It's only going to get worse

We have a problem. Being good parents, we're trying TheBoy out this summer in a Spanish immersion preschool program. It's not exactly mentally taxing -- he goes, he paints, he plays with clay, he runs around outside, he listens to stories, he eats his healthy snack, he comes home.

But he doesn't want to go. And he makes that clear. "Noschoolnoschoolnoschool," is a common response to the idea. "Sad. Cry. Miss Ima," is another. The teachers say he has a few minutes of pouting/crying/whining when he first gets there. Then he goes about his day. Yet it seems that he's learning to associate school with being unhappy.

The rational part of my brain says that this is perfectly normal, that he needs to learn how to go off on his own without this mommies. (Better he cry a little now, for example, than decide to spend the rest of his life living with us.)

At the same time, it's absolutely heartbreaking to see his little brain adjust to the idea that we're taking him and leaving him there, no matter what he says. I think of the tiny little guy in that not-really big classroom, staring wide-eyed in confusion as everyone around him speaks a language he doesn't understand.

Are we scarring him?