Updates from the Battlefield

This morning, I woke up to an update from the Monster’s teacher, regarding how he’s doing in school.

We don’t normally get out-of-band updates from her – she’s very good about using the communication log to let us know when there’s something unusual that we need to be aware of or to communicate when things are going on in the classroom – so I have to admit that I’d been somewhat nervous about what she might be reaching out for.  (Especially when the email simply has the subject of ‘update’.)

Most of the news was good.  She mentions that he’s showing a lot of progress socially in class, when one discounts the fact that he’s also showing a lot more oppositional behavior.  Now, the fact that he’s being more oppositional isn’t news – I talked about that last week in No No No! – but that it is starting to cause some problems is news to us, moreso since she’s not marking it on his daily paper home that he’s being difficult.  Apparently, it’s going beyond his verbal refusals to his putting some of his gymnastics skills “to use”, like he does when he doesn’t want to go straight to bed, and it’s causing a disruption in the classroom.

She’s also documenting that he’s being more social in terms of speaking to people (greetings mostly) and that his volume is more appropriate in school.  Now, we’re not seeing this at home still, but perhaps that’s a different issue entirely.  I’d love for him to get better about it at home, and I have to go with the more skeptical “I’ll believe it when I see it myself”.  He is expressing himself more when he’s put into situations where he needs to be verbal.

Though reading this, I have to admit that some parts of it made me wonder if she’s really talking about my child, as opposed to another child in the class.  If he’s doing the skills with other people, it would be fantastic because it’s definite progress since last year or even last month.  It just makes me wonder how much he’s doing with us or not doing with us based on knowing that we’re going to facilitate him beyond a certain point…

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