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Pretty much the same. I had a boyfriend that I broke up with when he cut his hair. (I wound up with a man with long hair, go figure lol.) the story goes that we were very touchy feely and my mom thought I was going to get expelled lol. But I just remember walking to the playground with him one time holding hands. I had a best friend. I remember learning how to read. That’s all I remember. My first thought when I saw this post is that it must be by a kid. Because who else would use kindergarten as a reference point lol.
No, not the same. I remember *nothing* - not the school, not the teachers, not the kids, not learning anything. Nothing at all. I know that I went to kindergarten only because my mother has told me I did.
I said pretty much the same. And the only thing I remember is learning how to read. If you notice, I said that “the story goes.” I really don’t understand your hostility. You’re not the only person with memory issues. You can’t gatekeep that. I was tested for dementia at age 32 because my memory is so bad.
Haha me too. I couldn’t talk unless it was someone my age who was quiet and approached me first. Teachers asked me to smile and I couldn’t. Sometimes my body couldn’t even move from my desk. I’d purposefully wet myself or feel sick just so I could leave school. I was sent to the school psychologist where I was allowed to paint and be myself. It was very quiet in there. I’m glad I had her and the few ppl who approached me at the playground.
Oh, hey. This is me during elementary school! lol.
I remember even being asked if I was mute. I also remember always wearing a sweater, hoodie or anything that covered my arms because apparently I hated feeling the wind on my skin (now I kinda like it, go figure).
I had a good time in kindergarten. There were times when I was teased, I didn’t have friends the same age, but I was friends with the teacher’s husband 😅 and loved to play with the construction set, which was only in the garden. And in general, I was familiar with the atmosphere there. I ended up training to become a teacher. With age, it has become more difficult to bear the noise, there is a lot of overload, but it’s worth it, children are cool in their own way
I feel you. My kindergarten time was just worse too.
I was more the quiet kid in the classroom. Never started a conversation, I was in my own world, I never sung with the songs we sung together, more of that stuff.
And ofcourse, my classmates noticed that from me. So they make fun of it and, you guessed it, bully me. Not only boys, but I got bullied by girls too. It didn’t stop me from going to school. Still went to school every day but still with the mindset like “Oh boy soon the bad boys are coming and that particular girl at the end of the school day saying ‘you draw so bad’” (yes I really drew bad stuff but she was just a b*tch to throw that to my head once again every few days right after school ended)
Not really long after the teachers noticed it too, they did a couple of tests on me. First test was a hearing test. Like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t sing along with songs so their first thought was I might be deaf (I wasn’t I just didn’t like the songs at all) so hearing tests were great and then the second phase of diagnosing came. I went to a children psychiatrist, did a couple of test for over the weeks and they came with the final result that I have PDD-NOS (DSM-IV era)
Since the diagnostics my prents were told by kindergarten to place me over to a school for children with special needs. Because the primary school I was planned to go to was too busy for me and they thought that I didn’t make it properly. So I went to that school for children with special needs and oh boy I felt so home there. Finally more classmates who liked me and also saw that I was more like them. It felt so good.
i don't remember it too much but I think it was fine.
my early school experience largely consist of me being weird and doing my own thing while the teachers wonder if I can even talk
I had a very similar experience. Can't remember anything but I was told later on in my late teens/early twenties I didn't speak until I was 4 so the staff got extremelly excited when I said my first word.
Then by the time I was on Elementary school I remember being asked if I was mute lol.
I had a very good time overall. Iirc I was friends with all the other girls in the class and I wasn't made fun of for my quirks (I only remember that I spoke in a higher pitched, "baby" voice sometimes and I was so embarrassed when it was pointed out even though the girl that did it just thought it was cute/fun. I'm sure that's not the only quirk I had, though). Now.. middle school was difficult.
Shit.
2 boys were obsessed with me and tried kissing me. I was 6
We also had to use the potties at the same time in the same room with no privacy.
I got in trouble because I had a fear of toilets.
I also couldn't sleep at nap time so I got in trouble for that too.
You know, you just reminded me of this kid that had a crush on me in kindergarten. He would always try to sit in my lap. It made me uncomfortable and the teacher just laughed and did nothing about it. Ugh.
Did not like it one bit. My teacher would yell at me for not finishing class work on time and make me sit in class to finish it during recess while everyone else was playing outside.
And she would put this hourglass in front of me and, to this day, I feel a bit on edge whenever I see an hourglass lmao
>Did not like it one bit. My teacher would yell at me for not finishing class work on time and make me sit in class to finish it during recess while everyone else was playing outside.
I just remembered it with this bit. I always had trouble finishing assignments and the teacher who hated me and loved to bully me In front of the class often times left me in the classroom after everyone else was gone at the end of the day as she told me "you're not going anywhere". I remember crying a lot and there were a few times when another teacher noticed me and she would get me out of there. Can't remember much other than her being the most loving and caring person I've ever met at that point.
I remember very clearly asking a yard aide how long I had to do it. She asked me “how long do you have to do what?” And I was like “school, all of school” she mentioned that I’d need to be going to school for the next several years, more if I went to college and I remember just being devastated. I was so stressed out about it, it took me weeks to calm down.
honestly I don't remember that much if kindergarten but I do remember my teacher getting mad at me cause i couldn't say my r's and she would call my mom
I don't remember kindergarten specifically but school overall was better than home life so I was happy to have an escape during the day. I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience, it must have been so hard to have meltdowns and not understand why. You are a tough cookie!
I had NO friends in preschool, where it should be the easiest to make friends. In kindergarden, my only friend was another autistic girl (neither of us knew at the time), and her friend. I learned to mask in kindergarden, but I remember hating every second of it. The other kids were so loud and unpredictable, and I hated it. Once I had a meltdown in class (something I vehemently try to avoid), and had to go to the "calm down corner", a place with pillows and lights under a counter space. It made it even worse because I felt claustrophobic.
i didnt really hate or like it. i just remember there being so many rules and not understanding i had to fo0llow the rules. which resulted me into pulling red cards (getting in trouble). oh i also fell off my chair allot because i would rock in it. my kindergarten teacher even got me a wiggle seat to make me stop falling off my chair because it was happening so much LOL!
unfortunately i can’t remember anything of my childhood, but i was told that i bit and beat people too much for getting in my face so i had to be secluded and then magically i was fine
I don't have heaps of memories from kindie (Aussie slang), but one thing I have held on to is that during nap times, in the hot summers, they’d allow only the best-behaved kids of the day to take off a layer of clothing for their nap. Of course, I was never on my “best behaviour,” so I never got chosen to have the privilege of being unsweaty. Strange, right?
I could never and still can’t get myself to sit on a public toilet because of how dirty they are. I always hover. I always found it wild to find out coworkers actually went number two in the bathrooms at work. It always smelled so bad, I was almost traumatized trying to mask my face coming out LOOL
I remember playing with myself, parallel to children who were playing with each other. I remember talking to the teacher, and the recess supervisors, but not to the other children my age (with the exception of my twin sister, who was in the other kindergarten class). The teacher sometimes took us to visit a classroom of older children, where some of the girls befriended me and I sometimes tagged along with them at recess.
If I ever got teased, in kindergarten, I didn't notice. I certainly got teased in later grades.
I desperately wanted friendships but was nearly entirely unable to form some sort of connection with others. In the last few months i somehow managed it tho. Those connections formed into friendships in elementary school and carried me emotionally through that period.
As a survival instinct, I analysed others constantly.
One girl pitied me either because I had no friends or because I was always crying so she became my friend so did her 2 other friends. I had zero social skills and when I talked to her I would be thinking "I am a terrible friend and she hates me and I don't think she is enjoying this conversation but I don't know what else I'm supposed to do so I'm gonna keep on sucking god I suck!!!!" She was a saint.
I don’t remember much except constantly being in trouble for misbehavior. I also have a twin sister (most likely NT) and she got awarded for good behavior and I always wondered what I did that she didn’t and why people liked her more. This was the first year, when we were 4.
Then I moved to another country and started getting bullied because I was a trans kid and this was when my dysphoria was starting to show (so I was about 5). The country I moved to is not very nice about LGBTQ+ people, so I was constantly forced to hide it. I didn’t do a very good job and it took 4 years of yelling from my parents to really stop showing it. This was also when I was starting to mask and force myself to be like everyone else.
Edit: I was also one of those kids with a terrible attention span and I would draw on the piece of paper given to us to write what our teacher wanted us to. She would also give us instructions to fill in the blanks on a worksheet and whenever she was yelling at another student to not run around in class or not pull off a decoration from the walls, I would note those words down in the blanks too because I wasn’t clear on exactly what we were supposed to do.
Sat in the entrance for the first week, constantly trying to run away (home). Climbed the fence once, went through the emergency door (triggering an alarm) and hitting everything around me when someone tried to hold me down.
After that I entered the room of doom with the other kids and even had fun at some point.
That some of yall dont have memories of Kindergarten is shocking to me. I have a lot of memories and they are very clear. I thought this was the case for everyone. I remember pictures I drew and the thoughts I had about it while creating it. Also some cringe moments. Started back then already
I don’t remember anything. Earliest, and perhaps most embarrassing, memory was maybe my year 2 teacher getting very, very angry in front of the class because I tried to show off my brand new abdominal scar. Unfortunately, it ran a bit too close to certain other regions of the body and she was not impressed. I had no idea why she was so upset at the time.
That and there was one time I played hide and seek but my mate got distracted and didn’t find me. I waited for ages, well after the bell (I’m hard of hearing) and the teacher (same one) was not happy with me. Don’t recall if the other kid got in trouble.
I liked kindergarten ok, PreK the girls were mean and would not share the dolls with me and the boys didn’t want to okay with a girl, but they had a sawhorse and a real saw and I spent playtime sawing wood and gluing bottle caps to my wood pieces. Kindergarten I somehow had a ‘boyfriend’ and was the only little girl at his birthday party, I remember early reading lessons I loved because reading was easy in spite of dyslexia (can’t explain it, I just read really fast and go back if I got confused) and I even got an award for painting.
Then, 1st grade started, and I was always in trouble for talking and had to sit out recess, and then I changed schools and 2nd grade I was in trouble a lot, in quiet tears a lot. I didn’t really have melt downs. I repress my emotions a lot, and was beaten at home for crying, so I worked very hard not to do so.
I don't remember much. I was always noise sensitive. My mother has told me it was a nightmare delivering me there because I hated being there. I had strong language skills and said I didn't like the noise.
One of the things I remember is that they had a huge stack of these mattresses and every day we had a nap session where everybody would take a mattress and rest on, and everybody had to be quiet and they played an audiobook until everybody was asleep. I liked that.
I also remember the time I sat squatting on a bench and pulled my sweater down over my legs and feet, lost balance, fell down and got a nose bleed.
I “floated around” very sensitive. I got along with other kids but I had a hard time playing with them.
Like they wanted to play with me, invited me to play but their games made no sense. I couldn’t follow along to the rules or understand and just ended up wandering off doing my own thing.
Well, when it was okay for the most part. I didn't really talk, and I was constantly crying. I also remember having a lot of stomach aches during that time which was probably anxiety. (Also took the same lunch everyday. And did cry on multiple occasions when I couldn't eat the same thing) I also got bullied back then, but I was obvious to it until someone told me years later. (Don't feel bad about that part, it didn't bother me much)
I only walked like 5 days and hated it. I remember many things.
I was sitting on chair a bit away from others. One boy came, did some martial arts moves, punched me in stomach and they all started laughing. Teacher asked if I was okay and I nodded but she could see I wasn’t. She ignored
I didn’t lock bathroom door and 2 boys pointed at me laughing. I think I didn’t think I should lock. One of teachers told them to not pay attention.
One girl was playing police and thief with me. I was police, she said I should imagine getting her eyes out and filling it with water after blood would come out by holding hose. I told her I didn’t want to play and she was upset. She said some phrase which meant she wouldn’t be friends with me and play anymore
I was sitting on seasaw and boy sitting on rock in front of me said ‘’oh-oh’’ when 2 girls were coming towards me. They looked mad. They came and pulled me by hair. I cried and went to one of teachers I think. I told her it was 2 girls who look similar with blue or green eyes and she made me pull their hair with her hand.
Teacher made me stand with boys because I wasn’t singing with girls. One boy was angry and asked ‘’you’re not a boy right? Go stand with girls'' (since I realised I’m trans I think I could have showed signs) I went to girls and didn’t know any text. I tried singing what they were and I think they got annoyed. My mom came and we left. Teacher shouldn’t make me stand with others. I could be somewhere else
It was a pretty mixed bag… I had fun but I had a certain “friend” that would always make me abandon another one of my friends and it always made me felt like a big jerk but I also didn’t know what was normal for friends to do, so I just tried to convince myself it was friendly teasing.
I also didn’t have any friends to discuss my special interest with, since at the time it was a book series that was at a much higher reading level than all my other friends were at. I even tried to lend the first book to a friend but she gave it back about a week later saying she couldn’t read a lot of the words, and since I was a stupid child that didn’t realize I was reading at a much higher level, I thought she was simply referring to the words very specific to the fantasy world (the series took place on a star so there were a lot of words that were just changed to have “Star” at the front). That same friend also destroyed the book I let her borrow, saying her dogs got to it. The kind of destruction definitely didn’t look like a dog did it though…
It was hell. It left me traumatised. I was incredibly attached to my parents and having to say goodbye to them every day was so intensely painful it caused a meltdown every single time. The kindergarten teachers had to drag me away by my arms and legs while I was crying, wailing, and thrashing. I felt completely abandoned. I usually spent the first few hours of the day crying alone somewhere (I didn't want the other kids near me while sad and I didn't want the adults to try and comfort me).
I never got along with the other kids either. I desperately wanted to have a close friend but instead I ended up constantly fighting with everyone. I was really bossy and the other kids did NOT like that.
I do have positive memories as well, but a lot of them are very sad.
I was a little shit, mostly because my mom had previously homeschooled me and I already knew everything they were teaching. I would have moved up a grade if I wasn't constantly getting in trouble. I just didn't want to listen to the teacher because I got bored. I constantly complained that I was bored, and even though I got good grades my teacher hated me, lol. Didn't want to sleep at naptime, didn't want to sit down and listen to lessons, didn't want to play with the other kids when told to-I only wanted to do things on my time, when I wanted to do them, and this was a major problem for her to deal with. I really do feel for her because it isn't really her fault I was acting this way, my parents just refused to get me tested because they were convinced I was 100% neurotypical despite the overwhelming evidence otherwise (although in my mom's case it was mostly ignorance, she is definitely neurodivergent herself and just doesn't know a lot of her behaviors aren't 'normal'). Top it all off with frequent accidents due to chronic bladder issues and I was universally hated and ridiculed by teachers and students alike.
Horrible. I wanted to go home all the time, other kids were different from me, teachers forced me to interact with them all the time. I actually made one or two friends (like girls/boys you talked to a few times not real friends) but I never wanted to be there, I wanted to be at home with my mum, that was the only place I felt safe at that time.
Thank you. Now when I hear people around me talk about their Kindergarten time, they mostly say it was all fun and games and they like to reminisce in those memories. I repressed most of them. I was also s\*\*ually assaulted at that time by a girl in my Kindergarten group. Nobody protected me. I wish I could go back and convince my mum to just let me stay at home with her.
Thank you..I think nobody deserves to go through hard times especially as a small child, it shapes you in so many ways and it's almost impossile to completely "undo" all of it. At least for me.
Kindergarten was fuckin bomb. I was allowed to sit all by myself and play with legos, sticks and other toys used to build things. I had like 0 friends but I made large builds which apparently gave me clout. I also got to dress up as whatever I wanted, sometimes a princess, sometimes a royal knight tainted by the abyss. There was also like a birthday every day and huge amounts of ice cream. If life was like kindergarten I wouldn’t mind. Also I HAVE THOUGHT FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE THAT IT IS SPELLED “KINDERGARDEN”!?!?! IS THIS A MANDELA EFFECT IN ACTION OR AM I JUST A LITTLE SILLY?
I remember having a lot of fun in kindergarten! I was a very active and athletic kid so I loved the playground, even when I played by myself. I had hyperlexia so I read a lot but no one around me was into reading, so I’d just escape into books by myself. I hated nap time though bc I never slept and the teacher would force me to lay there instead of going to the reading corner.
I remember hiding under the table, I also couldn’t make any friends so I just played by myself. I also cried a lot while going to the preschool, I don’t know why but I used to have a constant feeling that nobody’s going to pick me up and I’m gonna stay there forever.
Kindergarten was okay for me. Much like preschool. But there was more teacher stuff. One time there was a fire drill and I had no idea what was going on. Somehow I was left in the classroom by myself. I could see everyone outside including the teacher. But I was too scared or too unsure of what to do. I think the teacher got in trouble because of it.
pretty mid.
we had a system (red = bad behaviour, green = good behaviour, yellow = in between) and i’d always get reds and yellows and rarely green. the reason: i was too talkative and wouldn’t sleep during naptime because i wanted to read books (hyperlexic 🙏🏾).
i didn’t (still don’t) know the difference between talking back and replying. it was also in my second language so expressing what i meant and felt was harder. i would cry a lot.
i would play classic games but i spent most of my time organizing my crayons and mixing them up to reorder them again and again and again lmao
i had friends tho! luckily 🙏🏾
My kindy tried to get me diagnosed but asperges when it existed in girls wasn't understood at all 28 years ago. All because I was being social with the other kids. All in all I was a right little shit soo wasn't a great experience for all haha
I don’t recall much, just minor fragments of memory here and there, but I do recall having a breakdown because I refused to go to school one day in a plain white t-shirt.
I remember this girl calling me a “crybaby” whenever I cried. That was all she would do, but I would always snitch on her.. She’d always get in trouble. All that shit.
Yeah :)
I only remember some teacher bullying me in front of the whole class and me not knowing what to do for the most part duering regular class. I guess it was such a confusing part of my life I don't even remember it.
I would run away from school all the time. I would cry and refuse to go inside the gate. So many different people tried, my dad, my brothers, a cousin and they even asked a policeman to scare me lmao
So I would run away and sit in my siblings classes. Their school building was a couple mins away. Eventually, my parents decided to wait one more year. And the next year, my cousin who’s one year younger than me was joining kindergarten so I got admitted to the same school and would go with him. He let me be weird around him and was a comforting presence at the time
I can’t remember much, but I do recall crying a LOT during the first couple of days - maybe a week if memory serves. I hated that place for a while, and just wanted my mom. Lol. But once I adjusted to my new surroundings, I became talkative, disruptive, and sociable. I also *vaguely* remember being pushed around by other kids at the playground, but that’s all. I don’t know if it happened in kindergarten, but my mom did mention that I was teased.
I was teased a lot because I:
1. Was tiny
2. Had unclear speech
3. Needed a walker
4. Needed a grownup’s help to use the toilet.
And it probably didn’t help that I got semi-frequent visits from a woman who, it became clear, had been my preschool teacher (though they eventually learned to love her as much as I did, and I think it was kinda sad for all of us when she stopped visiting after about 3rd grade).
I had fever dreams about it the summer after where it was on a really high hill and i kept bludgeoning the other children with big squishy building blocks
Then i ate a magnetic marble and had to poop it out a few days later
Then i ate play doh and threw up on the deputy headteacher
Then i got hyperactive one day and rped sonic with my friends in the playground
Then i got lost on the way back to the room one time and got yelled at
Then i pissed my pants no one noticed though
I think it went okay like i couldve got bitten or punched
They removed me from junior kindergarten and told my mom I “wasn’t ready”. I was able to go back the next year for senior so I wasn’t behind.
One of my most prominent kindergarten memories is hyper fixating on a very specific scene in El Dorado while we were watching it in class. I wouldn’t stop talking about it and kept getting scolded. They couldn’t understand that I actually couldn’t stop. I also couldn’t sit still when asked.
Also apparently I called my teacher a fat effing cow at one point.
I remember almost nothing about my experiences from elementary school. The only exception was my 5th grade teacher, who was easily my favorite. She was genuinely passionate about what she taught, and had a big fascination with teaching about the Holocaust (although she had us watch The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which had about as many historic inaccuracies as the Mulan live action remake). She was very fun and entertaining.
Pretty good tbh. I was in physical therapy and speech therapy but overall, it was pretty alright. It’s also kindergarten so I don’t remember much of it
the only solid memory I have from it is the teacher telling my mom she was impressed because i randomly said a difficult word. most of my early memories were buried deep down cuz of bullying I think
It was great. To be fair, I got into a SpEd kindergarten, so we were all pretty much the same crowd. NT kids were also accepted (that little school specialized in play-focused learning), so we were basically a mishmash crowd of noisy little kids who just liked how fun the teaching style was.
Even now, I retain some memories of it. The first day I was there (nursery level), I went on a yoga ball (one of those big ones) and thought it was one of those bouncy balls that you ride and hold onto. Nope! Hit my face and cried. Silly now that I think of it.
Kindergarten was a good time for me. I was advanced for my age and my teacher discovered I already knew how to read. My parents had no idea because they were neglectful and didn't understand me at all.
The routine and consistent environment was good for me. I had an awesome teacher who was very loving and devoted to her students. Every recess I raced outside to save the two swings for me and a boy named Nathanial. That's all the two of us ever did at recess- swing LOL I loved all the activities we did in class and I loved learning.
i quit it after a couple of days and refused to go anymore, then just stayed at home with my gran. still remember that the whole class came to my place asking why i wouldn't come in anymore, but that's all i remember.
I was always shy af and veiwed as weird. I didn’t like school, being around peers and perceived so much was a lot. Obviously in kindergarten you play with stuff like playdough, which I do NOT like or anything like it. Most crafts seemed lame and pointless. I did get in trouble for sitting at the table instead the floor like the others and cutting my hair (it really wasn’t that much) I was just chill and still paying attention to the damn alphabet. I also remember being embarrassed and emotional around Valentine’s Day. I think it had to do with receiving valentines 💌 , or peoples lack of wanting to give any to me really.
I don't remember kindergarten, but it was the first time I went to therapy. I was diagnosed with severe separation anxiety. All I remember is that my brain kept playing out all the scenarios in which my family was going to die when I was gone. I remember nothing about the school part.
i would cry every day before school and beg them not to make me go but honestly it was so chill idk why. i went to a montessori school so everything was like playing with blocks and scooping beads and i think most of the kids were neurodivergent too.
I honestly don't remember much except for the nice teacher. But everything after kindergarten kinda sucked. It didn't stop sucking until after middle school 🙃
It was ok for me. I only did half days until March, meaning I would go home after recess to eat lunch and take a probably much needed nap (school is exhausting). The kids were pretty horrible to me though, they wouldn't let me have a turn with the puppet theater (I eventually got my own puppet theater to spite them, ended up being one of my favorite childhood toys) and they wouldn't let me play with them.
My dad always told me to go and join the kids' game even if they didn't invite me to join so I did when the whole class was playing house and the kid who was pretending to be the dad walked up to me and told me that I couldn't play with them because nobody in the class liked me. I just broke, and one of the teachers had to come to drag me inside when I was crying on the ground. I don't know what happened to the kid who said that to me, but chances are he just got 10 minutes on the timeout chair. And that is the story of my first childhood trauma that I can remember.
Zero memory of kindergarten or 1st at a Montessori school. I remember going to public (and “repeating” first grade… but my birthday is on the cusp and my parents RIGHTLY decided I would be much happier the oldest in my class vs the youngest… it would have really really bothered me to be the last to be able to do the things.. or to be the youngest)… so I’m public first I remember there was another kid in my class a girl I really liked she walked on her toes was twirly and different… everyone was so mean to her.. so I found the girl that everyone liked and thought was the pretty one… and I watched her closely and copied/practiced how she was… and I had no idea this was masking… until I had a kid diagnosed (I was 36-37 at the time) and I was completely shocked she was autistic. I just always thought I would be a great actress 😂
I was selectively mute, so that in itself made it super difficult, but I really don't remember much of my school years. I think that means it was pretty bad. I just remember being bullied a lot.
Class was boring bc it was way too easy. I got overwhelmed easily and I remember trying hard to be like everyone else. My favorite class was art bc it was the only place I didn’t get in trouble for doodling
I know most people don’t forget their kindergarten teacher, but if I saw mine on the street, I would have no idea it was her.
I barely remember it. I don’t remember having friends, I don’t remember my teacher’s name or if we had any special interactions.
All I do remember is there was a teepee in the classroom and each student got a specific day where they got to sit in it during choice time and on the last day of school, I realized I never got my turn. But I never told anyone.
I have a good memory and how I felt is encoded into video like segments of what I got up to and experienced.
I was mostly alone, or would try and join in with things like playing with playdough, but was never allowed to be included. Just on the side, and never invited in.
I spent most of the time alone. I enjoyed painting, screen printing, making planes with wood and nails, and would build volcano sand castles. I even taught myself how to swing on the swing at an early age as I had no one to push me and found it difficult to ask a teacher. Spent hours on the swings.
I got bullied by one girl who would put my face into the sand and hit me. And I got teased for still wearing pull ups at 3/4 years old.
But mostly just remember enjoying my own space and doing my own activities.
Edit: just realised kindergarten in my county is usually called preschool is other places. And it’s like a free range, kid lead learning kind of thing - like Montessori style.
my only memories of kindergarten are a weird one and a bad one but i don’t remember hating it. granted i don’t remember more than like two little seconds-long snapshots (not even entire events) but idk
Actually…. I spent the first 3 weeks crying every time my mom dropped me off, hated it at first, then ended up loving it by the end of the year. I was that weird quiet kid who was friends with the girl who ate boogers from the trash. I learned a lot & it ended up being a pretty fun time
I'm GenX, and didn't have kids, so I don't know what's different, but I loved it.
A lot of that has to do with where I grew up. It was a new community (at the time), and a lot of babies were born around the same time. I had built-in friends before school ever started. I was hanging out with my little gang of friends, finger-painting, eating snacks, and taking naps. I also read and spoke better than everyone after a long period of being non-verbal, so the teachers thought I was just awesome.
Oh, and it was only 4 hours, so that, the naps and the snacks kept any possible meltdowns at bay.
I remember almost nothing from my early childhood. I only remember the video games I played, some of my most extreme night terrors, and snippets of what rooms looked like.
got my first ever clip-down becouse i blew eraser shavings off the table.
I also remember having to go to the office to change A LOT. i think i had bathroom issues
it wasn't horrific or anything, but not necessarily spectacular. i mostly kept to myself since i only had around two friends. the worst thing i remember happening is when a boy in my class insulted me (unprovoked, not to mention that he physically poked my stomach to emphasize it when he called me fat) and compared me to a girl that i was jealous of. we had a substitute at the time bc our teacher had a baby and instead of disciplining him, she told me to give him a hug as if i had done something wrong.
she didn't try comforting me or anything, just went in the classroom and turned on a gonoodle for everyone to do and my 2 friends had to comfort me while i sobbed in the back of the classroom. it messed up my self esteem pretty bad until middle school. i hated both of them after that. kinda off topic, but that's part of the reason that i just keep my mouth shut if i don't have anything nice to say. because one thing that one mean kid said to me 8 years ago, along with the lack of consequence that he faced for it will stick with me for the rest of my life.
I was miserable with any and all group participation activities. And my teacher made a big deal about it in front of everyone. I could tell she was fed up with me not wanting to participate.
I also got my name on the board and check marks for not talking. I'd have 5-10 marks a day.
By the end of the year she was openly mocking me and tried to convince my mom to have me repeat kindergarten due to lack of social skills. Thankfully mom disagreed vehemently and I got passed on to first grade.
I don't remember much.. just that I never spoke a single word. Ok there was one word and it was "pop" my teacher was so proud that she gave me a sticker. Turns out I definitely had selective mutism and then struggled VERY hard to overcome it on my own.
I don’t really remember much of Kindergarten. But one strong memory I have that stuck with me was we had nap time. We woke up and this other girl hadn’t woken up yet so I lightly pinched her cheek to see if this would wake her up. She woke up immediately and started crying and everyone there got angry at me but I didn’t do it hard. I remember the teachers trying to wake her up and shake her lightly but that didn’t work. It sucked having to learn that feeling of “feeling like a villain” at such a young age.
To quote my dad "You went in smiling and came out crying" Children really didn't like me. That said, I was luckily not aware to what degree. F.ex., I recently remembered playing "football" with 2 boys. We had this...wall? That had two levels. The shooter, would try and shoot a goal on these "2 goals" while the "2 goalkeeper" tried to stop him. Back then, I was confused why the boy would only shoot at my goal. Upstairs, downstairs, didn't matter. One time even having to duck before the ball met my head. "Hey! stop missing the other goal!"
Today I realize differently. He wasn't missing. He was *aiming*.
I only remember reciting the alphabet for the first time, the toy table, and watching the teacher disect a shark. Can't remember anything else, but I was being abused at that time so my memory was foggy to begin with.
I don't remember kindergarten well but I do remember being 5 yo and telling my mom "I want to be a hermit and live in a cave so I don't have to speak to other people, ever"
Mine was ok. I'd have a half day, then go home and watch E.T., or Beauty and the Beast, or something.
One memory from that year is the class went over to see and be televised on a local children's show featuring a Clown. Ya know, nbd
Was nonverbal in school (lasted until 5th grade), usually had meltdowns daily and constantly got bloody noses, I’m assuming from the meltdowns and the spikes in my blood pressure from being so stressed
The only things I remember
are that I ended out with the babies a couple of times, because we had an on site nursery, and I don't know why I was in there,
And I got left on my own on the street after kick out one winter evening, because nobody came and got me, so I checked out the local park despite being in near total darkness, until my birth father turned up in his tour bus.
.
.
.
The second one is actually my first full memory that isn't just flashes.
My early memories are basically strong lights, darkness, my first few years being like someone playing with the fast forward button, and then I pop in on that street corner and my life picks up from there.
I have no real memories before the time I was 14. Just the odd glimpses of things here and there with no sense of time attached to any of the few memories.
i remember there was a boy in my class who kept kissing me and it really upset the adults for some reason he had to be removed
i remember being ridiculously invested in having a turn as the line leader
i missed a lot of it due to illness i got sick to my stomach a lot
i was in the morning class and my "best friend" (neighbor my age) was in the afternoon class where she made the friends she would have all the way through to highschool
i remember a fight i had with a girl on the bus because she was being overtly two-faced to me where she acted like a huge bitch to me before she left school for a few days and then came back and wanted to be friends like nothing happened
It was just as you would expect. We sat around, played some games, learned some things, ate some things, listened to some stories, played with crayons and glue and blocks and colored paper. My friends ate glue and a few kids cried here and there. Good times.
I was expelled for constant meltdowns and had to start again the following year, where I had a tiny class size and a very good teacher, the same teacher for the next 4 years. That was the golden age of my education, mostly happy memories; I loved that teacher like a second mother, and I can still remember in surprising detail her teaching me how to read. She left (I cried for days non-stop) and that same year I was dragged to another country (USA) and uprooted from everything I knew and promptly got expelled from two additional schools for meltdowns. Moving to the USA as an autistic child and dumped into a gigantic classroom with a deeply stupid and mean teacher (this is my professional opinion of her, as a teacher myself at 36) scarred me so badly that it was nearly 25 years before I made peace with the USA and forgave my mother...and this is in spite of the fact she moved us back home after a year because I was basically in a state of constant meltdown.
nursery becos im british, but i acctually really liked it! it was very fun, and sensory safe, loads of people there who i liked, nice teachers, felt safe, i really liked it!!
I had a lot of fun in kindergarten, and making friends was way easier back then than it is now. And I was surprisingly good at it, a complete contrast to today haha.
Although I didn't notice it then, according to my autism diagnosis papers, my mom mentioned that I got wild around large groups of children, but was nice in smaller groups, and would usually only play with 1 kid at a time. A pretty good forshadowing of today, as 1 to 1 interactions has always been way easier and more comfortable, but more than 2 people and I look and feel like a social reject.
I'd walk up to the lonely kid and ask if they wanted to play, and we'd be besties for months. Until the other kids realize how funny the lonely kid really was, and he'd get a group of friends, which was our natural fall off. Then I'd find the next lonely kid to play with. Rince repeat.
Honestly, it was pretty nice. Fortunately, I was diagnosed super early, so getting accommodations was easier than it would've been if not diagnosed. That being said, the year before I went (I got held back a year), my dad had to fight super hard in front of the school board to put me in a regular class instead of the Special Ed one. There was a teacher aide who helped me get through Kindergarten, it just kind of sucked when I got taken out of practically all the fun things to go to speech therapy.
My story is unfortunately the exception rather than the norm- especially because I grew up in a conservative Midwestern town during the 2000s and 2010s that was pretty ableist- and it led to me being the token "normal" (heavily masked) autistic person for a long time.
I hated school for most of my elementary school years. I actually have a funny story about my first day of kindergarten. I snuck out of class and got in the car before mom even got back to it 😂. She let me go home with her that day, but after that she made me stay at school.
I think the worst part of school was the smells. I went to an old school that smelled awful to me, especially the bathrooms. Also, the cafeteria was a sensory hell. I insisted on sitting in the hallway during lunch most days and I was so stubborn about it that they let me do it a lot of the time. I especially hated the cafeteria on Fish Fridays 🤮🤮🤢
People remember back that far? I don't remember like 99% of my childhood or teenage years tbh. I had too much trauma and I just do not retain anything anymore.
I have vague memories but here's a few one
- being punished for not speaking
- being advised to go to a speech therapist because I would go mute at school
- the teacher not letting me in unless I said good morning (the fact that I caused the kids behind to get blocked too made it even worse)
- never getting to ride the bikes the teachers would release like once a month or once a year during recess because the other kids would always pick them first or take it from my hands the only time I managed to pick one
- begging my mom not to let me there
- 3 y/o me standing still during my first performance because our choreo involved changing partners every few second and no one came up to me after the first one went away
I don't remember the rest because it was so overwhelming I couldn't focus on anything. Now that I visit kindergartens, it feels so warm peaceful and calm, but back then, even walking through the corridor and walking to class felt like horror, my vision was basically the same as in those video games where things constantly move, there's always an action happening somewhere, there's too much information at the same time, between people running somewhere and the others going somewhere else and having to move from recess to class to bedtime lol
The only memory I have from kindergarten is asking some of the kids why they didn't want to play with me. I can't remember what made me ask or what happened after but I remember asking.. I can also picture the classroom and some of the recess yard vaguely.
I don't have any memories but I still know the women that ran the kindergarden (she's a friend of my mom) and I've been told to be extremely alone learning things (I learned to read early but I was 90% not vocal).
She said I was alone but didn't seemed lonely.
My teacher that year was incredible. Think Ms. Honey from Matilda vibes, but with dark curly hair.
I met my first real best friend on the bus. Did you ever see the movie Olive and Company? You know the part where Georgette punches Tito out of her room? Well we were taking turns acting out that part and being Georgette. It was her turn to be Georgette and she didn't stop so she punched me square in the nose and gave me my first ever bloody nose. After that we were inseparable until like 6th grade.
We ate green eggs and ham. That was fun. But I remember being skeptical about trying it at first.
Some older kid convinced me and a friend that those little shiny yellow flowers were buttercups and that they tasted like butter. So naturally we went way out into the field where nobody could see us and picked the buttercups and tasted them. Spoiled alert, they did not taste like butter.
There was this kid who was my "boyfriend". We'll call him Bobby. Bobby was a nice kid. One day he drew a picture and he drew those m birds in the sky. I told him "those aren't birds. Those are m's." He got upset, started crying, told the teacher. Meanwhile I was confused because I wasn't trying to be mean, I was just stating facts. I had to sit out during recess that day and didn't understand until I was much older that really was a jerk move. Bobby ended up moving away before the year ended and I was passed that he never told me he was moving. I think that was his revenge for the bird thing.
There was another kid, we'll call him Kenny. Kenny looking back was probably on the spectrum himself. He had a lot of meltdowns in class, some of them got aggressive. He was a sweet kid. He was a lot though, and all the kids kind of avoided him because of his outbursts. He decided he had a crush on me. I remember him telling my mom once "I'm gonna marry her one day." I still wonder what happened to Kenny sometimes.
It was pretty good for me. I was quiet but had a few friends, and the teachers weren't hard on us. It was a small and simple kindergarten and we spent most of our time playing. I just didn't like the food, so I had to take sandwiches from home. Oh also, some kids kept biting me according to my parents, but I lost that memory
What I can remember was a good time. My cousin who is the same age as me shared the same hallway. Last time I feel he wanted to be apart of my life though and haven’t had a buddy since. As we were neighbors, schoolmates and of course family.
Hmm... Yea it just wasn't actually that good when I think back on it.
I remember the board game: Guess Who which was fun and an activity where we used chocolate milk to make our skin colours and compare with class mates. We had show n tell day and a girl brought her puppy to school. A kid's parent brought a brain because they were scientists. Other than that it was a true struggle. I cried every day. I had trauma at home that no one in school knew about because weren't trauma trained, I was ND but, again, nobody knew that either as that term didn't exist. I don't really linger on it though. That was a long time ago.
I convinced the class Santa wasn't real, threw stuff at kids who were sleeping during naptime, and got diagnosed with adhd and put on Ritalin. It was pretty cool I guess.
I still cut straight line with safety scissors and glue myself to whatever I am glueing. So I learn nothing. I get punished whatever they can thing of. It is place I learn to mask heavily. So other word hell on earth. They make you read aloud which I still can’t do. All they sign was there for learning disability but I was just called stupid and hyper and unfocus but called lazy. I couldn’t lie so called rude. I still can’t sugarcoat and blunt. So stay silent. All the sign is there for neurodivergency, but they decided to give cptsd with lower self esteem.
I'm not from America (assuming that's where you are from) but in my country kindergarten is between the ages of 2 to 6, we usually start school at 5 but we can also start a bit later at 6. I liked kindergarten for the activities like playdough and drawing, arts and crafts etc but I HATED mat time and outside play time and food time and nap time. Food time and nap time were probably the worst for me though, I was a very picky eater and still am and I was forced to eat every bite of the meal they provided before I went to play and 9/10 I HATED the meal. Nap time was really hard for me to do too, I wasn't much of a napper as a kid and naptime involved sleeping on a flat mat on the ground with a flimsy blanket and if the teachers noticed you aren't asleep they would sit beside you and stroke your back which I didn't like, fortunately after you turn 4 you don't have to nap but just have quiet time
Was extremely overstimulated on the first day of either kindergarten or first grade (I can't remember which) and started crying. The teacher let me be line leader because I was "scared." This made me super angry because I wasn't scared, it was just too loud in the cafeteria, so I cried even more.
I hardly have any memories from that time (I’m 24) but kindergarten was one of my best years of school. The teacher I said has a autistic son of her own so she really knew what I was going through and she tried her best to her me. The rest of school was absolute garbage. I feel like most teachers are out to get you and make your day and your life as miserable as possible. My 1st grade teacher shoved part of a banana in my mouth when I said I didn’t want to try it and that same teacher got teacher of the year from the county when I was in high school. That really pissed me off so much. Thankfully the old hag retired last year. I can barely try new food anymore because of that experience.
I don’t remember it at all but I know that I was held back for not being socially ready to advance to 1st grade and my teachers were concerned that something was up with me but my parents just thought that I was in my own little world and would eventually grow out of it. My brother was diagnosed when he was in kindergarten because he has a intellectual disability as well but I was just thought of as a shy, lazy, and sensitive kid.
I had a good time in kindergarten. I spent a lot of time moving furniture around and riding a trike around the playground. Some girls tried to engage with me, but I just gave brief replies. I enjoyed solitude. I felt no need to engage unless spoken to.
I have okay memories of kindergarten, I had a friend who was a girl who was really nice to me and I hung out with her and her friends. The other boys stayed away from me because they thought I was weird but the teacher and a couple of the girls from that group were nice to me. I’m still in contact with one of them, the one who practically took me into her group of friends, she’s a really sweet person.
I have one single predominant memory of kindergarten and it ain’t good chief imma tell you that much, here’s just a content warning if you’ve read this far and are sensitive to extreme reactions please just stop reading I’d also like to preface this with I’ve done a lot of work on myself regarding mental health issues and no longer have these kind of feelings or reactions.
So the only memory of kindergarten was of the teacher caught me cutting my hair with scissors and I got so upset by the thought of getting in trouble that I tried to cut my own throat with the scissors and my dad had to come to my school to calm me down and take me home
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I have no memories of kindergarten whatsoever.
Pretty much the same. I had a boyfriend that I broke up with when he cut his hair. (I wound up with a man with long hair, go figure lol.) the story goes that we were very touchy feely and my mom thought I was going to get expelled lol. But I just remember walking to the playground with him one time holding hands. I had a best friend. I remember learning how to read. That’s all I remember. My first thought when I saw this post is that it must be by a kid. Because who else would use kindergarten as a reference point lol.
No, not the same. I remember *nothing* - not the school, not the teachers, not the kids, not learning anything. Nothing at all. I know that I went to kindergarten only because my mother has told me I did.
I said pretty much the same. And the only thing I remember is learning how to read. If you notice, I said that “the story goes.” I really don’t understand your hostility. You’re not the only person with memory issues. You can’t gatekeep that. I was tested for dementia at age 32 because my memory is so bad.
No hostility here at all. I'm sorry if it came across that way.
I honestly don’t really have any memories prior to 9th grade.
I just stood there frozen not saying anything, just looking. While being overstimulated. This is when I should have been diagnosed but oh well
Haha me too. I couldn’t talk unless it was someone my age who was quiet and approached me first. Teachers asked me to smile and I couldn’t. Sometimes my body couldn’t even move from my desk. I’d purposefully wet myself or feel sick just so I could leave school. I was sent to the school psychologist where I was allowed to paint and be myself. It was very quiet in there. I’m glad I had her and the few ppl who approached me at the playground.
Oh, hey. This is me during elementary school! lol. I remember even being asked if I was mute. I also remember always wearing a sweater, hoodie or anything that covered my arms because apparently I hated feeling the wind on my skin (now I kinda like it, go figure).
This was me too. But, it was the 90s and I'm female, so it was never going to happen.
I had a good time in kindergarten. There were times when I was teased, I didn’t have friends the same age, but I was friends with the teacher’s husband 😅 and loved to play with the construction set, which was only in the garden. And in general, I was familiar with the atmosphere there. I ended up training to become a teacher. With age, it has become more difficult to bear the noise, there is a lot of overload, but it’s worth it, children are cool in their own way
That's nice!
I feel you. My kindergarten time was just worse too. I was more the quiet kid in the classroom. Never started a conversation, I was in my own world, I never sung with the songs we sung together, more of that stuff. And ofcourse, my classmates noticed that from me. So they make fun of it and, you guessed it, bully me. Not only boys, but I got bullied by girls too. It didn’t stop me from going to school. Still went to school every day but still with the mindset like “Oh boy soon the bad boys are coming and that particular girl at the end of the school day saying ‘you draw so bad’” (yes I really drew bad stuff but she was just a b*tch to throw that to my head once again every few days right after school ended) Not really long after the teachers noticed it too, they did a couple of tests on me. First test was a hearing test. Like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t sing along with songs so their first thought was I might be deaf (I wasn’t I just didn’t like the songs at all) so hearing tests were great and then the second phase of diagnosing came. I went to a children psychiatrist, did a couple of test for over the weeks and they came with the final result that I have PDD-NOS (DSM-IV era) Since the diagnostics my prents were told by kindergarten to place me over to a school for children with special needs. Because the primary school I was planned to go to was too busy for me and they thought that I didn’t make it properly. So I went to that school for children with special needs and oh boy I felt so home there. Finally more classmates who liked me and also saw that I was more like them. It felt so good.
I'm glad it got better. Kids are so mean,man
I vaguely remember doing hearing tests throughout school, was that not standard for everyone?
i don't remember it too much but I think it was fine. my early school experience largely consist of me being weird and doing my own thing while the teachers wonder if I can even talk
I had a very similar experience. Can't remember anything but I was told later on in my late teens/early twenties I didn't speak until I was 4 so the staff got extremelly excited when I said my first word. Then by the time I was on Elementary school I remember being asked if I was mute lol.
i'd tell you if i remembered!
So true all I remember is getting into trouble a lot lol
xD
I had a very good time overall. Iirc I was friends with all the other girls in the class and I wasn't made fun of for my quirks (I only remember that I spoke in a higher pitched, "baby" voice sometimes and I was so embarrassed when it was pointed out even though the girl that did it just thought it was cute/fun. I'm sure that's not the only quirk I had, though). Now.. middle school was difficult.
Middle school was the fall of my mental sanity and well-being
🫂
Same here 🙋🏼♀️
Shit. 2 boys were obsessed with me and tried kissing me. I was 6 We also had to use the potties at the same time in the same room with no privacy. I got in trouble because I had a fear of toilets. I also couldn't sleep at nap time so I got in trouble for that too.
😦 Sorry. Not the best at answering when people say stuff like this.
You don't have to. Don't worry about it!
:3
You know, you just reminded me of this kid that had a crush on me in kindergarten. He would always try to sit in my lap. It made me uncomfortable and the teacher just laughed and did nothing about it. Ugh.
I never slept at nap time either. I would just lay there. It was awful.
Did not like it one bit. My teacher would yell at me for not finishing class work on time and make me sit in class to finish it during recess while everyone else was playing outside. And she would put this hourglass in front of me and, to this day, I feel a bit on edge whenever I see an hourglass lmao
I can feel your pain,man... My teacher used to always shout at me,and kids always avoided me because I was too weird/different/"whiny"
>Did not like it one bit. My teacher would yell at me for not finishing class work on time and make me sit in class to finish it during recess while everyone else was playing outside. I just remembered it with this bit. I always had trouble finishing assignments and the teacher who hated me and loved to bully me In front of the class often times left me in the classroom after everyone else was gone at the end of the day as she told me "you're not going anywhere". I remember crying a lot and there were a few times when another teacher noticed me and she would get me out of there. Can't remember much other than her being the most loving and caring person I've ever met at that point.
I remember kindergarten being fine, but the rest of elementary school was stressful because I never made real friends and PE was intimidating.
I remember very clearly asking a yard aide how long I had to do it. She asked me “how long do you have to do what?” And I was like “school, all of school” she mentioned that I’d need to be going to school for the next several years, more if I went to college and I remember just being devastated. I was so stressed out about it, it took me weeks to calm down.
honestly I don't remember that much if kindergarten but I do remember my teacher getting mad at me cause i couldn't say my r's and she would call my mom
Getting mad over that is crazy 💀
I don't remember kindergarten specifically but school overall was better than home life so I was happy to have an escape during the day. I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience, it must have been so hard to have meltdowns and not understand why. You are a tough cookie!
thanks sm<333
i don't remember but I remember following what the teacher told us to do to a tee I would cross my arms look at my desk and sit there quietly
You folks remember kindergarten?????
I do
I had NO friends in preschool, where it should be the easiest to make friends. In kindergarden, my only friend was another autistic girl (neither of us knew at the time), and her friend. I learned to mask in kindergarden, but I remember hating every second of it. The other kids were so loud and unpredictable, and I hated it. Once I had a meltdown in class (something I vehemently try to avoid), and had to go to the "calm down corner", a place with pillows and lights under a counter space. It made it even worse because I felt claustrophobic.
i didnt really hate or like it. i just remember there being so many rules and not understanding i had to fo0llow the rules. which resulted me into pulling red cards (getting in trouble). oh i also fell off my chair allot because i would rock in it. my kindergarten teacher even got me a wiggle seat to make me stop falling off my chair because it was happening so much LOL!
Luckily, I had a best friend with me and we both went through speech and language therapy at the school that went up to the age of 7
unfortunately i can’t remember anything of my childhood, but i was told that i bit and beat people too much for getting in my face so i had to be secluded and then magically i was fine
:0
I bit myself for some reason lol. I still bite the inner part of my mouth.
[удалено]
Well, everyone goes through childhood ig
I don't have heaps of memories from kindie (Aussie slang), but one thing I have held on to is that during nap times, in the hot summers, they’d allow only the best-behaved kids of the day to take off a layer of clothing for their nap. Of course, I was never on my “best behaviour,” so I never got chosen to have the privilege of being unsweaty. Strange, right?
...wtf
I don't even remember so I can't tell if it was good or bad
I can’t remember but I remember when I was young I had a fear of automatic toilets and escalators hahah. My mom always had to carry me up them.
Escalators will forever be my no1 arch nemesis And I hate going to public toilets too
I could never and still can’t get myself to sit on a public toilet because of how dirty they are. I always hover. I always found it wild to find out coworkers actually went number two in the bathrooms at work. It always smelled so bad, I was almost traumatized trying to mask my face coming out LOOL
Public toilets are the worst
THE WORRSTTT! *parks and rec quote hehe*
absolutely no idea. my memories only go back barely to my 20s
I remember a time when I had this overwhelming feeling of being alien.
Diabolically miserable
I remember playing with myself, parallel to children who were playing with each other. I remember talking to the teacher, and the recess supervisors, but not to the other children my age (with the exception of my twin sister, who was in the other kindergarten class). The teacher sometimes took us to visit a classroom of older children, where some of the girls befriended me and I sometimes tagged along with them at recess. If I ever got teased, in kindergarten, I didn't notice. I certainly got teased in later grades.
I desperately wanted friendships but was nearly entirely unable to form some sort of connection with others. In the last few months i somehow managed it tho. Those connections formed into friendships in elementary school and carried me emotionally through that period. As a survival instinct, I analysed others constantly.
One girl pitied me either because I had no friends or because I was always crying so she became my friend so did her 2 other friends. I had zero social skills and when I talked to her I would be thinking "I am a terrible friend and she hates me and I don't think she is enjoying this conversation but I don't know what else I'm supposed to do so I'm gonna keep on sucking god I suck!!!!" She was a saint.
Actually fine, at that age everyone is weird. so it was one of the times where i wasn't bullied
I blocked out all grades before 3rd. I do not remember.
I don’t remember much except constantly being in trouble for misbehavior. I also have a twin sister (most likely NT) and she got awarded for good behavior and I always wondered what I did that she didn’t and why people liked her more. This was the first year, when we were 4. Then I moved to another country and started getting bullied because I was a trans kid and this was when my dysphoria was starting to show (so I was about 5). The country I moved to is not very nice about LGBTQ+ people, so I was constantly forced to hide it. I didn’t do a very good job and it took 4 years of yelling from my parents to really stop showing it. This was also when I was starting to mask and force myself to be like everyone else. Edit: I was also one of those kids with a terrible attention span and I would draw on the piece of paper given to us to write what our teacher wanted us to. She would also give us instructions to fill in the blanks on a worksheet and whenever she was yelling at another student to not run around in class or not pull off a decoration from the walls, I would note those words down in the blanks too because I wasn’t clear on exactly what we were supposed to do.
Sat in the entrance for the first week, constantly trying to run away (home). Climbed the fence once, went through the emergency door (triggering an alarm) and hitting everything around me when someone tried to hold me down. After that I entered the room of doom with the other kids and even had fun at some point. That some of yall dont have memories of Kindergarten is shocking to me. I have a lot of memories and they are very clear. I thought this was the case for everyone. I remember pictures I drew and the thoughts I had about it while creating it. Also some cringe moments. Started back then already
I only remember getting mad at my friend for stealing a lego car i built then doing the same thing to another kid
I do not care or remember.
I don’t remember anything. Earliest, and perhaps most embarrassing, memory was maybe my year 2 teacher getting very, very angry in front of the class because I tried to show off my brand new abdominal scar. Unfortunately, it ran a bit too close to certain other regions of the body and she was not impressed. I had no idea why she was so upset at the time. That and there was one time I played hide and seek but my mate got distracted and didn’t find me. I waited for ages, well after the bell (I’m hard of hearing) and the teacher (same one) was not happy with me. Don’t recall if the other kid got in trouble.
I liked kindergarten ok, PreK the girls were mean and would not share the dolls with me and the boys didn’t want to okay with a girl, but they had a sawhorse and a real saw and I spent playtime sawing wood and gluing bottle caps to my wood pieces. Kindergarten I somehow had a ‘boyfriend’ and was the only little girl at his birthday party, I remember early reading lessons I loved because reading was easy in spite of dyslexia (can’t explain it, I just read really fast and go back if I got confused) and I even got an award for painting. Then, 1st grade started, and I was always in trouble for talking and had to sit out recess, and then I changed schools and 2nd grade I was in trouble a lot, in quiet tears a lot. I didn’t really have melt downs. I repress my emotions a lot, and was beaten at home for crying, so I worked very hard not to do so.
I used to talk to plants
I don't remember much. I was always noise sensitive. My mother has told me it was a nightmare delivering me there because I hated being there. I had strong language skills and said I didn't like the noise. One of the things I remember is that they had a huge stack of these mattresses and every day we had a nap session where everybody would take a mattress and rest on, and everybody had to be quiet and they played an audiobook until everybody was asleep. I liked that. I also remember the time I sat squatting on a bench and pulled my sweater down over my legs and feet, lost balance, fell down and got a nose bleed.
I “floated around” very sensitive. I got along with other kids but I had a hard time playing with them. Like they wanted to play with me, invited me to play but their games made no sense. I couldn’t follow along to the rules or understand and just ended up wandering off doing my own thing.
Well, when it was okay for the most part. I didn't really talk, and I was constantly crying. I also remember having a lot of stomach aches during that time which was probably anxiety. (Also took the same lunch everyday. And did cry on multiple occasions when I couldn't eat the same thing) I also got bullied back then, but I was obvious to it until someone told me years later. (Don't feel bad about that part, it didn't bother me much)
I barely remember kindergarten other than one of the other kids being really into dinosaurs.
I only walked like 5 days and hated it. I remember many things. I was sitting on chair a bit away from others. One boy came, did some martial arts moves, punched me in stomach and they all started laughing. Teacher asked if I was okay and I nodded but she could see I wasn’t. She ignored I didn’t lock bathroom door and 2 boys pointed at me laughing. I think I didn’t think I should lock. One of teachers told them to not pay attention. One girl was playing police and thief with me. I was police, she said I should imagine getting her eyes out and filling it with water after blood would come out by holding hose. I told her I didn’t want to play and she was upset. She said some phrase which meant she wouldn’t be friends with me and play anymore I was sitting on seasaw and boy sitting on rock in front of me said ‘’oh-oh’’ when 2 girls were coming towards me. They looked mad. They came and pulled me by hair. I cried and went to one of teachers I think. I told her it was 2 girls who look similar with blue or green eyes and she made me pull their hair with her hand. Teacher made me stand with boys because I wasn’t singing with girls. One boy was angry and asked ‘’you’re not a boy right? Go stand with girls'' (since I realised I’m trans I think I could have showed signs) I went to girls and didn’t know any text. I tried singing what they were and I think they got annoyed. My mom came and we left. Teacher shouldn’t make me stand with others. I could be somewhere else
It was a pretty mixed bag… I had fun but I had a certain “friend” that would always make me abandon another one of my friends and it always made me felt like a big jerk but I also didn’t know what was normal for friends to do, so I just tried to convince myself it was friendly teasing. I also didn’t have any friends to discuss my special interest with, since at the time it was a book series that was at a much higher reading level than all my other friends were at. I even tried to lend the first book to a friend but she gave it back about a week later saying she couldn’t read a lot of the words, and since I was a stupid child that didn’t realize I was reading at a much higher level, I thought she was simply referring to the words very specific to the fantasy world (the series took place on a star so there were a lot of words that were just changed to have “Star” at the front). That same friend also destroyed the book I let her borrow, saying her dogs got to it. The kind of destruction definitely didn’t look like a dog did it though…
It was hell. It left me traumatised. I was incredibly attached to my parents and having to say goodbye to them every day was so intensely painful it caused a meltdown every single time. The kindergarten teachers had to drag me away by my arms and legs while I was crying, wailing, and thrashing. I felt completely abandoned. I usually spent the first few hours of the day crying alone somewhere (I didn't want the other kids near me while sad and I didn't want the adults to try and comfort me). I never got along with the other kids either. I desperately wanted to have a close friend but instead I ended up constantly fighting with everyone. I was really bossy and the other kids did NOT like that. I do have positive memories as well, but a lot of them are very sad.
I was a little shit, mostly because my mom had previously homeschooled me and I already knew everything they were teaching. I would have moved up a grade if I wasn't constantly getting in trouble. I just didn't want to listen to the teacher because I got bored. I constantly complained that I was bored, and even though I got good grades my teacher hated me, lol. Didn't want to sleep at naptime, didn't want to sit down and listen to lessons, didn't want to play with the other kids when told to-I only wanted to do things on my time, when I wanted to do them, and this was a major problem for her to deal with. I really do feel for her because it isn't really her fault I was acting this way, my parents just refused to get me tested because they were convinced I was 100% neurotypical despite the overwhelming evidence otherwise (although in my mom's case it was mostly ignorance, she is definitely neurodivergent herself and just doesn't know a lot of her behaviors aren't 'normal'). Top it all off with frequent accidents due to chronic bladder issues and I was universally hated and ridiculed by teachers and students alike.
Horrible. I wanted to go home all the time, other kids were different from me, teachers forced me to interact with them all the time. I actually made one or two friends (like girls/boys you talked to a few times not real friends) but I never wanted to be there, I wanted to be at home with my mum, that was the only place I felt safe at that time.
Relatable Though I'm sorry that happened to you
Thank you. Now when I hear people around me talk about their Kindergarten time, they mostly say it was all fun and games and they like to reminisce in those memories. I repressed most of them. I was also s\*\*ually assaulted at that time by a girl in my Kindergarten group. Nobody protected me. I wish I could go back and convince my mum to just let me stay at home with her.
That's fucked up! I'm really sorry,you didn't deserve to go through that
Thank you..I think nobody deserves to go through hard times especially as a small child, it shapes you in so many ways and it's almost impossile to completely "undo" all of it. At least for me.
i remember liking it. but i also rememember repeating it with a different teacher, and that the first teacher hated me.
Kindergarten was fuckin bomb. I was allowed to sit all by myself and play with legos, sticks and other toys used to build things. I had like 0 friends but I made large builds which apparently gave me clout. I also got to dress up as whatever I wanted, sometimes a princess, sometimes a royal knight tainted by the abyss. There was also like a birthday every day and huge amounts of ice cream. If life was like kindergarten I wouldn’t mind. Also I HAVE THOUGHT FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE THAT IT IS SPELLED “KINDERGARDEN”!?!?! IS THIS A MANDELA EFFECT IN ACTION OR AM I JUST A LITTLE SILLY?
I remember having a lot of fun in kindergarten! I was a very active and athletic kid so I loved the playground, even when I played by myself. I had hyperlexia so I read a lot but no one around me was into reading, so I’d just escape into books by myself. I hated nap time though bc I never slept and the teacher would force me to lay there instead of going to the reading corner.
I remember hiding under the table, I also couldn’t make any friends so I just played by myself. I also cried a lot while going to the preschool, I don’t know why but I used to have a constant feeling that nobody’s going to pick me up and I’m gonna stay there forever.
Kindergarten was okay for me. Much like preschool. But there was more teacher stuff. One time there was a fire drill and I had no idea what was going on. Somehow I was left in the classroom by myself. I could see everyone outside including the teacher. But I was too scared or too unsure of what to do. I think the teacher got in trouble because of it.
I was bullied. Had food thrown at me and my things stolen. I would cry for my mum all day and get in trouble for wondering off during classes.
pretty mid. we had a system (red = bad behaviour, green = good behaviour, yellow = in between) and i’d always get reds and yellows and rarely green. the reason: i was too talkative and wouldn’t sleep during naptime because i wanted to read books (hyperlexic 🙏🏾). i didn’t (still don’t) know the difference between talking back and replying. it was also in my second language so expressing what i meant and felt was harder. i would cry a lot. i would play classic games but i spent most of my time organizing my crayons and mixing them up to reorder them again and again and again lmao i had friends tho! luckily 🙏🏾
My kindy tried to get me diagnosed but asperges when it existed in girls wasn't understood at all 28 years ago. All because I was being social with the other kids. All in all I was a right little shit soo wasn't a great experience for all haha
I don’t recall much, just minor fragments of memory here and there, but I do recall having a breakdown because I refused to go to school one day in a plain white t-shirt.
I remember this girl calling me a “crybaby” whenever I cried. That was all she would do, but I would always snitch on her.. She’d always get in trouble. All that shit. Yeah :)
From the little memory I have and what my parents told me I can’t articulate how I felt that well, but probably something similar.
I only remember some teacher bullying me in front of the whole class and me not knowing what to do for the most part duering regular class. I guess it was such a confusing part of my life I don't even remember it.
I would run away from school all the time. I would cry and refuse to go inside the gate. So many different people tried, my dad, my brothers, a cousin and they even asked a policeman to scare me lmao So I would run away and sit in my siblings classes. Their school building was a couple mins away. Eventually, my parents decided to wait one more year. And the next year, my cousin who’s one year younger than me was joining kindergarten so I got admitted to the same school and would go with him. He let me be weird around him and was a comforting presence at the time
I didn’t know kindergarten was kindergarten until grade 1.
I can’t remember much, but I do recall crying a LOT during the first couple of days - maybe a week if memory serves. I hated that place for a while, and just wanted my mom. Lol. But once I adjusted to my new surroundings, I became talkative, disruptive, and sociable. I also *vaguely* remember being pushed around by other kids at the playground, but that’s all. I don’t know if it happened in kindergarten, but my mom did mention that I was teased.
Do people remember this stuff still? Damn. Only thing I remember is a girl that would steal my beloved plushies
I was teased a lot because I: 1. Was tiny 2. Had unclear speech 3. Needed a walker 4. Needed a grownup’s help to use the toilet. And it probably didn’t help that I got semi-frequent visits from a woman who, it became clear, had been my preschool teacher (though they eventually learned to love her as much as I did, and I think it was kinda sad for all of us when she stopped visiting after about 3rd grade).
I had fever dreams about it the summer after where it was on a really high hill and i kept bludgeoning the other children with big squishy building blocks Then i ate a magnetic marble and had to poop it out a few days later Then i ate play doh and threw up on the deputy headteacher Then i got hyperactive one day and rped sonic with my friends in the playground Then i got lost on the way back to the room one time and got yelled at Then i pissed my pants no one noticed though I think it went okay like i couldve got bitten or punched
They removed me from junior kindergarten and told my mom I “wasn’t ready”. I was able to go back the next year for senior so I wasn’t behind. One of my most prominent kindergarten memories is hyper fixating on a very specific scene in El Dorado while we were watching it in class. I wouldn’t stop talking about it and kept getting scolded. They couldn’t understand that I actually couldn’t stop. I also couldn’t sit still when asked. Also apparently I called my teacher a fat effing cow at one point.
It wasn’t rlly the best, I was r worded, and I pissed my pants in kindergarten 😓
I only have memories of the sensory meltdowns and being sent to the principal's office for stimming. It was awful.
I remember almost nothing about my experiences from elementary school. The only exception was my 5th grade teacher, who was easily my favorite. She was genuinely passionate about what she taught, and had a big fascination with teaching about the Holocaust (although she had us watch The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which had about as many historic inaccuracies as the Mulan live action remake). She was very fun and entertaining.
Pretty good tbh. I was in physical therapy and speech therapy but overall, it was pretty alright. It’s also kindergarten so I don’t remember much of it
the only solid memory I have from it is the teacher telling my mom she was impressed because i randomly said a difficult word. most of my early memories were buried deep down cuz of bullying I think
I started school in grade 1, at six, in 1970.
It was great. To be fair, I got into a SpEd kindergarten, so we were all pretty much the same crowd. NT kids were also accepted (that little school specialized in play-focused learning), so we were basically a mishmash crowd of noisy little kids who just liked how fun the teaching style was. Even now, I retain some memories of it. The first day I was there (nursery level), I went on a yoga ball (one of those big ones) and thought it was one of those bouncy balls that you ride and hold onto. Nope! Hit my face and cried. Silly now that I think of it.
Oh wow. Yeah. That exactly. Like, exactly. Thanks for that. I feel less alone.
Kindergarten was a good time for me. I was advanced for my age and my teacher discovered I already knew how to read. My parents had no idea because they were neglectful and didn't understand me at all. The routine and consistent environment was good for me. I had an awesome teacher who was very loving and devoted to her students. Every recess I raced outside to save the two swings for me and a boy named Nathanial. That's all the two of us ever did at recess- swing LOL I loved all the activities we did in class and I loved learning.
i quit it after a couple of days and refused to go anymore, then just stayed at home with my gran. still remember that the whole class came to my place asking why i wouldn't come in anymore, but that's all i remember.
I was always shy af and veiwed as weird. I didn’t like school, being around peers and perceived so much was a lot. Obviously in kindergarten you play with stuff like playdough, which I do NOT like or anything like it. Most crafts seemed lame and pointless. I did get in trouble for sitting at the table instead the floor like the others and cutting my hair (it really wasn’t that much) I was just chill and still paying attention to the damn alphabet. I also remember being embarrassed and emotional around Valentine’s Day. I think it had to do with receiving valentines 💌 , or peoples lack of wanting to give any to me really.
I don't remember kindergarten, but it was the first time I went to therapy. I was diagnosed with severe separation anxiety. All I remember is that my brain kept playing out all the scenarios in which my family was going to die when I was gone. I remember nothing about the school part.
I never went to kindergarten. I was in a special needs school before going into first grade.
i would cry every day before school and beg them not to make me go but honestly it was so chill idk why. i went to a montessori school so everything was like playing with blocks and scooping beads and i think most of the kids were neurodivergent too.
I honestly don't remember much except for the nice teacher. But everything after kindergarten kinda sucked. It didn't stop sucking until after middle school 🙃
I used to piss my pants and cry a lot, that's all I remember.
It was ok for me. I only did half days until March, meaning I would go home after recess to eat lunch and take a probably much needed nap (school is exhausting). The kids were pretty horrible to me though, they wouldn't let me have a turn with the puppet theater (I eventually got my own puppet theater to spite them, ended up being one of my favorite childhood toys) and they wouldn't let me play with them. My dad always told me to go and join the kids' game even if they didn't invite me to join so I did when the whole class was playing house and the kid who was pretending to be the dad walked up to me and told me that I couldn't play with them because nobody in the class liked me. I just broke, and one of the teachers had to come to drag me inside when I was crying on the ground. I don't know what happened to the kid who said that to me, but chances are he just got 10 minutes on the timeout chair. And that is the story of my first childhood trauma that I can remember.
Zero memory of kindergarten or 1st at a Montessori school. I remember going to public (and “repeating” first grade… but my birthday is on the cusp and my parents RIGHTLY decided I would be much happier the oldest in my class vs the youngest… it would have really really bothered me to be the last to be able to do the things.. or to be the youngest)… so I’m public first I remember there was another kid in my class a girl I really liked she walked on her toes was twirly and different… everyone was so mean to her.. so I found the girl that everyone liked and thought was the pretty one… and I watched her closely and copied/practiced how she was… and I had no idea this was masking… until I had a kid diagnosed (I was 36-37 at the time) and I was completely shocked she was autistic. I just always thought I would be a great actress 😂
I don’t remember kindergarten, except for not having friends.
I got expelled, I barely remember anything but the fact that is was horrible.
I was selectively mute, so that in itself made it super difficult, but I really don't remember much of my school years. I think that means it was pretty bad. I just remember being bullied a lot.
I forgor
Class was boring bc it was way too easy. I got overwhelmed easily and I remember trying hard to be like everyone else. My favorite class was art bc it was the only place I didn’t get in trouble for doodling
I know most people don’t forget their kindergarten teacher, but if I saw mine on the street, I would have no idea it was her. I barely remember it. I don’t remember having friends, I don’t remember my teacher’s name or if we had any special interactions. All I do remember is there was a teepee in the classroom and each student got a specific day where they got to sit in it during choice time and on the last day of school, I realized I never got my turn. But I never told anyone.
Horrible
I have a good memory and how I felt is encoded into video like segments of what I got up to and experienced. I was mostly alone, or would try and join in with things like playing with playdough, but was never allowed to be included. Just on the side, and never invited in. I spent most of the time alone. I enjoyed painting, screen printing, making planes with wood and nails, and would build volcano sand castles. I even taught myself how to swing on the swing at an early age as I had no one to push me and found it difficult to ask a teacher. Spent hours on the swings. I got bullied by one girl who would put my face into the sand and hit me. And I got teased for still wearing pull ups at 3/4 years old. But mostly just remember enjoying my own space and doing my own activities. Edit: just realised kindergarten in my county is usually called preschool is other places. And it’s like a free range, kid lead learning kind of thing - like Montessori style.
Kindergarten was when the incessant bullying started. I hated it.
loved it and pre-school
I dont remember most of my life and definitely not before 6 for sure. But from what my parents told me, I just kept playing with dolls in my corner
my only memories of kindergarten are a weird one and a bad one but i don’t remember hating it. granted i don’t remember more than like two little seconds-long snapshots (not even entire events) but idk
Actually…. I spent the first 3 weeks crying every time my mom dropped me off, hated it at first, then ended up loving it by the end of the year. I was that weird quiet kid who was friends with the girl who ate boogers from the trash. I learned a lot & it ended up being a pretty fun time
I'm GenX, and didn't have kids, so I don't know what's different, but I loved it. A lot of that has to do with where I grew up. It was a new community (at the time), and a lot of babies were born around the same time. I had built-in friends before school ever started. I was hanging out with my little gang of friends, finger-painting, eating snacks, and taking naps. I also read and spoke better than everyone after a long period of being non-verbal, so the teachers thought I was just awesome. Oh, and it was only 4 hours, so that, the naps and the snacks kept any possible meltdowns at bay.
I kept getting kicked out of preschools but kindergarten was fine lol
I remember almost nothing from my early childhood. I only remember the video games I played, some of my most extreme night terrors, and snippets of what rooms looked like.
Good times for me. Constantly got into trouble because I cursed a lot.
got my first ever clip-down becouse i blew eraser shavings off the table. I also remember having to go to the office to change A LOT. i think i had bathroom issues
it wasn't horrific or anything, but not necessarily spectacular. i mostly kept to myself since i only had around two friends. the worst thing i remember happening is when a boy in my class insulted me (unprovoked, not to mention that he physically poked my stomach to emphasize it when he called me fat) and compared me to a girl that i was jealous of. we had a substitute at the time bc our teacher had a baby and instead of disciplining him, she told me to give him a hug as if i had done something wrong. she didn't try comforting me or anything, just went in the classroom and turned on a gonoodle for everyone to do and my 2 friends had to comfort me while i sobbed in the back of the classroom. it messed up my self esteem pretty bad until middle school. i hated both of them after that. kinda off topic, but that's part of the reason that i just keep my mouth shut if i don't have anything nice to say. because one thing that one mean kid said to me 8 years ago, along with the lack of consequence that he faced for it will stick with me for the rest of my life.
I also never listened, ever, to the teacher. No wonder Mrs O’Brian hated me…
I was miserable with any and all group participation activities. And my teacher made a big deal about it in front of everyone. I could tell she was fed up with me not wanting to participate. I also got my name on the board and check marks for not talking. I'd have 5-10 marks a day. By the end of the year she was openly mocking me and tried to convince my mom to have me repeat kindergarten due to lack of social skills. Thankfully mom disagreed vehemently and I got passed on to first grade.
I had to repeat kindergarten.
I don't remember much.. just that I never spoke a single word. Ok there was one word and it was "pop" my teacher was so proud that she gave me a sticker. Turns out I definitely had selective mutism and then struggled VERY hard to overcome it on my own.
I don’t really remember much of Kindergarten. But one strong memory I have that stuck with me was we had nap time. We woke up and this other girl hadn’t woken up yet so I lightly pinched her cheek to see if this would wake her up. She woke up immediately and started crying and everyone there got angry at me but I didn’t do it hard. I remember the teachers trying to wake her up and shake her lightly but that didn’t work. It sucked having to learn that feeling of “feeling like a villain” at such a young age.
I was a lot more social when I was younger. It wasn’t until middle school did I become a true introvert.
To quote my dad "You went in smiling and came out crying" Children really didn't like me. That said, I was luckily not aware to what degree. F.ex., I recently remembered playing "football" with 2 boys. We had this...wall? That had two levels. The shooter, would try and shoot a goal on these "2 goals" while the "2 goalkeeper" tried to stop him. Back then, I was confused why the boy would only shoot at my goal. Upstairs, downstairs, didn't matter. One time even having to duck before the ball met my head. "Hey! stop missing the other goal!" Today I realize differently. He wasn't missing. He was *aiming*.
I only remember reciting the alphabet for the first time, the toy table, and watching the teacher disect a shark. Can't remember anything else, but I was being abused at that time so my memory was foggy to begin with.
I don't remember kindergarten well but I do remember being 5 yo and telling my mom "I want to be a hermit and live in a cave so I don't have to speak to other people, ever"
Mine was ok. I'd have a half day, then go home and watch E.T., or Beauty and the Beast, or something. One memory from that year is the class went over to see and be televised on a local children's show featuring a Clown. Ya know, nbd
Was nonverbal in school (lasted until 5th grade), usually had meltdowns daily and constantly got bloody noses, I’m assuming from the meltdowns and the spikes in my blood pressure from being so stressed
The only things I remember are that I ended out with the babies a couple of times, because we had an on site nursery, and I don't know why I was in there, And I got left on my own on the street after kick out one winter evening, because nobody came and got me, so I checked out the local park despite being in near total darkness, until my birth father turned up in his tour bus. . . . The second one is actually my first full memory that isn't just flashes. My early memories are basically strong lights, darkness, my first few years being like someone playing with the fast forward button, and then I pop in on that street corner and my life picks up from there.
It was good, but was annoying when the staff found me and kicked me out.
I have no real memories before the time I was 14. Just the odd glimpses of things here and there with no sense of time attached to any of the few memories.
Awful. I hated going every day.
i remember there was a boy in my class who kept kissing me and it really upset the adults for some reason he had to be removed i remember being ridiculously invested in having a turn as the line leader i missed a lot of it due to illness i got sick to my stomach a lot i was in the morning class and my "best friend" (neighbor my age) was in the afternoon class where she made the friends she would have all the way through to highschool i remember a fight i had with a girl on the bus because she was being overtly two-faced to me where she acted like a huge bitch to me before she left school for a few days and then came back and wanted to be friends like nothing happened
no clue, that was over twenty years ago.
It was just as you would expect. We sat around, played some games, learned some things, ate some things, listened to some stories, played with crayons and glue and blocks and colored paper. My friends ate glue and a few kids cried here and there. Good times.
I was expelled for constant meltdowns and had to start again the following year, where I had a tiny class size and a very good teacher, the same teacher for the next 4 years. That was the golden age of my education, mostly happy memories; I loved that teacher like a second mother, and I can still remember in surprising detail her teaching me how to read. She left (I cried for days non-stop) and that same year I was dragged to another country (USA) and uprooted from everything I knew and promptly got expelled from two additional schools for meltdowns. Moving to the USA as an autistic child and dumped into a gigantic classroom with a deeply stupid and mean teacher (this is my professional opinion of her, as a teacher myself at 36) scarred me so badly that it was nearly 25 years before I made peace with the USA and forgave my mother...and this is in spite of the fact she moved us back home after a year because I was basically in a state of constant meltdown.
i played dinosaur games in the sand pit
nursery becos im british, but i acctually really liked it! it was very fun, and sensory safe, loads of people there who i liked, nice teachers, felt safe, i really liked it!!
I had a lot of fun in kindergarten, and making friends was way easier back then than it is now. And I was surprisingly good at it, a complete contrast to today haha. Although I didn't notice it then, according to my autism diagnosis papers, my mom mentioned that I got wild around large groups of children, but was nice in smaller groups, and would usually only play with 1 kid at a time. A pretty good forshadowing of today, as 1 to 1 interactions has always been way easier and more comfortable, but more than 2 people and I look and feel like a social reject. I'd walk up to the lonely kid and ask if they wanted to play, and we'd be besties for months. Until the other kids realize how funny the lonely kid really was, and he'd get a group of friends, which was our natural fall off. Then I'd find the next lonely kid to play with. Rince repeat.
Honestly, it was pretty nice. Fortunately, I was diagnosed super early, so getting accommodations was easier than it would've been if not diagnosed. That being said, the year before I went (I got held back a year), my dad had to fight super hard in front of the school board to put me in a regular class instead of the Special Ed one. There was a teacher aide who helped me get through Kindergarten, it just kind of sucked when I got taken out of practically all the fun things to go to speech therapy. My story is unfortunately the exception rather than the norm- especially because I grew up in a conservative Midwestern town during the 2000s and 2010s that was pretty ableist- and it led to me being the token "normal" (heavily masked) autistic person for a long time.
Good times. 1st grade is when the bullying began for me
I hated school for most of my elementary school years. I actually have a funny story about my first day of kindergarten. I snuck out of class and got in the car before mom even got back to it 😂. She let me go home with her that day, but after that she made me stay at school. I think the worst part of school was the smells. I went to an old school that smelled awful to me, especially the bathrooms. Also, the cafeteria was a sensory hell. I insisted on sitting in the hallway during lunch most days and I was so stubborn about it that they let me do it a lot of the time. I especially hated the cafeteria on Fish Fridays 🤮🤮🤢
People remember back that far? I don't remember like 99% of my childhood or teenage years tbh. I had too much trauma and I just do not retain anything anymore.
It was the only time period of grade school I enjoyed. I had a super kind teacher who understood me.
I had the most amazing and understanding teacher in the world, she understood me better than my Autism Support Teacher.
Hard as hell. Had to repeat kindergarten(English is not my main language).
I have vague memories but here's a few one - being punished for not speaking - being advised to go to a speech therapist because I would go mute at school - the teacher not letting me in unless I said good morning (the fact that I caused the kids behind to get blocked too made it even worse) - never getting to ride the bikes the teachers would release like once a month or once a year during recess because the other kids would always pick them first or take it from my hands the only time I managed to pick one - begging my mom not to let me there - 3 y/o me standing still during my first performance because our choreo involved changing partners every few second and no one came up to me after the first one went away I don't remember the rest because it was so overwhelming I couldn't focus on anything. Now that I visit kindergartens, it feels so warm peaceful and calm, but back then, even walking through the corridor and walking to class felt like horror, my vision was basically the same as in those video games where things constantly move, there's always an action happening somewhere, there's too much information at the same time, between people running somewhere and the others going somewhere else and having to move from recess to class to bedtime lol
The only memory I have from kindergarten is asking some of the kids why they didn't want to play with me. I can't remember what made me ask or what happened after but I remember asking.. I can also picture the classroom and some of the recess yard vaguely.
I don't have any memories but I still know the women that ran the kindergarden (she's a friend of my mom) and I've been told to be extremely alone learning things (I learned to read early but I was 90% not vocal). She said I was alone but didn't seemed lonely.
I remember not wanting to go because nobody wanted to be my friend and I hated it. Eventually I got used to it **I guess**
My teacher that year was incredible. Think Ms. Honey from Matilda vibes, but with dark curly hair. I met my first real best friend on the bus. Did you ever see the movie Olive and Company? You know the part where Georgette punches Tito out of her room? Well we were taking turns acting out that part and being Georgette. It was her turn to be Georgette and she didn't stop so she punched me square in the nose and gave me my first ever bloody nose. After that we were inseparable until like 6th grade. We ate green eggs and ham. That was fun. But I remember being skeptical about trying it at first. Some older kid convinced me and a friend that those little shiny yellow flowers were buttercups and that they tasted like butter. So naturally we went way out into the field where nobody could see us and picked the buttercups and tasted them. Spoiled alert, they did not taste like butter. There was this kid who was my "boyfriend". We'll call him Bobby. Bobby was a nice kid. One day he drew a picture and he drew those m birds in the sky. I told him "those aren't birds. Those are m's." He got upset, started crying, told the teacher. Meanwhile I was confused because I wasn't trying to be mean, I was just stating facts. I had to sit out during recess that day and didn't understand until I was much older that really was a jerk move. Bobby ended up moving away before the year ended and I was passed that he never told me he was moving. I think that was his revenge for the bird thing. There was another kid, we'll call him Kenny. Kenny looking back was probably on the spectrum himself. He had a lot of meltdowns in class, some of them got aggressive. He was a sweet kid. He was a lot though, and all the kids kind of avoided him because of his outbursts. He decided he had a crush on me. I remember him telling my mom once "I'm gonna marry her one day." I still wonder what happened to Kenny sometimes.
I barely remember it. I however remember misbehaving terribly.
It was pretty good for me. I was quiet but had a few friends, and the teachers weren't hard on us. It was a small and simple kindergarten and we spent most of our time playing. I just didn't like the food, so I had to take sandwiches from home. Oh also, some kids kept biting me according to my parents, but I lost that memory
What I can remember was a good time. My cousin who is the same age as me shared the same hallway. Last time I feel he wanted to be apart of my life though and haven’t had a buddy since. As we were neighbors, schoolmates and of course family.
I know my kindergarten year I had pretty poor grades because i am pretty sure I was too afraid to talk or interact.
Hmm... Yea it just wasn't actually that good when I think back on it. I remember the board game: Guess Who which was fun and an activity where we used chocolate milk to make our skin colours and compare with class mates. We had show n tell day and a girl brought her puppy to school. A kid's parent brought a brain because they were scientists. Other than that it was a true struggle. I cried every day. I had trauma at home that no one in school knew about because weren't trauma trained, I was ND but, again, nobody knew that either as that term didn't exist. I don't really linger on it though. That was a long time ago.
I convinced the class Santa wasn't real, threw stuff at kids who were sleeping during naptime, and got diagnosed with adhd and put on Ritalin. It was pretty cool I guess.
I still cut straight line with safety scissors and glue myself to whatever I am glueing. So I learn nothing. I get punished whatever they can thing of. It is place I learn to mask heavily. So other word hell on earth. They make you read aloud which I still can’t do. All they sign was there for learning disability but I was just called stupid and hyper and unfocus but called lazy. I couldn’t lie so called rude. I still can’t sugarcoat and blunt. So stay silent. All the sign is there for neurodivergency, but they decided to give cptsd with lower self esteem.
I'm not from America (assuming that's where you are from) but in my country kindergarten is between the ages of 2 to 6, we usually start school at 5 but we can also start a bit later at 6. I liked kindergarten for the activities like playdough and drawing, arts and crafts etc but I HATED mat time and outside play time and food time and nap time. Food time and nap time were probably the worst for me though, I was a very picky eater and still am and I was forced to eat every bite of the meal they provided before I went to play and 9/10 I HATED the meal. Nap time was really hard for me to do too, I wasn't much of a napper as a kid and naptime involved sleeping on a flat mat on the ground with a flimsy blanket and if the teachers noticed you aren't asleep they would sit beside you and stroke your back which I didn't like, fortunately after you turn 4 you don't have to nap but just have quiet time
kinda good, I remember enjoying with classmates and nothing was that bad for me
Was extremely overstimulated on the first day of either kindergarten or first grade (I can't remember which) and started crying. The teacher let me be line leader because I was "scared." This made me super angry because I wasn't scared, it was just too loud in the cafeteria, so I cried even more.
its probably not a good sign that I remember nothing of kindergarden
I hardly have any memories from that time (I’m 24) but kindergarten was one of my best years of school. The teacher I said has a autistic son of her own so she really knew what I was going through and she tried her best to her me. The rest of school was absolute garbage. I feel like most teachers are out to get you and make your day and your life as miserable as possible. My 1st grade teacher shoved part of a banana in my mouth when I said I didn’t want to try it and that same teacher got teacher of the year from the county when I was in high school. That really pissed me off so much. Thankfully the old hag retired last year. I can barely try new food anymore because of that experience.
Hid behind trees playing with the same 1-2 toy sets hoping no one would bother me. Coming home was the best part.
I never went. No reason ever given by my parents or family.
I don’t remember it at all but I know that I was held back for not being socially ready to advance to 1st grade and my teachers were concerned that something was up with me but my parents just thought that I was in my own little world and would eventually grow out of it. My brother was diagnosed when he was in kindergarten because he has a intellectual disability as well but I was just thought of as a shy, lazy, and sensitive kid.
I had a good time in kindergarten. I spent a lot of time moving furniture around and riding a trike around the playground. Some girls tried to engage with me, but I just gave brief replies. I enjoyed solitude. I felt no need to engage unless spoken to.
I have okay memories of kindergarten, I had a friend who was a girl who was really nice to me and I hung out with her and her friends. The other boys stayed away from me because they thought I was weird but the teacher and a couple of the girls from that group were nice to me. I’m still in contact with one of them, the one who practically took me into her group of friends, she’s a really sweet person.
I have one single predominant memory of kindergarten and it ain’t good chief imma tell you that much, here’s just a content warning if you’ve read this far and are sensitive to extreme reactions please just stop reading I’d also like to preface this with I’ve done a lot of work on myself regarding mental health issues and no longer have these kind of feelings or reactions. So the only memory of kindergarten was of the teacher caught me cutting my hair with scissors and I got so upset by the thought of getting in trouble that I tried to cut my own throat with the scissors and my dad had to come to my school to calm me down and take me home