Ms. C handed me a piece of paper, then walked away to take care of something and being me, and impatient in waiting to review anything, I read what was on it. It was the 2nd page, the area which the teacher writes her own thoughts and I laughed.
has a problem sitting still for any period of time
I have to say, it's hard to sit at a parent teacher conference as a parent. It’s hard to hear about your kid and not have some odd nagging noise in the far recesses of your mind blaming you for not being able to have your kid achieve a 'PERFECT' scoring. And this is what I am feeling with a 3 year old. Can you imagine how much louder the noise gets as the years go by?
Ari did well. It brought smiles and no real surprise to me that he’s advanced in his letter and number recognition. The teacher was surprised to hear how early on in age he has been able to recite the entire alphabet as well as his current ability to know their respective sounds and count numbers up to almost 20 in both English & Spanish. He recognizes his name, and some small words. He’s fairly impressive to that end. Ms. C said that the full day preschool will be extremely beneficial to Ari next year and that the Spanish camp will help tremendously in his language skills, even mentioning how her own twenty-something son was learning Spanish. Although, admittedly, the dual language has him using both languages to express himself even when people (i.e. his teachers) don't understand him, and is slightly delaying his ability to express himself (but not negatively so.) Where he lacks seems to be in some other areas.
Now, to hear the opinion of your child from an external source, an objective individual who has no experience of your lifestyle at home is interesting. You spend a lot of the meeting time giving them a deeper explanation of your child, the differences in environment they live in and are taken care in with the school environment. The languages they speak and to whom they speak them. The relationships they have and the socialization they receive. You learn how each of these translates to and affects their behavior at school, their ability to understand and focus. You start realizing how much and how valued your guidance is to the development of your child.
Ari seems to have a bit of an issue in focus. Completing tasks to fulfillment before moving on to something else (i.e. puzzles) or even sitting during story time is something he’s not good at. He much prefers to walk around, do what he wants to do when he wants to do it and selectively listen. But through this all, he’s not disruptive. He just doesn’t follow a routine and that is why we put him in the school in the first place. Life at home and at grandmas’ is free play with whatever it is that he wishes to do without limitations. Things that need not be touched are out of reach. He basically gets to class and finds himself in sensory overload and goes right into the ‘I want to do this so I do’ attitude. He is very much a free spirit. His other negative is that he doesn’t put on his coat; pull down his pants for the bathroom, etc. And it’s not because he doesn’t know how. He’d done it with coaxing. But he does not freely do it. So we need to have him do this stuff more often on his own.
And although there’s no concern over any of this its hard not to wonder if there’s something you are doing wrong. We went over many of the things he seems to enjoy at home that he doesn’t seem to focus on at school and over the course of the conversation we noticed that things he doesn't focus on at school but does very well at home are always done in a environment when Ari is in control of the situation. He generally likes being in control of the situation and would rather do as he pleases then follow direction if its not something of his interest at the moment. It questions our behavior and philosophy on the amount of liberty and restrain that we need to give him. It makes me believe that we should be more structured but we battle this ideology. We like his spirit right now. How do we build structure without stifling his fire and creativity. There are benefits in both directions. And that’s where I begin to over think the situation.
And then I hear Rob laughing. “He’s only 3” he says. And I’m reminded, Ari’s learning and improving. And simultaneously, we as parents are learning and improving. And I laugh. It's then that I realize that our children will teach us more then anything else we've have learned so far in life.
1 comment:
That's the basis of Parker's issues, too. He controls situations. That's just it. He has to control, or he just doesn't know what to do with himself. I'd expound, but it's just one big stressball that I hate getting into.
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