Wednesday, December 1, 2010

My Little Non-Conformist

I got Clark's speech evaluation from school this week, and laughed out loud when I read it:

Clark chose not to participate in the evaluation at this time.

Shocker.

Clark: What are you laughing at?
Me: You! You didn't want to talk to Miss Terry?
Clark: Oh, that was just a hologram of Clark.
Me: So, the real Clark would talk to Miss Terry?
Clark. No.

This is a kid who totally does his own thing. He doesn't even like to go on playground equipment if there are too many other kids using it. Maybe it comes from him being an only kid all day and getting to do whatever he wants. He does not like to be told what to do.

About mid-way through last school year, he started rebelling against group activities. During circle time at school, he would purposely sit facing away from the group. He spent an entire music class standing with his arms folded. We tried a fitness class at the Y, where he spent the whole time doing only the activities the rest of the group was NOT doing. Gymnastics, outright refusal. We've stopped going to storytimes and music concerts. He hates having his picture taken.

This has been really hard for me, because doing all these kinds of structured activities has been such a big part of my life as a parent, and I so enjoyed doing them with the older two kids. Clark couldn't care less ... he has no anxieties about any of it, just sports a "Nope, not going to do that" kind of attitude. I was really unsure how school would go for him this year, being his first experience being without me in a classroom. We had one (very) sad day about a week in, but since then, he's been great. I wouldn't say that he looks forward to going, but luckily, he does tolerate it.



We've only got one more year together before he's off to Kindergarten, I guess I'll have to find things that we can enjoy together on his own terms.

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