‘I will need a laptop when I start school,’ my 4-year-old daughter confidently informed me.
She is due to start school in September and will be going to the lovely, tiny village school that is minutes away from our house in the UK.
I knew she’d need a pencil case and school shoes, but I really wasn’t expecting her to need a laptop.
When I tried to reason with her, and point out it was unlikely the school would ask 4-year-olds to have their own computer, she answered, ‘It’s for my homework.’
That was that. She’d heard so much about ‘big’ school from older relatives, that she was convinced she knew what she was getting herself in to, despite me trying to tell her I thought it was unlikely the youngest classes were given homework.
Looking at her face, full of excitement, with messy hair and remnants of nursery school detritus on it, my heart broke slightly as I imagined what the next few weeks, months, and years would look like.
Things are changing
While my daughter sees school as her biggest adventure so far, I see it as the start of the rest of her life. And with it comes the inevitable highs and lows of growing up.
Along the way she’s going to experience the joy of close friendships, the pain of friendship break-ups, the excitement of a school trip and, yes, the slog of homework.
After primary school, there’ll be secondary school, maybe university, and a career to follow.
There’ll be Sunday evening battles over getting bags ready for the school week, carefully planned camps to tide over the long summer break, and playdates with people who, I hope, will become some of our closest friends but who we haven’t even met yet.
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She is ready, I’m not
She still feels so small, but is also so determined to grow up in a hurry. She can’t wait to be at school and keeps gleefully reminding her younger brother that she won’t be at nursery school with him this year.
She says, “I am going to school and you are not, because you are only a baby.”
Her indignant younger brother, replies, “Not a baby.”
She is ready to leave him behind and move on, to a place where she’s going to be the smallest fish in a large pond.
My heart is aching
I don’t know when the novelty and excitement will wear off, but when it does I can’t think of a way to sugarcoat the pill that this is her life for years to come.
But I also know that along the way I will have the privilege to witness her grow into a wonderful human being- shaped by everything life throws at her, beginning in the next few weeks and continuing for years.
Imagining my tiny girl in a uniform slightly too big for her, holding my hand nervously in the playground on her first day, my heart contracts.
I know that she is more than ready for this step, and as a parent, I have to let her fly and just be there to catch her when or if she falls. However, I will not be, under any circumstances, buying her a laptop.
