Parent Teacher Conference

For me, the hardest time of my daughter school year is parent teacher conference ( I stopped going to beginning of the year open house-that was just too brutal). I generally end up in tears because it is made so clear to me how she is not like the other kids, academically or socially. This year was a pleasant surprise because her teacher said, "This is Maddie's fall conference and we are here to talk about how well she is doing." We went through how well she is adapting to 5th grade and while she still is lagging and the gap is getting bigger, she is having some successes in her regular classroom. Her resource teacher was also in attendance and she said Maddie's reading didn't seem like it had progressed much, in reality after doing some assessments, she has moved up about a year. Maddie's speech teacher was also there and said she was plugging along. Her teacher also told me how kind and sweet her classmates are to her; they are careful to include her in what she can do and one boy always tells her that she is doing a great job.

So not too many tears for me today just the same anxieties about what her future is going to be like, how are we going to get through puberty, and what does Jr. High hold. I allow myself a few pity party tears a year and today is my day. I think my next one is scheduled for December 1st when we get together for her ARD.