Everybody knows that having an older sibling means you don't have to cut a new path for yourself, if you don't want to. Monday this meant that my 5-year old had a very easy adjustment to kindergarten. When asked if he was excited about school he reported "Yeah, but it's just TFS so it's no big deal."
Our nearly 8-year old froze in her classroom doorway on the first day and whispered "I don't know what to do." Third grade, the new frontier, was right across the hall from second grade. But without an older sibling cutting the path for her, it was a whole new planet, one to be explored cautiously.
Is this the case for every child? I know as a second child, I walked into kindergarten fearlessly. I owned that place, having watched patiently for a year as my sister played with their letter people and wooden stop signs. I wonder though, would my 8-year old be more fearless if she were following an older sib? Or could this tentativeness with "the new" be part of her personality? Maybe it's a little of both, a bit of "the chicken or the egg" paradigm?
