It's All Good

Yesterday afternoon we had R's parent-teacher conference and today we went to A's school to talk to her teachers. I must say that I feel so blessed to have healthy and happy kids who do well in school. It makes the conferences something to look forward to and enjoy!

Last year at this time I was angsty and twitchy about R' s conference because the classroom she was in was just not a right fit and the year was a difficult one for her socially and emotionally. She was not happy and not challenged in the right ways. Additionally, the teacher was having her own personal issues that impacted the class as a whole due to her stress and her frequent absences. This year was a huge improvement. Her teacher has been fabulous. She was aware of R's social needs and worked on helping R build relationships with other kids. It wasn't always smooth-going but R made some great strides this year and was with a group of really great kids which helped make the process that much easier for her. I think she is developing a few friendships that will hopefully carry over into 3rd grade. Her teacher let us know that she is going to try to place R with kids that she works well with (and she is going to specifically ask R who she might want to be with in 3rd grade) so that the friendships can continue to grow next year. The teacher also had to work on encouraging R to talk more in small and large group discussions. It was something that she was very resistant to in the first half of the year and her teacher told us that it is something that will be expected of her a lot more in 3rd grade. We talked with her and explained that it was not really optional and that it was her "job" at school to share what she knows...particularly when she is asked a question by the teacher (her response was usually to drop her head and refuse to look at the teacher or answer the question). She is a very "rule driven" kind of kid so once we laid the groundwork and told her what was expected she really rose to the occasion and started working harder on those skills. Academically, R is doing really well - her teacher showed us some of her writing (and we all had a good laugh over the "how to" pages) and she told us that she has really developed some great writing skills over the course of this year. Her math skills are right on target (or even advanced in some areas...which must be Rick's genes at work in her because she doesn't get that from me!) and she is decoding above grade level with comprehension skills at least at grade level (she had inconsistent test results because of R's reluctance to talk/answer certain questions on that day). It's always nice to hear that your kid is doing well academically but I was even happier to hear that the social piece is starting to fall into place for her to a certain degree. I don't expect her to ever be the 'social butterfly' kind of kid, but I also don't want her to feel out of the loop and alone in those instances where she might want to be part of the action but just isn't quite sure how to go about it.

And speaking of 'social butterflies' - today was our conference with A's preschool teachers. It was another great meeting that reinforced our notion that A is more than ready for Kindergarten and is doing well both academically and socially. Her teachers have been so happy to have in her the class and she is a good friend to all the kids at school. She shows none of the sassy 5-year-old attitude that we experience here at home and her teachers were surprised to hear she was even capable of such behavior. Boy, she's got them fooled all right. But, in some ways it is nice to know that she is able to self monitor enough to realize what is and is not acceptable behavior depending on the setting. Not that I find it acceptable for her to sass me or Rick - or that I let her get away with it (far from it!) - but at least she knows that home is a safe place to test those limits and she knows better than to test them in school with her teachers. The teachers also told us that she is taking on more of a 'helper' role in the classroom when it comes to her interactions with her classmates. She likes to explain things to the other kids - like how to play a game - and she does so in a very nice way. And she is getting better at speaking out for herself when she encounters issues or problems of her own - last year she often sought out a teacher to fix the problem but now she is having fewer tears and using her language more to resolve an issue with peers all on her own. She has had a wonderful (almost) two years of preschool and we are all looking forward to her transition to kindergarten next year. We are hoping that she has the same great teacher that R had for kindergarten and there is a good chance that she will know at least a few other kids in her class - one from preschool this year and a couple of others from the neighborhood. However, we feel fairly confident that she will make plenty of new friends next year and will have a great time!