9.12.2005

what else can i do?

the boy gets out of school at 12:20pm. since the first day of school, it's taken his class awhile to come out. today i found out why: apparently the boy is holding up the class a bit.

let me first say that my son is a patient, fairly meticulous, conscientious child, bordering on perfectionist. it's kind of unusual, and slightly worrisome, for a kid his age. i know this to be too true because i've always been that way too, in many ways. my mother raised me to do the best work i can do, in a neat and proper way. that lesson, combined with my overly ambitious goal to be as perfect as possible to please everyone, resulted in me ending up the way i have (i.e., screwy, slightly obsessive compulsive, neurotic about weird things, eager to please, etc.). and even though i know it's not a healthy way for young children to behave, i've passed this along to my son.

as a result, it appears my son takes forever to pack up at the end of the day, thereby holding up the rest of the class. the teacher said that he puts each piece of paper into his folder one by one and packs up very carefully, trying to be perfect and orderly, despite her requests to hurry it along. i told her i would talk to the boy, which i did after we got home. i even plan to have him practice packing up quickly (i already showed him how to more efficiently put papers into his folder) before tomorrow. but what else can i do?

my son is who he is. his meticulousness is just "how he was made" (as the boy would say). it is, of course, important that he learn to function within the confines of school and society by working within the timeframe given to him. but one thing i'm proud of as a parent is that i've taught him to do as much as possible on his own, even if that means he takes his time. i feel like that lesson is being tossed out the window, albeit gently. and it's always hard to hear criticism of your child, even if it's something minor like he doesn't pack up quickly enough.

i know that because i've talked to the boy about it, he'll do his best to be quicker and still pack up neatly. he'll try hard to please me and do what his teacher asks of him. that's part of his sensitive nature. i just hope that it doesn't add unneeded "pressure" on him and make him neurotic at the tender age of 5 ...

3 comments:

Hobokener said...

I think it will make such a cute story when the Kid is older that the first time he "got in trouble" in school was for organizing his papers too meticulously. Though for you it is something you're taking a little seriously and thinking about, from an outsider's perspective it's really cute!

New Teach said...

i used to get in trouble for being completely messy and having my papers all over the place. now i'm considered extremely anal and organized. so maybe the boy will go the other way and evolve into a slob. you never know...

yucaree said...

things, no doubt, will get better with the boy. not only will he get used to being in school, but we'll both loosen up and stop being so anal! and i'm sure i'll be much more lax with the second one!