Having a kid lose a pet at that age is a major thing for them to process.
I love the school, but the disorganised over-parenting libertarian hippies can be overbearing at times.
I'm all for growing children with creative teaching and avoiding rote memorization, but I'd be horrified if that was at the cost of missing the best years for setting the pillars of rational thought.
Reading is taught later in a Steiner school than at most schools, but not to any detriment measurable later in schooling.
I’m not sure how one would accurately quantify the final outcome as demographics etc come into it. From my time at school there are surgeons, physicists, engineers (or various types), lawyers, mathematicians, accountants, tv producers, teachers etc. We had our share of dropouts too.
I also don’t believe that the early years are the most important for what is learned, and that they are more important for learning how to learn and how to enjoy the process.
Some of these people absolutely fell apart. It was the first time they’d ever lost anyone and they couldn’t process it. When gently pressed, we would find out they had no pets growing up. They had not lost so much as a goldfish.
A painless life can set you up for failure when real adversity comes. You lack the resilience, and in some cases the empathy, to navigate these situations.
Those experiences gave me a whole new perspective on peers whose parents got them goldfish or hamsters at a young age. Some of these parents were setting up object lessons. Basically the chicken pox party of loss.
At that point I had lost a dog, and as a sensitive kid it wrecked me. And the worst part of it was every time I caught my breath some new asshole would offer his condolences. Thanks, I wasn’t thinking about my dog for ten minutes and now I’m thinking about her again. Can we just stop talking about it please?
I learned to offer sympathy without an agenda. Engaging them is trying to make them process on your timeline. It’s thoughtless, even a little cruel. A good friend will step in and push if weeks later you have not mourned. But the next day? Give them space, Jesus.
I really appreciated, in that moment, the northern midwestern trope of bringing the bereaved food and just sitting with them. Let them talk, or not. I almost pulled a muscle watching Lars and the Real Girl. The little old ladies sitting in his living room, knitting, surrounded by casseroles and hot dishes. Just talking to each other and watching him out of the corner of their eyes. Talking about anything else. Yep that’s about it. Here if you need us, not holding our breath for you to say so.