My son Lawrence started kindergarten last year. It was kind of tough on him. The class was three hours long, and they only had a short, ten minute recess about halfway through. And unlike pre-school, there was a curriculum that had to be completed by the end of the year. Goodbye Show and Tell, hello learning by rote. His teacher was wonderful and very patient, but it eventually became clear that he was having trouble. Nearly every day he got a time-out for talking in class. His teacher worked with him on these issues, but after all, there were nineteen other children in the class. So she was very concerned that the first grade teachers would be less tolerant than she was, and that his self esteem would suffer from constant discipline and being made to feel like a bad kid. His grades were good, and everyone found him very personable, but he was definitely disruptive.

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