Kids, Your Elders Are Full Of Shit Sometimes

Kids, Your Elders Are Full Of Shit Sometimes

12.12.06 (4:10 pm)   [edit]
Katie seems to really enjoy school, and I'm very happy about that, but we've had some odd things develop in the last few weeks.

Her teacher has been emailing or calling her mom a couple times a week (I've been getting the emails too), and it always seems to be about little inconsequential things. I'm not sure why Katie not wanting to zip up her coat or needing help with it is a big deal. Let her leave it unzipped. If she freezes her ass off, I bet she's smart enough to figure it out. In fact, I KNOW she is.

Apparantly my daughter isn't "independent" enough. Interesting, since her Mom told me Sunday how she'd got up, made her bed, and microwaved her own breakfast all by herself. Also interesting since she can spend large blocks of time by herself, enraptured by a pen and paper, drawing away without a care in the world. She insists on closing the car door herself, and if she has a hard time with something, she appears quite irritated if she has to ask for help - she wants to be a big girl and do stuff by herself, and if she can't, it's frustrating to her. If anything, I have to tell her it's OKAY to ask for help.

Apparantly Katie gets a little "emotional" at times in class. Gee, wonder where she gets that? And for that matter, I wonder what five-year old DOESN'T get a little carried away sometimes. Are all these other kids little perfect specimens who never have a bad day or throw a tantrum or question authority? Christ, I hope not. Is there anything more boring than a "perfect" child? Do they even EXIST? I kinda think not. I'm betting Katie is no different than other five-year olds, she probably just doesn't feel as inhibited about saying what's on her mind. And good for her, that's what I WANT her to do.

I'd really like to know if all the other parents of kids in that class are getting these kind of constant reports. If so, it might not be that big of a deal and we might be reading too much into it. But if they ARE singleing out Katie, I wanna fucking know why. I've been telling her Mom that we need to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt and not take this too seriously just yet, but I'm beginning to get kinda pissy about this myself.

Her teacher is brand new to this. This is her first year. She's 23, fresh out of school. Probably not very prepared for what ACTUALLY happens when you stick 20 kindergarten kids in a room and try to get them to be students. She strikes me as very committed to what she's doing, very concerned about doing her job right and giving her class what they need. A nice person to talk to.

But from what Sheryl has told me (she's had more contact with her than I have) it also seems she's kind of an anal-retentive freak who has a problem dealing with children who don't fit into her textbook view of life.

I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. She's new and just figuring shit out, and I'm willing to make space for that. But I'd also like to know more details, and more about how she's handling the OTHER kids. I'm giving this one more time before I get more aggressive about it - I'm not really saying anything to the teacher just yet - because I'm not as tactful as Sheryl is about this kind of thing. You might have already guessed that. :)

We're both irritated about it, and I think we're more or less on the same page - we have nothing but respect for our daughter's personality and we're both pretty damn sure she's doing just fine. Probably because that's what we SEE on a regular basis. I'm shocked at how thoughtful and kind and considerate and funny and intelligent my daughter is. Yeah, I know, that's what all parents are supposed to think about their kid. Come watch her yourself, motherfuckers. She's got ten times the personality of most of the kids her age I see, and I also notice when I pick her up at daycare (the teacher in question is at morning kindergarten, Katie goes off to a different place in the afternoon, a different location of the daycare she's been in since she was 18 months old) that a lot of the other kids make sure to say goodbye to her, and seem to really admire her. I saw her one day playing with a couple other girls, and they both seemed to regard Katie as something of the leader in their little group. They obviously were looking up to her to some extent.

Katie can be a little arrogant about that kind of thing, and there's been times where we've been out at a park or somewhere else where she's been interacting with other kids and her confidence has spilled over into being a bit bossy and a little TOO sure of herself, but she is just as easily given over to displaying remarkable acts of kindness and sharing, so I don't take it too seriously if she goes too far, I just try to gently remind her to not be too arrogant, and she usually does quite well toning it down.

And anyway, I'd rather she go a bit too far in self-confidence than be a little PUSSY like I was when I was a kid. She's FIVE, for fuck's sake, she's got time to learn how to tweak things and get better in her dealings with other children.

I'm a firm believer in letting kids make mistakes. Who better to fuck up sometimes? What are you going to do "wrong" at age five that is going to make any lasting difference? I try to give her bits of advice or constructive criticism, but mostly I encourage her, because 9 times out of 10, she's NOT doing anything wrong, in fact she's full of hope and love and excitement and a generous spirit that her own father is pretty fucking bad at remembering a lot of the time. She's friggin' inspiring, I tell you.

I don't want her to turn too arrogant or lose her generosity and not think of others, but I'm not really concerned about that very much. What I AM concerned about is that some big people are going to come along and try to squash her personality in the name of some anal-retentive horseshit about what constitutes a "well-behaved child."

I don't WANT her to be that. I want her to raise a little hell sometimes. Because she IS usually considerate of others, and as long as she remembers to be good to others, I hope she finds her own approach to learning. Which is what school is supposed to be about. LEARNING shit. She has a definite thirst for knowledge, and if she goes about it a bit differently than other kids, more power to her. If she sometimes tries to monopolize a situation and isn't as good at giving others their space as she should be, I bet you there will be twenty other times she is VERY good at doing the right thing.

I'm trying to find a way of telling her that school is important without making it TOO important. It's not the end of your life, kids. School does NOT have to define you. Do the best you can, but don't take this shit any more seriously than you have to. Odds are, you'll probably end up a very different person than what you are right now anyway. I was an exceptional student who caused very little trouble and mostly kept my mouth shut. I got shit about being unorganized and sloppy, but I got killer grades up through 8th grade.

Now I play bass in a rock band and try to get 17-year olds to dump their prom date for me. Not exactly the same as when I was getting 108% for the semester in geography class.

I tried to as tactfully and appropriately as possible impart something to Katie when I saw her two nights ago - the adults in her world really are doing their best to help her along (and I do believe her teacher really is trying) but we don't always get it right, and she might have to do what she's told, but that doesn't mean she has to like it or agree with it. I HATE hearing parents say "You're going to do it, and you're going to LIKE it." That's a tired horseshit cliche, and it's fucking stupid to the core. You can make a kid do what you want, but if you think for one second that you have ANY business telling a kid that they have to enjoy your shit, you are an arrogant fucking asshole and they WILL bite you in the ass someday.

I'd love to just look at her and say, "Honey, adults are full of shit sometimes." I can't do that just yet, but I probably don't have to anyway. I think she's figuring that out on her own. With me as a Dad, she's got about as perfect an example of somebody who tries to do the right thing but is often full of shit as a kid can hope for.

Love,
Dougie