Update on the Kiddos

Okay, this post is a lengthy analysis of each child's current psycho-emotional state vis-a-vis being uprooted by their parents. Lots of writing - feel free to come back later for lighter fare...

The kids have now been in school for two full weeks. There have been so many things for them to adjust to - and the biggest and most obvious is the French-immersion half of their school day (they are attending a bilingual school, and arrived here knowing virtually no French). But they are also adjusting to different foods, new friends, new teaching methodologies, new sports (i.e. no baseball!!!), and just being away from everything that is familiar to them. The only constant for them right now is our little nuclear family and the support we can give each other as we navigate these new waters together.

Chris and I have talked a lot about the fact that WE chose to come here, and yet our little people are really the ones doing the hard work of integrating into an institution and learning a brand new language and culture. So on the one hand, WE feel good here - there is enough that is familiar and accessible to us that we are adjusting pretty quickly and reveling in the things we have always loved about Paris, but on the other hand - we're swimming upstream when it comes to dealing with the kinds of emotions and needs that are coming at us from the kids.

The first day of school, they were all miserable. Jonah said it was horrible, Loki was really practically in tears, and Maya was freaking out about French and the fact that she was never going to understand anything in the class. We were terrified, but kept reassuring ourselves that there can only be one first day, and at least the stock was low - it could really only go up from there!

In a future post I'll go into a little more detail about how the school operates (teaching styles, attitudes, etc..) but in brief, all the kids have two teachers who are each with the class half of the day (on a rotating schedule). They also have "specials" teachers, just like at SFDS, for music, art, P.E., computer, and swimming. The specials classes are mainly in French with English used as a support depending on the skill level of the instructor. The quality of the teachers so far is very impressive, but there are definitely cultural differences.

Each kid's path has been so unique, I'm going to give a little more detail about each of them....

Maya.

Maya had the farthest to fall in terms of her excitement and expectation. She has been such an advocate for this adventure, and really never wavered in her openness and enthusiasm for the trip. So that first day, when even she came home complaining that her French teacher "did nothing" to help her and she knew she could never learn French because they weren't teaching her anything in a way she could understand, we were worried. But we had met her teacher, and she seemed so perfect and wonderful, we hoped it would turn around.

Sure enough, day 2, her teacher had created a modified, parallel curriculum for her and the other two new-to-French students in the class. Maya came home the second day so enthusiastic and inspired. She really felt understood by her teacher's willingness to work with her at her level. She was on her way.

As an added bonus, Maya's teacher is tutoring her outside of school to help her with the nuts and bolts of French and get her up to speed to take on the challenging curriculum of Fourth grade. They are meeting weekly after school for two hours with another student from Maya's class and Maya is LOVING it.

Socially, Maya has already bonded with the girls in her class (it helps in an ironic way that there are only 5 girls out of 16 students) and is starting to connect with the boys, too. She is currently at a sleepover party at a chateau in the Champagne region celebrating a classmate's birthday. Only downside is they did not ask me to come along as a chaperone. Cool.

Loki.

Loki had us pretty concerned before we left, and the first week and a half were dicey. He was very worried about coming to France, and in typically insightful Loki style, he was the one who gave voice to the anxieties and fears we all had on some level about coming here. "What if I don't make friends?" "What if the teachers are not nice?" "What will I do when people don't UNDERSTAND me?" "I'm used to being good at baseball, but now the kids will play soccer..." "Will I be homesick?" We didn't have easy answers to his questions, and just tried to reassure him that we would try to get through it together. We also had the support of a wonderful therapist who I credit with helping unlock Loki's emotions such that he was able to communicate with us about his fears as well as he did.

The first week was basically a disaster for Loki. He wasn't eating. He actually threw up after day 2 (stress, I think) and had to stay home day 3. He was lucky in the sense that there was a group of new boys in his class from the US who were all pretty interested in him as a playmate, but he wasn't having it. Recess was awful, becasue they could only have one ball at a time, and the games were unstructured (and therefore uncompetitive, and therefore pointles in Loki's opinion). And by the end of the week, he got called out by his French teacher for teasing her. He did NOT want to learn French, and he was NOT going to try. At night, he was crying at bedtime, angry at me for torturing him, and just sad. We started researching English-speaking therapists (who, as it turns out, and not surprisingly, run a pretty good business supporting the ex-pats who are here involuntarily and struggling).

Then something magical happened. Loki got on board. First, he started eating again. And not just eating - trying every new food we could throw at him. And for those of you who know Loki, you'll know what a big deal that is! He even asked to join the school "cantine" where students are served a hot meal four days a week (but there is no choice - you get what you get, even if it's fish).

The next level of engagement happened somewhere in between "you'll need to learn cursive" and "you will be graded on this spelling test". Seriously. Somehow Loki found a connection between the double-whammy of his natural competitiveness and artistic talent, and the expectations of his French teacher. He came home on Friday of week two and told me, beaming, "I'm going to get an 'A' on my French test next week," and proceeded to write the days of the week and the numbers up to ten in perfect French in cursive (which he had never been taught).

Hallelujah! After that, all the little things seemed to fall into place. Suddenly, he is describing complicated ball games that he is playing with groups of kids at recess. He is excited about playdates with his new friends (even if their baseball arms aren't quite what he was hoping), and he today declared at a Parisian rugby match "I think I just found my new favorite game to watch!"

I am sure Loki will continue to have down times this year. He still gets a little sad at bedtime (missing Max, wanting home), but he seems so proud of himself for leaping over the hurdle of his own fears and hesitations and coming out on the other end inspired and... and what?... mature, I guess, knowing he's a booty-kicker. He's really grown.

Jonah.

Jonah, like Maya, has been pretty positive about our trip since the beginning. "Yeah, French!" he would yell when Chris and I would try to practice around the house before we left SF, while Loki would be covering his ears. But Jonah also had the biggest adjustment to make, as he was not only coming to France, but also starting Kindergarten (he'll do K again at SFDS next year). Loki was the one who said it best. "Jonah sure is in for a big surprise when he gets to school and it's not Glenridge!" Instead of digging in the mud and free play for 5 hours out of 6, he was going to be sitting at tables, doing teacher-selected projects and learning to read, write and do pencil and paper math. BIG change.

His first day, when he came out of school and yelled at me "school was HORRIBLE!!" I panicked. That was when our preschool director offered us our spots back on Facebook! But it turned out that his only serious complaint about the day was that the moment before pickup the children had been "shushed" by their teacher. We explained that while we were sorry he was hushed, he should understand that it is just because there are offices right next to the pick-up area and it's a quiet place. Day two, when I dropped him off, I knew he was going to be okay because as we walked past the pick up I was talking to him and he turned to me with a stern face and said, "Hush, mommy!"

It turns out Kindergarten suits Jonah. And while we've been trying to give him a little extra "nature time" - hunting for treasures on the Champ du Mars - he has been thriving in school. He has friends, they play pirates at recess, and they have a lot of the cool activities that they had at his preschool. And, says Jonah, "it's cool that the Eiffel Tower is basically right in the corner of our playground."

But all is not perfection in Jonahland... He is not so happy with the fact that the teachers limit the number of activities that can be done at a certain time. Jonah to Chris at pickup, day 2: "You can only take out four games. At Glenridge you can take out all the games. It is really very f@#$ing." I guess we all need our outlets!!

And so....

All in all, it has been an extremely dense 2 weeks. Chris and I are both so immensely proud of our kids for taking on this challenge. If we had to go home tomorrow, I feel they would leave with a new sense of themselves as risk-takers and cultural chameleons. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to take this journey with them. They inspire me.

(This was actually taken last spring in Marin, but I couldn't resist - aren't you proud of them, too?? :)