. Dads either don’t want to plan things that way (like I want to go out and spend the evening drinking and talking about childcare), or would rather stay at home watching TV or playing on the computer if they have a night off. Dads, we are told, are somehow more treasured as readers at the school, perhaps because it’s still a bigger event for dad to actually be at the school. Despite changing work patterns and dual incomes, in our neighborhood at least, it’s still more moms than dads hanging around the school for drop-off and pick-up. I signed up for “mom’s cooking” just to break through another barrier. If they let me in, I’ll give the full report.

So far, my start of the year plan is working. After three years of dilettantish ballet and piano lessons, second grade is here and it’s time to get down to some serious discipline. We, or I should say I, decided that 20 minutes of focused piano-playing per day was about right and I discussed it with my 7-year old. She’s somewhat ambivalent about piano, but since mom and dad both play, she takes it as more of a given than a real lifestyle choice. Anyway, so far so good. She’s done twenty minutes per day every day except for her lesson day and one day on the weekend, and sometime with no coaching. One thing that helped was getting a good timer. I opted for the Mark My Time Book Mark and Digital Timer. It’s pretty simple and cheap, and can also be used for timing reading. It counts both up to 20 and down from 20. When our friends at Active Allowance get their new chore charts done (Monday 9/24), piano will be right there as part of the daily rituals.