My 5 year old hit another kid on her first day of kindergarten
Yesterday was my daughter’s first day of kindergarten after her phase in days. She has always been such a phenomenal kid and is extremely bright. She got into a public magnet school where the kids have to test in and be at least in the 80th percentile in math, reading, and written expression. We’ve never had behavioral problems with her in the past and she attended a little Montessori half day school for a few years before entering kindergarten just now. When she was 2-3 she had some issues at school just with emotional regulation but never ever used her body to communicate with other kids (that I was told about at least). Her teachers have always adored her and she has big teacher’s pet energy.
Anyway, yesterday I get an email from her teacher saying there was an incident at school where she hit a friend on the chin. Context is she was wearing a chewy necklace (we have always kept one in her backpack since she’s a big chewer and will chew on pencils, marker caps etc so we have it just in case to redirect) and the other kid reached out for her necklace without asking and she responded by hitting them. They made her go to the counselor’s office to talk about how she needs to use her words not her hands to communicate with her friends and they moved her away from this kid as I guess their desks were next to each other.
When she got home we talked about it and she made an apology card for the friend and her consequence was no video games last night since that is her number 1 favorite thing to do right now. She was obviously very upset and emotional because we’ve never had to punish her like this before because we truly have never had any issues like this.
All that to say, is this normal? I know kindergarten is such a big step up and the days are long and it’s a brand new environment but I am now so on edge that something is going to happen again and that she is going to be labeled a bad kid for this slip up.
I think I’m projecting a lot of my own feelings and anxieties onto this situation because I struggled a lot in school when I was younger due to having ADHD and was labeled a bad kid by quiet a few teachers because I had such a hard time not talking and attending in class.
I just want some unbiased opinions on if this is typical kindergarten behavior because I feel like this one tiny incident has made me spiral a bit.