As I said in my previous post, Gabriel is really having a tough time adjusting to kindergarten. There is more structure than he eventually got used to in preschool, along with higher expectations. There are so many other kids that he doesn't always get a turn to talk, which is really hard for him because he has SO much to say. He is really good at keeping rules that he understands the purpose behind, but I don't think the teacher always has time to explain rules he's having trouble with. And the most challenging thing of all is the dreaded behavior chart.
This chart gives Gabriel so much anxiety. Sometimes he does well and moves up. On those days, he comes home really happy. Sometimes he stays on green, where they start every morning, and he's still pretty happy. Then there are days he moves down, and he comes home feeling very down on himself. One day, he went down to orange and kept calling himself an "eediant." (He assured me he was saying it correctly when I asked if he meant idiot, so I went with it.) Not really part of the point, but I need to vent... On the day he went down to orange, he said he didn't remember one reason but the other was that he kept turning his letters into animals. I understand that the teacher needs to be able to read his letters, but squashing his creativity by telling him behaving badly seems pretty harsh. I just tell myself it wasn't really about the animal letters, but probably because she asked him to stop and he didn't. I don't know for sure, but that sounds better to me. Regardless of how well he did on the chart the day before, Gabriel is often anxious when I try to bring him to school. We have had several conversations about how I want him to try his best and, if he does, I will be proud of him no matter where he ends up on the chart. He tells me he knows I will love him no matter what. But he says his teacher is mean. After a lot of talking, I'm pretty sure she's great, but he doesn't like her when he's getting in trouble. (The last time he ended up on blue I asked if she was nicer that day, and he said yes.)
I know there are a lot of opinions on behavior charts and other methods, but I have no desire to tell his teacher that she's doing things wrong. It's her classroom and her decision. However, if anyone has any advice on how to help an anxious kid not cling to his mom and pretend there are monsters in the classroom when she tries to drop him off, that would be welcome.
In other news, Lily writes beautiful original songs about being a princess and Gideon has just discovered that he loves Ghostbusters, so life's not all bad.
