Sending Ethan to school

I know it's going to be some years before that happens but just the thought of that had my eyes teary. He's with us all the time, it's going to be so hard to let go of his hands on his first day, even if it's only for a few hours. *sob* I worry about how he is going to cope at school; with homework, with teachers, with friends. Then I worry about if he's going to be badly-influenced by his peers; to smoke, to do drugs, to have sex. Later I will worry about if he's able to graduate from school, from uni and whether he will be able to find a proper job, to support himself. After that I worry about if he's able to find his one true love, his life partner (a female preferably, if not then that's another thing to worry about) and stay true to her for the rest of his life. All these worries only for ONE child and with no grandchildren. I heard somewhere before that "worry is part of a parent's job description". [By the end of this paragraph I've used one tissue]

All these made me think back when I was a child myself and how my parents felt when they dropped me off on my first day. My mother was a tough lady on the outside. I never had the chance to ask how she felt on the day she sent me to school. I don't remember my first day at kindergarten. I vaguely remembered my first day at primary school. My dad had to work so obviously my mum was the one who sent me to school. The school was very near my house, just about 10 minutes walk. I forgot how we got into our classrooms and our seats but I remembered that after the class started many of the parents were still standing outside the classroom and some children cried for their parents. After a while my mum waved goodbye to me and I bravely waved back. I'm not sure if she came during recess (I think she must have, and brought me some food too) but she came and pick me up when school ended for the day. [By the end of this paragraph I'm sobbing non-stop and have used three tissues including the one before. I have also caught my husband's attention and he gave me a comforting hug, thanks!]

Actually I never meant to write the paragraph above but I just got to thinking what happened when my mum let go of my hands on my first day. Just that two word 'my mum' had tears running down my face again. [Moving on to my fourth tissue now]

This was meant to be a short post and I got a little bit side-tracked. This was what I wanted to write originally. I was searching on the internet about the school systems over here because I have only the slightest ideas about them. Preschool is at age 4, then not really sure about the kindy, reception and year 1 age. I was told that year 1 is age 7, which makes reception age 6, and kindy age 5. Primary school is from reception to year 7 and secondary school is from year 8 to year 12. Preschool is not necessary but I was told that if he attends preschool that is attached with a primary school then he most probably would have made some friends when he enters reception. Also I thought if we send him to preschool we learn to 'let go' earlier. Preschool consists of 3-hour session per day for a maximum of four sessions a week. There are about 10 weeks in a term and 4 terms in a year.

That was the furthest I ventured so far. I still want to find out the difference to public and private education here although our chances of getting Ethan into a private school would be next to impossible. I shall stop now before I go any further. I will find out more about public and private and blog about that as another topic later.

P/S: Sorry if I got too emotional on this topic.