Up the date..
Sep. 6th, 2006 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hippybngstockngI've been having to fight for my box time since the job went away, so I apologize for the random nature of both my posting and commenting. I also want to thank everyone for saying nice things to me, either about me or K in the last bunch of days.. You guys ROCK! :)
Since I know you're all burning with the need to know- K's first day of kindergarten: So... There was crying. There was some unwillingness to be doing things with the group. There was some need to be taken out of the room for a little calming walking. There was a lot of use of the word disruptive. There's a need for an ongoing assistant (duh, I've been trying to tell them that since last May). In general, I wouldn't say it was a good day. The teacher didn't come right out and say it, but it was clear she looked doubtful. I think I know exactly what happened though, and I am not.
I don't like to say I know what K is thinking, but as his mom I think I can make a rather educated guess without having to doubt myself too much. I think I can see why he was being very resistant, and why it will eventually go okay.. You see, K has this pattern of behaviour that he follows regularly. If he wants something, he's become very good at asking for it politely at least once, and then if it's clear you've understood his question, he expects this to equal your willingness to do whatever he wanted. We've been working to explain that our acknowledgement that he has asked for something in the proper manner is NOT automatically our consent to instantly bend to his will. At this point though, if you fail to do the thing he wanted, and rather quickly (he's 5, they still don't grok patience) he assumes you must not have understood his request, so he starts repeating it, and his requests become much more distressed, and often come with screaming, especially if you use the words NO or DON'T. (and later today, after I originally wrote this, Crash and I pinpointed that it's actually part of a pattern he learned in speech therapy- We basically trained him to expect to get whatever he was asking for because we were training him to ask questions correctly in general. If he asked the question correctly, he got what he wanted! Not blaming the speech therapy, this is actually quite amusing if you think about it. He's very logical to the end.)
In my world this happens nigh constantly, mostly over simple things like ice cream sandwiches, or what our plans are for dinner, but on this particular day he was probably just trying to get them to let him go home, and they were probably simply trying to explain that no, he had to stay. This probably pissed him off a lot, so he did everything in his power to make sure they understood he didn't think he belonged there, right up to denying he knew the alphabet. *sigh* He totally knows his letters. Hell, some days I even suspect he can read some words, he's just too emotional about using them himself.
We weren't awesome at preparing him for this day in particular, since this was a really rotten week and I let it get to me, but we've been calling day care School for forever now, and talking about how soon he was going to start going to his real school. He's certainly aware of school, both from us, and from the myriad TV shows he obsessively watches that refer to school, but I guess he was always assuming that if he kept on saying "NO SCHOOL" loud enough and often enough that we'd just cave and let him stay home for the rest of time instead.
*sigh*
I'm not mad, I'm not even disappointed.. I feel a little guilty that we weren't a little more hard core with trying to drive it home, but in the end I think I understand where the problem is coming from, and it doesn't bother me. He is learning so much other stuff every day, he will eventually get this too. I can also remember being this particular flavour of reluctant about going to school. I liked learning things, but school itself was never a lot of fun for me because I was a little afraid of the other children. It was always an ordeal to get me to go, and while there were a couple times I looked forward to going to a new school, usually it just brought up a lot of terror about whether anyone would like me. I can't even imagine how that is for K, since I think he's got days when he's not even sure he wants the other kids to look at him, not to mention trying to be friendly.
SO.. Yep. Didn't go so hot, but I think we can still turn it around and make it work. They sent home a bunch of things, including an invitation to write about your child. I think I will take this opportunity to finally brag about his hard to access, but absolutely thorough encyclopedic knowledge of Thomas the Tank Engine, and the fact that he has a better sense of the lay out of Kitchener and Waterloo than both his parents, it just takes a lot of knowing him to find these things out. He's very very much a regular kid once you crack his little code.
Since I know you're all burning with the need to know- K's first day of kindergarten: So... There was crying. There was some unwillingness to be doing things with the group. There was some need to be taken out of the room for a little calming walking. There was a lot of use of the word disruptive. There's a need for an ongoing assistant (duh, I've been trying to tell them that since last May). In general, I wouldn't say it was a good day. The teacher didn't come right out and say it, but it was clear she looked doubtful. I think I know exactly what happened though, and I am not.
I don't like to say I know what K is thinking, but as his mom I think I can make a rather educated guess without having to doubt myself too much. I think I can see why he was being very resistant, and why it will eventually go okay.. You see, K has this pattern of behaviour that he follows regularly. If he wants something, he's become very good at asking for it politely at least once, and then if it's clear you've understood his question, he expects this to equal your willingness to do whatever he wanted. We've been working to explain that our acknowledgement that he has asked for something in the proper manner is NOT automatically our consent to instantly bend to his will. At this point though, if you fail to do the thing he wanted, and rather quickly (he's 5, they still don't grok patience) he assumes you must not have understood his request, so he starts repeating it, and his requests become much more distressed, and often come with screaming, especially if you use the words NO or DON'T. (and later today, after I originally wrote this, Crash and I pinpointed that it's actually part of a pattern he learned in speech therapy- We basically trained him to expect to get whatever he was asking for because we were training him to ask questions correctly in general. If he asked the question correctly, he got what he wanted! Not blaming the speech therapy, this is actually quite amusing if you think about it. He's very logical to the end.)
In my world this happens nigh constantly, mostly over simple things like ice cream sandwiches, or what our plans are for dinner, but on this particular day he was probably just trying to get them to let him go home, and they were probably simply trying to explain that no, he had to stay. This probably pissed him off a lot, so he did everything in his power to make sure they understood he didn't think he belonged there, right up to denying he knew the alphabet. *sigh* He totally knows his letters. Hell, some days I even suspect he can read some words, he's just too emotional about using them himself.
We weren't awesome at preparing him for this day in particular, since this was a really rotten week and I let it get to me, but we've been calling day care School for forever now, and talking about how soon he was going to start going to his real school. He's certainly aware of school, both from us, and from the myriad TV shows he obsessively watches that refer to school, but I guess he was always assuming that if he kept on saying "NO SCHOOL" loud enough and often enough that we'd just cave and let him stay home for the rest of time instead.
*sigh*
I'm not mad, I'm not even disappointed.. I feel a little guilty that we weren't a little more hard core with trying to drive it home, but in the end I think I understand where the problem is coming from, and it doesn't bother me. He is learning so much other stuff every day, he will eventually get this too. I can also remember being this particular flavour of reluctant about going to school. I liked learning things, but school itself was never a lot of fun for me because I was a little afraid of the other children. It was always an ordeal to get me to go, and while there were a couple times I looked forward to going to a new school, usually it just brought up a lot of terror about whether anyone would like me. I can't even imagine how that is for K, since I think he's got days when he's not even sure he wants the other kids to look at him, not to mention trying to be friendly.
SO.. Yep. Didn't go so hot, but I think we can still turn it around and make it work. They sent home a bunch of things, including an invitation to write about your child. I think I will take this opportunity to finally brag about his hard to access, but absolutely thorough encyclopedic knowledge of Thomas the Tank Engine, and the fact that he has a better sense of the lay out of Kitchener and Waterloo than both his parents, it just takes a lot of knowing him to find these things out. He's very very much a regular kid once you crack his little code.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 12:25 am (UTC)That she will 'get it' and that he will come around a bit for her.
The first week is always a challenge, for everybody.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 12:31 am (UTC)I had never gone to pre-school, the most kids I had ever been in a room with was probably 5. Suddenly I was in this enormous room with something like 30 kids in it, I was a head taller than ALL of them, and I was suddenly informed I had to stay for HOURS.. It freaked me out for a long long time, so I feel very understanding about this. I didn't really grok school until about second grade, really.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 02:11 am (UTC)Sounds to me like you've got a good handle on what's going on and what you want to do about it. Good luck.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 12:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 03:07 pm (UTC)These monkeys. What will we do with them?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 10:18 pm (UTC)Me, I'm actually happy that you guys have quickly and astutely asessed the situation. That's a hard skill to develop, and worth having. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 05:09 am (UTC)Just wanted to share that observation. Hugs to you both.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 11:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 04:46 am (UTC)Here's hoping that the transition from "NO SCHOOL" to "I WANT TO STAY AT SCHOOL" happens soon, and smoothly. It would be awfully nice to have school be something he looks forward to. I was a little freak, and *loved* school, even though I mostly didn't like the other kids, and ws bullied alot. So, it could happen...
I second the comments about seeing the you in him. I can see the Crash too, of course. Always makes my head hurt to think of how minutely the genetic code mixes and creates such a complex create, with such a magically similar phenotype...
All I can say is "Genetics are freaky".