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Well, my kid’s first report card, that is. I slept terribly the night before. I was a complete wreck! And he is only four years old. How will I make it to age 18? The burning question for me is: what am I supposed to do with a progress report for a four year old?
It may be tougher to read a pre-k’s report card than a fourteen year old’s. It’s one thing to look at grades in math, a subject that to me, with apologies to mathmeticians everywhere, has nothing to do with your instrinsic worth. But what about a review of manners? Listening to your teachers? Actually, at age four, these things have less to do with how good a kid my kid is, and everything to do with how good a parent I am.
No wonder I take it personally!
E needs to work on following directions the first time. E is realizing his power to make decisions, and he could benefit from reinforcement at home on how to make good choices.
When I first read this, I immediately took it as a criticism, as if to say there is no discipline in my house. I certainly do enforce rules in my house, but I didn’t talk about discipline in terms of bad or good choices. I now say is this a good choice or good, that’s a very good choice much more often.
He needs to learn to separate social time from the time for learning. Gulp. I’m not sure I ever learned this lesson. Perhaps e will improve on my efforts here.
Finally, e should be working on letter writing and journal drawing to produce drawings appropriate for his age and to “write” words. This one is the most puzzling for me in terms of an action plan. How do I work on this at home without acting like some sort of evil taskmaster? By the time I get home with him, it’s 5:30 or 6. He’s exhausted. If we’re going to work on this during the week, it needs to be fun.
Speaking of getting home at 5:30 or 6, I share custody of e, and I work at a job with fairly flexible hours. How are parents with more demanding schedules than mine supposed to do this? Or is my child the only one who needs to work on this? And by the way, is it really that big of a deal? I know my child is bright. He simply has only a moderate level of interest in drawing or writing. He would rather be running around, or at least doing something more tactile. Should I mention this to his teachers? Clearly everyone needs to learn to write at some point. So perhaps he’s just plodding along, and it will come when it comes.
I think it may make sense to work with the aftercare teachers at his school on this. But then I think I should start with his teachers first, and find out exactly what the expectations are. Of course, just thinking about having this conversation with his teachers makes me feel self-conscious. What kind of over-achieving crazy parent am I that I am asking for homework tips for a preschooler?
But that just brings me back to the beginning. How am I supposed to take this report card? Do I say, okay, good to know, and file it away for posterity? Or am I supposed to do something with this information? And if so, what exactly should I do? And I am the only mother this neurotic?
