Picking the perfect kindergarten drives many parents up the wall

The February gloom has descended on Seattle, and that means parents have another part-time job and full-time headache, complete with spreadsheets and overtime. They must choose a kindergarten by the end of the month.

Do they care too much?

Of course, kindergarten is a watershed moment for many families, when parents cede some control to schools and their child takes a major step from home and toward adulthood.

But today's parents -- arguably the most child-rearing-obsessed ever -- can find their kindergarten choice stressful. Even after all the homework, Mom and Dad don't always get it right, perhaps glomming onto a charismatic principal, when they should sit in classrooms and listen, research curricula and know their own child.

"I would tell parents to relax, and the other thing is to think about their kids," said Ilene Schwartz, an education professor at the University of Washington. "Do the teachers look happy?"

For the past few months, parents in Seattle have toured public and private classrooms, crunched WASL scores and grilled administrators, working toward the Feb. 29 deadline when their public school choices are due.

Plenty of parents glide through the process, pleased with neighborhood schools that remain popular with many families.

But, in this era of intensive parenting, many moms and dads worry about picking the best kindergarten for their firstborn, particularly in a shifting U.S. economy.

"Part of what is driving it is the changes going on in our world, the changes in our economy, the worries about the next generation having it a little tougher than this generation had," said Jane Waldfogel, a professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work. "All of that anxiety about the (future) gets placed onto their school and onto their parenting."

Plus, Seattle Public Schools allows parents to list their choices, but there is no guarantee they will get those choices. A top district's priority, though, is to allow children to attend nearby schools.

Carol Vogt didn't realize how rigorous the private and public school search was until last month when she started searching for kindergartens for her only child. Since then, the former social worker sometimes feels like the search takes over her life.

"Talking to parents, just doing the tours, just debriefing with parents, there is a lot of anxiety out there," said Vogt, 43.

Vogt is taking the steps experts suggest. She wants a school that would fit her daughter's personality, and with smaller classes.

Yet she also senses a whiff of desperation during those tours and parents chats.

The whiff is part uncertainty.

"I think everyone is worried about it. We all want April to come," said North Seattle mother Kasey Downing, referring to the month when the district sends out school assignments. "It is just the not knowing."

All the research is worth it, top early learning experts suggest, though parents don't always use the best methodology.

The simplest research can be the best. Sit in the tiny kindergarten chairs, walk around classrooms on your knees, and see how your child will view a classroom, suggests Graciela Italiano-Thomas, head of Thrive by Five, a public-private partnership that will spend tens of millions of dollars on early learning programs in Washington state.

"Is the environment guiding me? Do I need to depend on the teacher telling me where to go?" Italiano-Thomas, a former teacher, said. "I think parents want their child to be happy, so they need to trust their instincts."

While parent-teacher interviews are important, parents literally should watch the walls. Check bulletin boards for faculty development opportunities, openings for parental involvement and student artwork, says Sharon Lynn Kagan, co-director of the New York City-based National Center for Children and Families.

Listen. A kindergarten class that is too quiet can signal a problem, she added.

"The first thing I always look for is the teacher having a good time," Kagan said.

Despite negative publicity about helicopter parenting, Kagan doesn't think that parents are necessarily too invested in their child's education.

"They are better consumers of education," Kagan said. "If the parent isn't happy with the classroom, the child isn't going to be, either."

And today's parents can be hard to make happy, especially because that subset, helicopter parents, obsesses about child-rearing in ways never seen before, Columbia's Waldfogel said.

"There is so much more choice than there used to be, and there is so much hype about doing the right things," said Carolyn Pape Cowan, a professor of psychology emerita at the University of California-Berkeley.

Amid all the hype, there should be opportunities to take a few breaths.

Kindergarten is an important choice, but "I think it is good to not let it consume you. ... You are in school six hours a day for 180 days and, yes, it is really, really important. It is not everything," the UW's Schwartz says.

Yet parental anxiety is stoked by the fact that they can list their top Seattle public school choices, but the final calls are made elsewhere.

"I think it's really scary because you don't have control over it," Schwartz said.

The fear and anxiety likely won't ease until April when parents hear where their children are going. "Just keep it positive," Schwartz said. "And also think about reading to the children as much as you can."