Saturday, September 29, 2007

Teacher

The AO took BB into school today rather than putting him on the bus. The object, given her easy schedule on Thursday mornings, was to poke around a bit, maybe get the teacher to talk about how things are going. Since he rides the bus, we feel at some disadvantage because we don't ever see him at school. Well, the teacher did that. She volunteered that she liked having him in the class, that he was a good kid. Then she leaned in, like she tends to do, and said, he is a little emotional. He tends to get frustrated and cry when things aren't going right. But he's working on it, she assured AO.

I don't know quite what to feel. Yes, he is a little emotional, it's true. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. After all, I tended to be emotional too. I could feel existential about it. Why does the curse persist? But we'll try to see if he grows out of it. Usually, he has a harder time when he's hungry or tired. We know that none of the kids eat much at school and that they only give them about 10 real minutes to eat. So this could be contributing to it. All things considered, I think he's been dealing with the stress of starting school pretty well. We spoke with the mother of one of his classmates who said things were going so badly with the disciplinary nature of the room that she was wondering whether to change classrooms. We heard about this. Some boys thrive in this particular teacher's classroom and others are miserable. But she is a pro.

In any case, I have to be careful that I don't try to eradicate this aspect of BB - you know hating in my kid what I hate in myself. Nature gave him the proclivity and he's just going to have to learn to live with it. But trying to eliminate it completely would be like trying to convince a left handed person to be right handed.

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