I'm pissed off

I just had a conference with my middle one's preschool teacher and I am so angry I think I'm going to have an aneurysm. It seems my daughter has a few issues. According to her teacher her fine and large motor skills are somewhat lacking compared to the other children and she doesn't socialize all that much with the other kids. She will engage in parallel play, but doesn't talk much to the other kids when doing so. She is also shy and can be moody. This isn't news to me. I've known for a while that my kid isn't perfect and I could probably spend a little more time with her in the crayon and scissors department. All of which was in my plan now that the baby is a little more scheduled and I'm getting some sleep. Here's what pissed me off. The teacher asked me if I had considered having my child evaluated. WHAT? Let me explain before you think I'm a "not my kid" kind of parent.

To begin, the way large motor skills were evaluated was by examining my daughter's ability to pedal a tricycle. She's not that good at it, admittedly, but I knew full well she had been short-changed in the bike department since I spent all of last summer gigantically pregnant and was a little reluctant to spend a lot of time bent over a tricycle. I figured when the weather got better we would really tackle it since how the hell am I taking my five month old outside with us now when it's thirty degrees out? Then I started to think, what about poor kids who don't even have bikes? Don't they turn into adults who function pretty normally? Or is there a whole population of people who can't get a job because they didn't spend enough time pedaling as a kid?

When we were discussing my kid's lack of socialization skills, the teacher asked me if I had had any playdates with children from the class to increase her exposure to children her own age. Um, isn't that why I pay for her to come here? Frankly, I don't have time or space for playdates. My daughter has school four mornings a week, so now I have to spend my one free morning with her trying to find another kid for her to play with? I live in a tiny house and can barely keep my own children quiet enough for the baby to take a nap, never mind adding another nut job to the mix. And, why the hell did I have all these kids if they can't play with each other? As the child of a working mother, I had few, if any, playdates so I played with my sister and I think I turned out OK.

Now don't think I'm criticizing the teacher for what are very valid observations. Having been a teacher myself I know what it's like trying to figure out what to say during conferences. You don't want to be overly critical, but you don't want to let a potential problem slide by and I thank her for that. I will admit, my kid's fine motor is something I have to keep an eye on and work with her on it. What got me so angry was two-fold.

First, is the fact that evaluation was brought up to blithely. It seems everyone is having their child evaluated these days either for speech or another issue when really, some kids just develop more slowly than others. Why are we so quick to pathologize these differences? I know many, many children are helped by various therapies, so please do not take offense if your child is one of them, but how many other children would have improved on their own eventually without having to have their parents worry themselves to death?

Second, all of this, perhaps in my own mind, was put upon me. It's my fault she isn't riding her bike enough, drawing enough, having enough playdates. The solution seemed to be even more pressure being put on me to structure my day and add more to my to-do list. It made me think back to mothers in the thirties and forties who kicked their kids out of the house trilling, "Go outside and play!" There were no organized activities, these mothers had laundry to do, houses to clean and meals to cook and this was the generation that would eventually put a man on the moon! Maybe my kid would be better at riding her bike if I could kick her outside to do it herself without fear of her being abducted out of my driveway while I folded the laundry. Or do I put everything I need to do on hold in order to do developmentally appropriate crafts with my kids and stay up until all hours of the night doing my housework? I don't think so unless the plan also includes my becoming a meth-head.

My point here is I felt like a freak for wanting to take a wait-and-see approach. The teacher wants to speak again in March, but if my daughter hasn't made any drastic improvements I'm not sure I'll be running to have her checked out. Some things take time and some things the teacher spoke of are never going to change. Regardless of who she is playing with my middle one is never going to be Suzy Sunshine. But you know what? One little girl in the class saves her a seat everyday. I think her moodiness has made her attractively enigmatic. Kind of like the girl who gets all the dates because she doesn't give guys the time of day. Every kid is different and maybe we need to accept that, within, reason, of course. I don't think the answer is parents needlessly beating themselves up or turning their homes into mini-preschools. With a little time and more crayons I'm sure my kid will be fine. But maybe I will look into a child-sized exercise bike...