Field Trips x2
My 4 year old son C is missing a bunch of daycare right now because his foot fracture needs to heal. It’s great to spend some extra time with him, but he had two field trips planned this week. I ended up getting the idea to just take him to the field trip so that he could see his teachers and friends. I didn’t want him to miss out on those big trips.
The first field trip was to a place where all of the kids ended up painting ceramic mugs. I had originally volunteered a few weeks back to help one of the tables get set up with paint. I was also going to help any kids that needed extra help during the painting process. I mainly volunteered because I wanted to spend more time with C. Now that his foot was hurt, I still wanted him to go and I also wanted to help the class out by showing up as one of the chaperones.
At first, C was excited to see his friends and teachers. He eagerly said hi to everyone and was laughing and smiling. The turning point was after a few minutes, everyone started to ask about his foot and why he was being carried around. They also were wondering why he wasn’t in class. He answered a few of the questions, but started to get shy. It turns out that he was feeling sad and embarrassed about his foot. He didn’t want everyone to look at it, and he didn’t want to answer all of those questions. I asked him if he didn’t want everyone to look at it or only certain people. He answered that he was fine talking to people he was close to, but he didn’t want others to look at his foot.
I didn’t know that he would feel sad or embarrassed about it or else I would have second guessed the decision to come to the field trip. At least he sat at a table that was randomly chosen, but it was all of his friends that he was closer to. C ended up painting a crazy rainbow mug and when I asked him whether he was sure he was done, he said he actually wasn’t done and decided to put random brown splotches all over the mug. At least it would seem fitting that it looks like coffee was spilling all over it because lots of coffee will be had from that mug!
We added things great for the first field trip and it was a learning experience for me to make sure C was fine with what happened. He had another trip to the library later that week, and I talked to him about whether or not he was going to feel ok seeing his teachers and friends again. He told me that it would be fine and that he would have fun going to the library with everyone.
On the day of the library field trip, we ended up getting there before everyone else did. Since everyone knew what happened already, nobody really asked, and we were just part of the class I ended up having to carry him for about 45 minutes through a library tour. I definitely thought that it was going to be a 10 minute tour with a bit of story-time, but that did not happen. They wanted to show us the whole library while I was holding a 4 year old.
When we got to the children’s section, all the kids were encouraged to pick a book. I brought C around and he chose a Narwhal and Jelly book to read. We ended up sitting a reading and some of his friends came over to listen to. When it was time to go, we checked out the book and I knew that he had a great time seeing all of his teachers and friends again. Even though he was missing daycare all of this week, the field trips really helped him feel like he was not missing out. It’s also good to interact with them in a different environment outside of the classroom. All in all, it was a good week and I got to spend a lot of extra time with C. Something that I’ll look back on fondly I’m sure. Especially while sipping coffee out of my brown splattered rainbow mug.
