Parent/Teacher Conference
Melissa and I were treated to our first parent/teacher conference for his daycare on Monday the 8th of December. Overall it was interesting to hear about things from a teacher’s perspective, and we learned a lot about our son and our son’s daycare.
It is easy to get a little frustrated in this situation — this person is telling you what isn’t going so right, but also telling you not to worry about it. Not that anything is even seriously wrong. In fact I found myself being a little proud of Ian for what he’s been up to, with nothing more than a little dash of concern.
Apparently, he’s been doing (or not doing) two things in particular:
The first is that he’s not been talking, and being shy around larger groups of students. Get him down to two or three people and suddenly he jabbers away. The teacher, Miss Judy, went on to say that she was considering giving us more of a warning about this behavior, had he not surprised her the week before with a few sentences and confirmation of understanding about a three step task that he had been given. She said she’s pretty sure that he’s holding back on her; he can do and say more than he shows, just doesn’t want to show it. So… this is something she wanted to bring up, but apparently is not necessarily an issue.
The other thing is he’s been being a bit of a rebel. If he spies that the ratio is off in the classroom, and one teacher can’t possibly chase after him while reading to a number of kids, he’ll run off and do his own thing. This is true of many activities. If they’re coloring, or playing with playdough, he gets bored very quickly and goes off by himself. I look at this with mixed emotions. You want your kid to be able to stand there with the others in a row and behave himself, sure… I want him to follow the rules almost all of the time, but I also want him to be able to question those same rules if need be. I figure questioning the rules will probably come naturally to him, though, so for now we’re going to focus on rules.
We were given a worksheet with things that he can or can’t do under testing conditions, but again were told not to worry about the things he doesn’t do. (Like saying his own name. “What’s your name, Ian?”
So I’m guessing you came to the same conclusion I did: Ian’s too smart for the curiculum, and chooses to hide his brooding intellect rather than entrust his master plans to the young deviants in his class. Where’s the problem? 😉 “What’s your name, Ian?” “You don’t have clearance — need to know basis.” (I’m kidding.)
General update: This morning I told Ian I was getting his diaper and he helped me like never before. He obediently ran over to the mat I had placed on the floor, and tried to position himself on the clean diaper… he sat fairly still and when we were done he smiled, got up, and handed me the mat so that I could put it back. What a good boy!
Every time I pick up my phone now Ian says something about calling Gramma.
Periodically throughout the weeks since Thanksgiving Ian has kind of named family members.
Since the Christmas Recital (more on that next entry) Ian has said some things in a singing kind of way, but it is always a little unclear as to what he’s singing.
Just throwing this in for kicks, timing-wise it fell right around here that he had this bath. Save for the plastic fishing rod in his hand, the rest of him is quite cuddly, no? See this image larger.
