Parent Teacher

I always love parent-teacher conferences. As a kid, I wanted to hear every word that they said about me. As an adult, I still wonder what they said about me, how I was perceived by the adults in my life.

As a parent, they are a chance to meet face-to-face with the only other adult that has a strong influence on my child. I take these things very seriously.

Anna's went just fine. I don't think that her teacher "gets" her. I kind of wanted to say, "but isn't she just the funniest little thing??" Instead, we talked about how Anna follows the rules and is nice to all the kids.

Yeah, yeah.

Isn't that awful that I didn't care so much about that?

I am very glad that she does well in school, but what I love most about Anna is the way that she laughs at herself, turns everything into an impromptu party, feels every emotion so deeply, and doesn't hesitate to throw her arms around her friends at any given moment. We didn't cover any of that in parent-teacher conferences.
Rats.Lizzie's teacher began by telling me, "I was made aware of an incident today that involves Lizzie." My heart sank and I braced myself to hear that she had done something wrong.

"I found out that the boys have been teasing Lizzie about her height."

Yes, we knew all about that and have been working with her and talking a lot about the power of words in our house.

Her sweet teacher nearly teared up when she told me that she wished she had known about it earlier so that she could have stopped it sooner. And then she promised me that it would end. I had a lump in my throat when she said that Lizzie never showed that the teasing hurt her in any way and that she has the heart of a lion.

That night I told Lizzie all about our conversation and asked her why she hadn't told her teacher. She said, "It doesn't really bother me until they start kicking me."

WHAT??!!
Later in the week, Lizzie showed them all. During gym, she set the third grade push-up record by doing 65 "real" push-ups.

Sixty-five!

The next closest was 40.

One of the boys said, "Quinn, you can never tease Lizzie again."

Attagirl!