Preschool nightmares

Preschool nightmares

Posted on October 6th, 2010 by Nancy DeGregorio

Lately I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I have recurrent dreams about something that is so terrifying, so stressful, and so dreadful, it is invading my subconscious, waking me at all hours of the night, and rendering me unable to fall back asleep. What, you ask, is keeping me up at night? The answer: preschool. That’s right, I’m having preschool nightmares.

According to conventional wisdom, my son is at the age where he will soon be ready for preschool. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of experience with preschools. I never attended, nor did my husband, my parents, my other relatives, or my friends. We all turned out fine, or at least we appear that way, so I wonder if it’s really necessary for him to start school at such a young age.

When I was young, the kids in the neighborhood congregated outside every day and formed our own version of preschool. We learned sportsmanship by organizing ourselves into teams and playing kickball. We discovered art by drawing on the sidewalks with chalk. We learned social norms by doing things like tying the weird kid to the lamppost and then running away, making him wait a few hours for his parents to rescue him. But times are different now. Generally children don’t play outside near their homes with the other neighborhood kids. They stay indoors because they are busy blogging, tweeting, and updating their Facebook pages. Either that or their parents viewed the sex offender registry online, and refuse to let their children play outside in fear of the offender who lives seventeen blocks away.

Preschool during the good old days

Despite our hesitation, my husband and I have decided that my son could benefit from the formal social interaction of preschool. Recently, we started taking preschool tours and attending open houses. The preschool open house is no small operation. Preschool directors pull out all the stops to impress parents, never failing to mention the foreign language classes, fine arts classes, and weekly trips to local museums. And the facilities are amazing. A gym and fitness area, an Olympic-size pool, a “sensory room”, cafeteria, computer room, roof deck, spa, a yoga and meditation room — preschool has it all. All of the rooms are open to prospective parents on the tour, including a stop in the parent-teacher happy hour room (major plus for the preschool).

Preschool computer lab

With preschool, money is no obstacle. From the non-refundable application fee, tuition, school lunches for the entire student body, donations, and trips, parents have to break out the checkbook on more than one occasion. I quickly learned that upon receipt of the preschool application, the normal course of action for a parent is to promptly make it rain, lest the child lose a coveted spot for the fall.

Parents paying the preschool application fee

Before I took my first preschool tour, I vowed not to become obsessed with finding the best school. I’m pretty sure I broke that vow. It is difficult to keep from getting wrapped up in the search. I want the best fit for my son, and so it has become a mission to find the right place, even if it means visiting every preschool in town. And all this preschool fervor has obviously overrun my subconscious mind.

Consider the dream I had last night. In the dream, I was on yet another preschool tour. At the start of the tour, the parents were greeted by an overbearing school director. She barked at us for making too much noise and not paying attention. Then she herded us into the the preschool gift shop. We were forced to buy special school supplies that the children needed during the preschool year. We weren’t allowed to leave until we bought the supplies.

Then we went downstairs to a large auditorium, which was sectioned off into smaller areas, including a petting zoo and a barnyard with farm animals. There was also a room full of primates. In this room, King Kong was trying to escape his cage, roaring and trying to push on the bars to get out. Upon seeing King Kong, I started running for my life. I ran until I was out of breath. It turned out to be a cruel joke on me, since the fearsome Kong was electronic, not real, and only part of the preschool open house production (developed and operated by the preschool drama team, of course).

Overzealous parent demanding to know why the school

isn’t properly childproofed

I woke with a start. Thankfully, it was only a dream — the preschool director, the gift shop, the petting zoo, and even King Kong were only figments of my overactive imagination. I quickly wrote the dream down, sure to discuss this one with my therapist at my next visit.