Last week, I picked my daughter up from preschool. While driving home I’m listening to her four-year-old ramblings about her day. As we pulled into our driveway to park, the ramblings culminated in a heartbroken and tearful voice telling me, “everyone in my class thinks I’m a dumb person!” To be perfectly honest with you, I’m raising a genius. She has trouble remembering what’s allowed and what’s not from time to time and that gets her into trouble, but she’s a genius. I’m biased, though. After more conversation 
with a slightly distraught drama princess (because let’s face it, I’m the drama queen…), I discovered not a single child or teacher had told her she was a dumb person. She had answered a question incorrectly during circle time and was disappointed with herself. She then proceeded to convince herself that because she had answered one question incorrectly, she was a dumb person. No one told her that; she told herself that.
As I walked out of her bedroom that night I couldn’t help but be sad. I questioned whether there was any way I could’ve protected her from her own feelings of self doubt. Of course, there could have been a way to delay that feeling of self doubt, but she would have experienced it eventually. Maybe a year from now in kindergarten, if I had decided not to put her in preschool. But the pros of Pre-K far outweighed the cons (there was only one con, y’all). Had a messed up my child because I’d made this choice for her?