Walking Backwards

Yesterday, Joe and I went to a parent-teacher conference at Nico's school. They have three such conferences every school year and this is the last one for this class. Nicholas' teacher wanted to meet with everyone to discuss what needs to be done to get them ready for the next year. This is the first one we have had since Nicholas became acclimated to the class and it was quite different. The previous two were all about what we could do to make Nicholas more comfortable with me leaving him there; this conference was about Nicholas' personality and behavior. *Sigh* It really didn't go that badly at all, but it seems as if the same problems we are having with Nicholas at home, he is showing at school. My son is the most stubborn child in existence. His teacher was at first concerned that whenever she tried to re-direct him, he didn't seem to hear her or understand. I had to explain to her that no, its just that he doesn't want to be told what to do. With Nicholas, whenever he is doing something you don't want him to do, if you tell him to stop and do something else, he will run off and find something else on his own. He wants you to know that he is in control of what he does. Neither of us could figure out the best way to manage this situation so we figured that it would be best to leave it for now and see where it goes. She did say that he was a very "outside-of-the-box" thinker, that he was continually trying to find new ways to do things or look at things. That was cool. The main things we are supposed to work on during the summer are giving him more structure and involving him in some sort of group activity where he is supposed follow instruction and required to sit and participate.

The first thing his teacher had to know about, though, was Nicholas' progress reading. She was so shocked the first time he attempted to sound out words to her. You see, Nicholas is extremely analytical and wants to know the mechanics of why things are and he has always been obsessed with letters and numbers and shapes. So, a little less than a year ago we started working on reading with him, teaching him how to sound out word phonetically and how to take picture and context clues. Now, he is trying to do a little of the working out himself. We had to explain to his teacher that we really aren't the overbearing that it might seem, but that Nicholas was really interested in doing this. That is the area he is interested in, so that's what we've been working with him on. Every article I read about psychopathic parents who have flash-cards for their one year-old make me cringe because of the negative light that they are all portrayed in. That's us. Really, though, he wants to do it. He's the only child I know who carries around a box of flashcards like a toy. I have to wonder what his teacher thinks our home life is like.

Well, today is Earth Day and Nico's movie for today, the Lorax, is over. Now were going to the garden center to get some things to plant and are going on a nature walk. It seems I'm turning my little boy into a crunchy environmentalist. Yay! I hope this will be one thing my son picks up from me. Mentioning crunchy things - next week is TV turnoff week, be prepared. That is going to be one long week for me.