Mommy Mondays: The Parent-Teacher Conference, Part II

Some of you may recall that I was shocked to learn that parent-teacher conferences begin in preschool. Jack wasn't even two when he had his first one, and today I had my second meeting with Jack's wonderful teacher.

Fortunately, Jack seems to be doing quite well in terms of his physical skills. The checklist I was presented with this time was far more extensive than the little scrap of paper listing Jack's accomplishments and "things to work on" I received last time. You'll be happy to know he can now hold a crayon properly, and identify boys and girls. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to know that HE'S a boy. Whoops. There's always room for improvement, right?

Then we got to the page for Social and Emotional Development. I started to panic when I saw that there were a bunch of things highlighted in orange, including "display aggressive feelings and behaviors,"and "defend their possessions." Then Jack's teacher presented me with the news:

Apparently Jack hasn't been showing enough aggression.

In the words of Super Grover 2.0, "Hubba what?"

According to his teacher, Jack never yells, hits, or pushes. If someone takes a toy from him, he just walks away and finds something else. He's very mild mannered, keeping to himself at times or checking in for the occasional grape. His teacher has no concerns about him whatsoever. All is well in Jack Land.

He looks SO innocent, doesn't he?

I was floored. As I've said before, Jack has been a holy terror of late. He pushes his friend Anneliese when she gets too close. He throws fits when things don't go exactly his way (like today, for example, when he didn't want to walk to the park, but refused to ride in the backpack, but didn't want to go home; the only solution was to throw a tantrum, natch). He hits himself when he's angry. He screams like a banshee in public places. Most days, I feel like I'm at my wit's end. I started to have a panic attack today when I tried to picture his sidewalk tantrum in Russia, in winter, when my eyeballs have frozen and I can no longer feel my extremities. (The post report says that women shouldn't wear face cream during the winter because it can freeze on your face; that seemed a bit ridiculous, but do I really want to risk it?) Is Jack just being bad for my benefit? Maybe he thinks I'm bored and the occasional fit keeps things interesting. I don't know. I'm glad he's good at school, of course, but it makes me wonder if aliens don't beam down on Tuesdays and Thursdays to take over his body and then leave right when I show up...

Jack will most likely have another parent-teacher conference before the school year is over. I hope by then Jack's social skills have improved (at least when he's at home), that he's learned to stack rings in order by size, and maybe even picked up a few words in Russian. So far he can say "Russia," which I think is a good first step.

Oh, and by then, he may even know that he's a boy.