The first week of 2018 was hectic for me. We tried something new with the kids. I decided to send Little Luqman (who is now 20months) to her sister's kindy, hoping that the both of them would spend more time together in school. The first day, Aisya's teacher told me that Luqman didn't want to separate with his sister, and so they were doing everything together; sleep eat and learn.

After the third day, I noticed that Luqman did not fit in that school (probably because he's a little too young for kindy) and we decided to bring him back to his nursery, paying more of course, but giving this mommy a peace of mind that there's more experienced teachers will be looking after him.

And then, there's that issue with Aisya. We love her school now because of the islamic values instilled in her, saying things like "I want to be a good muslim mommy," and telling me stories of the prophets and memorizing surahs, but my concern after sending her there for 2 years, is the development of her character. With the new location, and bigger space, there's more students, thus the lack of personal attention. I also noticed that the environment of the kids in school are a little timid. Aisya also complaints of not wanting to go to school.

I had quite a hard time deciding on whether I should change her to a new school. We did thought of this last year, but after visiting a few different schools in the neighbourhood, we realized that there's none that really grab our attention. So she stayed.

And then a friend of mine told me about a school that's been around for the past 20 years, and when we visited the school, both me and Mr. instantly fell in love with it. So did Aisya. It was very warm and friendly, and there's only like 30 kids. I love how the teachers warmly welcome us, how they spoke to us, how they spoke to Aisya. You can see that your child will develop well with this kind of environment and this kind of leadership. It's now a well known branded school, just a little gem in the neighbourhood, where the 3 founders also used to send their kids there.

But this school, is not an islamic-based school. And that thought of bringing her out of an islamic school brings like a huge guilt in me. Am I really going to do this? Is she going to be okay? What if this is a huge mistake ( I know right? It's only kindergarten!)

And then Mr. tells me that we parents, have to play that bigger role in instilling her the islamic values. Our focus now should be in developing her character, and then at the same time, let her learn to love Allah, showing good Muslim examples and encouraging her to be good. At the end of the day, it's only kindy!

YES. The kind of headaches a mom goes through, and for only a kindergarten. And this is only the start. What about primary school? Where should we send her? Private? Government? International school? Islamic? Non-islamic? Oh myyy oh myyy oh myyyyyy.

May Allah keep guiding us!