Friday, October 17, 2008

conference report

The fall conference is the "boring" conference. They just tell you how your child is "adjusting" to school. Both twoK and Three-a are doing great adjusting.

twoK's teacher characterized her as doing all of the activities, a little stubborn (I said that was a polite way to say it) and very talkative with the grown-ups. twoK doesn't have any "good friends" at school yet, but doesn't seem to mind. When I asked twoK about this, she said, she liked one girl and that girl liked twoK the day twoK was wearing the "sparkly princess shirt," but then that girl was friends with someone else and didn't want to play anymore. Ah, the joys of being a young girl.

Three-a's teacher described her as mellow, gentle, and very happy. I agree except for the gentle part. Three-a is sooooo happy. Three-a's teacher also said that Three-a doesn't really have any "good friends" yet. She said Three-a is very happy playing by herself.

I think the 3 little girls like their sisters so much they don't really have a huge need for other friends. I don't know if this is good or bad, or just how it is. When I was a kid, I didn't have siblings my own age so I did want friends.... kind of desperately in fact. I'm glad they don't have that problem. They have so much fun with each other. Right now, they are deeply involved playing a game about Lions (remember, Lion King is the obsession right now). They are all crawling around and I am sitting here on the couch. They don't want me involved, but they do want me near. Works well in my opinion.

Despite the fact that I am happy with how the interactions go around here, I'd love to hear thoughts from you all about this. What do you think?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being the middle of three daughters, I must say that twoK sounds a lot like me as a kid. I was very stubborn (so much so that my mom had purchased the book "The Strong Willed Child" to see if it might be helpful). I still am quite stubborn, but generally see it as a benefit these days.

I think it's great that all your girls play together so well; I wouldn't worry at all that they don't have a desire or need to have really good friends at school. It'll come with time. My sisters and I are all still very close now, which is wonderful.

Anonymous said...

Oops, it's Amelia above.

~A.

RUTH said...

Lots of the 5 year old girls in H & K's class have been pairing up. K has been trying to join established pairs, H wants to play with groups. It has been pretty tough for both of them. Once when it was really getting to K I told her that she is much better at being a friend than most of the other people in her class and so she knows how to be friends with lots of people at once and some of them are just learning how to be friends with one person at a time but she's already learnt that with H. It seems to have really helped her.
H has worked out that she can play with the boys who want to play with girls that the other girls reject.
It is hard as a parent because intervention can be counterproductive. I really got that when I heard a little girl whisper to K "I won't play with you unless a grown-up makes me."