Friday, March 18, 2016

When do you push and when is it personality and when is that a reason?

Last night was parent teacher interviews.  I was working for Nathan's but wanted to talk to Lucas's teacher about her marking scheme so I scheduled that one for when I was done.   We had a good time in his classroom and I got to remember how fun grade 5 is.   When we had our chat with his teacher she asked us about giving him feedback and that she's worried he takes it too personally.  We chatted about if he's ever tried out for sports team or other ways he might get feedback. 

Lucas is a super awesome kid.  Of course I'm his mother so of course I believe that, but even his teacher says it too.  He has a heart of gold.  Today we were at the park and a kid hurt themselves.  He was the first to ask if the kid was okay.  Or at the same park one kid called his brother fat, Lucas was the first to say, Hey you shouldn't call them that.  When I ask him to do something he always does, he's great academically, he's really good at pretty much sport and is a great friend.   We are really proud of him at school too, as he is showing himself as a leader by helping with getting kindergarten kids on the bus and doing crossing guard. 

So with all these great things does it matter if he's not very participatory, or that it can be difficult to give him feedback without feeling that you are hurting his self esteem?  Is there something we should do to help him with those skills or is it just his personality?  And when you say it's just someone's personality is that making an excuse?    All questions I'm pondering...

I think generally it's his personality... Darryl is also an introvert.  In life you can't have everyone be really participatory or things may never get decided.  Different people make the world go around and make the world interesting.  But at the same time if we can cultivate some of those traits that don't come naturally to him that is a good idea.  At the same time I don't want to put him in situations that he really doesn't like.  I don't want to make him into someone that he isn't. 

Ahh parenting, always keeping things interesting.

Jenn

1 comment:

Lori Aitken said...

I'm sure the teacher means well but childhood behaviour definitely changes and matures as a child ages. Lucas is no where near as shy or introverted as Darryl was at this age and Darryl turned out to be a very intelligent, capable, friendly man who can hold his own in a social situation even if he'd rather hang out at home. You're exposing Lucas to all sorts of worldly situations and teaching him to be a good, kind, honest citizen. Those traits will get him so much farther in life than participating in more activities at school. #keepupthegoodwork #youredoingitright