Xyla's daycare classroom has taken up writing down little snippets of what happens with our children's day. You get some information from the informal parent/teacher conference twice a year but it isn't enough to give you a clear picture about your child's behavior from day to day. As a way to keep parents informed, the teachers in our classroom will write down something fun or awesome, sometimes mundane, sometimes if they had a really sucky day. This is more than you would get from other day cares of the same size. Generally there is so much going on that they can't tell you which kid is yours let alone what your kid did today.
And they point to the lesson plan or the meal plan but you know that what is written there usually never really happens. You have no idea how much they have eaten because there are 11 other kids who will take any opportunity to wear their food for a laugh. I know it has to be exhausting. That's why I appreciate that they take the time to do it. As often as you take the little card, they fill up another one.
Y'all. I don't mean to brag but I have to tell you, as I have already told her, how proud I am of her. Of course most days I get cards with mundane items like - Xyla played in the tar pit for half an hour. She really liked it and said she liked putting the dinosaurs in the "tar". But then at least once a week I also see ones that say, "Xyla was a good friend today. She saw one of her friends crying and gave them a hug and told them it was going to be ok."
The one I got today. It damn near made me cry. I am . . . I can't even tell you how proud. Today her card read, "Xyla was a good friend today. Her and her friend were practicing writing letters. When her friend got frustrated, Xyla encouraged her friend to keep trying and complimented them on how well they were doing."
My kid is showing positive leadership skills.
Every day I go to bed wondering if I have been too hard on her for telling her to stop crying over the fact that her bubble gum didn't make the bubble she wanted it to. That was yesterday. The last few weeks she has become very emotional over every little thing that goes wrong. And by wrong I don't mean on the scale of "I bit my toungue and it really, really hurts" but more like "my donut is facing the wrong direction and I am going to cry until it magically turns around" or "mommy, I can't whistle".
Of course we have all had those days. Those days where with every little thing that goes wrong even something like getting your donut turned wrong just sends you over the tearful waterfall. She has been having a lot of them lately. I wonder if she has been feeling my stress over losing a good friend to retirement. I wonder if she is just really missing her daddy, whom she loves very much. I wonder what is going on in her mind. And I do the best I can to help her see that no one blows bubbles right the first time. No one, even mommy, is perfect at tying shoes. But the only way we get good at anything is to keep trying until we get it right.
But what I know is that with a report like this from her school that I have been doing one thing right. That is how to show compassion and care about others. It is not an easy thing to do. She knows that most of the kids in her class are now younger than her. She knows that the only way they have to communicate is to cry, loudly until whatever is wrong is fixed. She knows that I expect her to help herself. I give her comfort, I help her focus on what is important, I help her see that crying doesn't make anything happen. That just because a problem doesn't get solved the first time that you shouldn't give up. That you can try different things to solve it, or you can try the same thing a little differently and get the result you were looking for.
I have a lot to learn from her.
