This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Family Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
My daughter got her first report card a couple of days ago. What? I know. She was a zygote like 10 minutes ago. Now she’s getting grades. In preschool.
I was a little nervous as my wife and I pulled two tiny little chairs up to a table in her classroom across from her teachers. Instead of flying Cheerios and dress-up costumes there were clipboards and file folders. The entire scene was so formal. I caught myself cautiously eying my daughter’s file in her teacher’s hand before the conference began; everyone who’s spent some time in detention knows that a thick file is a bad file. Hers looked pretty thin, so I breathed a little easier.
They passed us each a copy of her report card. I am being slightly tongue-in-cheek when I say report card. It is actually an evaluation of interpersonal, fine and gross motor skills. There are really only three “grades”. “M,” for mature, meaning the child has surpassed normal levels of development in that particular category, “N,” signifying the need for development and “D,” for developmentally appropriate. At this point I’d like to insert a quick note to the teachers at this school: Tell the parents that “D”s are good before you hand the report card to the parents. For a short, breathless moment, I thought my daughter was precariously close to flunking out of preschool.
They then proceeded to run down the list of categories and discuss each one in detail. I was actually pleased with the amount of time they spent with us; it was nice to be able to talk freely about my daughter’s development without 20 screaming kids in the background. What surprised me, shocked me almost, were the categories she received “N”s in. There weren’t too many, but many of the issues needing attention had to do with not respecting property, listening to authority and following school rules. Furthermore, it seems that she has already fallen in with the wrong crowd. Apparently she is running with two other hoodlums, lets call them Stacy and Nathan. When Frankie, Stacy and Nathan are hanging out, all Hell breaks loose. They don’t respond to discipline, they trash books, they talk through poetry time. Before you know it, they’ll be shaking down the other kids for lunch money and jumping in the new foreign exchange student behind the cafeteria. I couldn’t believe it.
My daughter’s in a gang.
Most people don’t think this is a big deal. As my mother-in-law stated in her thick Middle Eastern accent when told about my daughter’s new family “Its part of growing up. All kids need some gang.” But I was sort of taken aback. As her father, I view my daughter as a sweet little cherub, incapable of anything other than toddler mischief. While I do not think that she is at an age where this particular problem really needs to be dealt with, my paternal instinct kicked into overdrive and I realized that, before too long, it would need to be dealt with. My innocent little girl is growing up. And she is choosing her own friends. And, in time, these friends are going to play a very large role in what kind of *shudder* teenager she becomes. The next morning I found myself looking sidelong at Stacy and Nathan with one eyebrow cocked. Were these the two that I would eventually forbid my daughter from hanging out with after school? Were they the ones that were going to hand her a pint of Peppermint Schnapps and pressure her into sampling it? Perhaps, perhaps not. But I will certainly be keeping a closer eye from here on out on my daughter’s friends and how they behave. Every good parent says that its important to know when, where and who when their older children go out with their buddies, and this was my first glimpse as to why, as premature as my reaction may be.
On the way home in the car my wife brought up the suggestion the teachers had given us for a disciplinary tactic to try with Frankie, taking away something she holds dear, and asked me what I thought we could take away the next time she acts up. My answer was firm:
“Stacy and Nathan.”
-Matt
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March 6th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Looks like she is chip off the ol’ (Dad’s) block.
Ahem.
WHO knows what a thick folder means? I didn’t. Always learning something new here in the Playpen.
Per usual, also, Matt, you are projecting to the next decade to worry. Go with the teacher’s suggestions. I’ll be watching and reading. Taking this post to also mean all is well with EVERYONE in the family -?
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March 6th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Geez, already. I like your solution.
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March 10th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Bah, all kids are in gangs; we learned about it in the class the nig kids and I took last winter. It is what they DO in the gang that is bad. Like, oh, not having respect for other people’s property, ha ha. I think it is appalling that anyone would even grade a pre-schooler on ANYTHING; heck, Owen is almost of the age to go and he can barely pull his own pants up!
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March 10th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
When my son was in kinder AND 1st grade, everytime he would get in trouble, he would be hanging out with this little girl named Brooklyn. Oh yea, I totally banned him from playing with that little hoodlum.
It didn’t help.
PS – Your daughter will be able to kick your ass one day, she keeps this up.
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