Three dreaded letters: P. T. C.

 

They can strike fear – no, angst – into the heart of parents.

 

Parent.  Teacher.  Conference.

 

Gah.

 

I knew exactly what to expect.  His actual grades are fine; he’s nearly pegged all his scores on reading and math.

 

The only ones that are average are the ones where he refused to cooperate.

 

This left the scores related to behavior, and I already knew what she’d say.

 

He doesn’t complete his work, he doesn’t apply himself, he doesn’t like to be told what to do.  He has dramatic pouty fits when he is asked to comply, to conform. 

 

Yup, he’s the same here at home as at school, I confirm.  He’s always preferred to follow the beat of his own drummer.  He’s suited for bankers’ hours; sleep until eight, be to work for nine a.m., maybe take a mid-afternoon siesta a couple times a week.  And he’s always preferred that a task is his own idea rather than somebody else’s; he simply doesn’t take orders from anybody.

 

Unfortunately, school does not permit this.  School starts at 7:45 a.m. and naps were done away with as of the first of the year.  It’s a long, cruel day for a kindergartner, and this one makes it well-known that he’s not going down without a fight.

 

Worse, he complains every day that he is bored, bored, bored.  It’s the same old thing, day after day, the same schedule, the same monotony, nothing new, nothing exciting to look forward to any given week.  Except for the occasional field trip – he looks forward to those weeks in advance, wondering this or that about the outcome of the trip.

 

I suspect I have a gifted child (another one!) on my hands.  Unlike his sister, he’s not going to be upfront with his gifts; he’s going to require coaxing to yield the magnitude of his true capabilities.  He’d tested at age four, coming up a mere five points shy of the benchmark score required for the talent-development program.  They encouraged us to try again at age five because he was so close.  He took the test again but he kind of blew it off, acting blasé and indifferent about it.  I know he didn’t apply himself; a parent knows these things.  Just like he’s not applying himself in class now; he gives only the most cursory effort, affirming he knows the subject but not one lick more.

 

So now to the tasks at hand: do I have him tested yet again, explaining to him that he needs to try harder or he’ll be stuck in the boring, boring class again?  Nah – can’t do that, he could end up there if there’s not enough seats in the talent-development class or if he truly can’t score the additional handful of points needed.

 

And what do I do about the fits of pique?  We’ve tried time-out, still use them, but he actually acts worse while in time-out.  We’ve tried removing privileges; they used to work, but this week the improvement was extremely short-lived.

 

For now we’ve agreed to meet, parent-teacher-child, to consult on what we will do as a team to improve behavior.  I am going to have him checked for sleep apnea; there is a direct correlation with the quality and amount of sleep he gets and his overall mood.  There could be an underlying problem here.

 

And if things don’t improve before the end of the year, I have to seriously consider looking at evaluation for attention deficit and opposition-defiance disorders.  Seems like entirely too much for a little guy to have to deal with, but there it is.

 

Far better to handle this now than when he’s sixteen and armed with a motor vehicle.

 

  6:49:49 PM    comment []