I'm so happy to report that I had a very positive parent-teacher conference today with Gavin's TK teacher. This was the regularly scheduled end of year type of conference where she went over all the assessments with me and discussed Gavin's overall progress, not the kind I had a few weeks ago.
A few weeks ago I had a not so good type of conference because I was called in to discuss Gavin's behavior problems. The first week of April was an awful week for Gavin and he was acting out at school every day. That was the week that Nick and I were also at a conference and were gone all day so we figured that had something to do with it. Each day, we had a complaint from the teacher. The problems were Gavin being a little physical with his peers as in poking them with his pencil during work time, pushing while standing in line, throwing stuff (and then making up stuff to cover up which is also bad). It was a lot for me to handle and I didn't know what I could do to make him behave as expected. That week I saw an ad for a free parenting webinar through the main food blog that I follow and I immediately signed up. That one-hour webinar helped us understand a little of why Gavin was acting the way he was. I decided to sign up for the full online course and I'm SO glad I did. The Positive Parenting Solutions course helped us tremendously in identifying the reasons behind his behavior and told us exactly what to do to curb them. Luckily, we were about half way through the online course by the time that I met with Gavin's teacher after spring break. Spring break allowed us time to implement the new techniques and see how they worked at home. When I met with Gavin's teacher, she asked me what they could do to help Gavin and I had no idea how to translate the stuff that we'd done at home to the school environment. I knew the reasons why Gavin was acting out was because he was craving attention and power. At home we solved that by doing more one on one time with him and giving him more responsibilities and he responded really well. Through my discussion with the teachers, a light bulb went off and I suggested that they try to give him a job in the classroom. One teacher said they could make him "line leader" and I jumped for joy because I knew that would make Gavin's day. All of last year Gavin wanted to be line leader but apparently his teacher had a rule that you could only be line leader if you were quiet and since Gavin cannot be silent EVER, I don't think he ever got to be line leader. Lo and behold, that day, Gavin ran up to me when I picked him up with a giant smile on his face and said, "Mama, I got to be line leader!" and his teacher gave me two thumbs up and said they had no problems with him. Gavin was given the "job" of handing out paper for art and line leader and he felt important enough that he didn't need to seek attention the negative way.
Today, his teacher said that ever since Gavin has been great. She told me today that a common problem before used to be that when the teachers would gather up everyone's backpacks on the floor, Gavin would run from one end of the classroom to the pile of backpacks and jump on them. I had no idea he did this. But the teacher said that now, they ask Gavin to help set out the backpacks and he helps out without any trouble and is no longer running or jumping on the pile. I wonder how the other kids feel if Gavin is being given these tasks and they're not but at least he's not distracting or harming anyone now. I do believe that Gavin was acting out as a result of also not getting enough attention at home. Nick and I assumed that because we are always with the kids, they're getting our attention but we hadn't thought about the lack of individual attention. None of them really ever get us one to one doing something that they want to do and this is crucial (according to the webinar....and we now know this for sure). Now we make a conscious effort to make time for each of them individually.
Gavin's behavior was my main concern and I'm so glad that we have figured out the problem and all is well. Academically we have no worries. He is well ahead of his age on all levels. He scored highest in vocabulary and gross motor skills. He enjoys learning which is all we want! The only task he dislikes is writing. He tells us that "writing is not fun for me. It's so boring." His teacher said that she noticed that because when he is doing something he wants to do, he is focused and finishes the work. But when he is given a writing task, he tries to engage them in conversations the entire time so as to stall and not have to finish it (which I then get notes saying he didn't finish so please continue at home). I think it's funny he doesn't tell them he doesn't want to do it, he just tries to talk their ears off and distract them.
To celebrate we went to Barnes & Noble and Gavin picked up a couple of chapter books. He is starting the "Flat Stanley" series now.
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