It's that time of year. I'm not talking about football, the start of the NBA season, or whether it is appropriate to put up your Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. I'm talking about the one thing that plagues moms (and dads) everywhere, Parent Teacher conferences.
Parent teacher conferences are one of the few times when when parents truly have no idea what to expect. Your child is coming home with good grades on his papers, but the teacher informs you "Sure, he's bright, but he is disruptive in class." or, "He doesn't follow directions." I can still remember the time my son's first grade teacher told my husband and me that our son had "
Oppositional Behavior Disorder." I mean, granted, I was prepared for something along the lines of "He can be very stubborn." or, "He is behind in his reading skills." But, "Oppositional Behavior Disorder!" Little did she know I was frankly relieved to know there was a name for it. He did have his moments.
Still, even something simple can make you feel like a bad mom when you are in a parent teacher conference. First of all, you find yourself sitting at a little table, one made for little people, and so you feel uncomfortable and out of place. And even though you have very likely followed up on homework, projects, and sent in the right amount of Kleenex, you simply don't know what is coming. Your child is going to be the last one to tell you if he is causing trouble at school. After potty training, the Parent Teacher conferences is the ultimate judgment on your parenting skills!
One of my children was having trouble with "scissoring skills" in Kindergarden. This was very upsetting to me because I thought Kindergarden was the place he would
LEARN his scissoring skills. Up until the age of 5, there had not been a lot of reason to allow my son to use scissors - in fact most parenting books recommended
against allowing your toddler to run around with scissors, so I typically tried to keep the scissors in the higher drawers. Low and behold, at the age of 5, he was already behind on the scissoring skills. You have to wonder if the parenting experts and the educational experts are communicating.
For my middle son, the problem was spelling. So his fourth grade teacher suggested I have him spell out the words in a
large tray filled with salt. She felt he was a more "hands on" type of student. Indeed, he and I spent hours with a giant tray of salt while he would spell out all of the required words for the average fourth grader. The problem was,
she didn't give the tests with a giant tray of salt. He still had to write them out with a pen, and thus, something often got lost in the translation. But to be honest, I am a bad speller, always have been. He comes by it honestly. Luckily for both of us, there is "spellcheck' and thus, problem solved.
No matter what happens at the Parent Teacher conference, get the most out of it and at least have your kids do all the dishes and yard work, under the pretense they are in big trouble. This might be the only time the work gets done without complaint until just before Christmas.
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