Parent Teacher Conferences (or … They did What?!)

I spend many hours analyzing my parenting.

• Am I too harsh?
• Am I too giving?
• Do I let things go too much?
• Do I catch too many infractions and not let enough go?
• When my kids push me, do I let them get away with too much?
• When my kids push me, do I out-logic them too much?
• Are they getting enough hugs?
• Am I smothering them?
• Do I yell too much?
• Do I respond appropriately when they fight among themselves?

Plus the other million questions I ask myself every day during every moment I’m interacting with my kids. Am I raising that rare female serial killer? Am I raising the kid who will expect the world to owe them something?

Needless to say I was dreading parent-teacher conferences. I went through a round of these in a past life and I had no reason to think these would be any less painful or that I would cry any less once they were over. I mean, I had hopes, but you don’t know until you’re sitting in a chair that’s too small at a table that’s too low wondering if you’re about to hear that you have a sociopath on your hands.

Yeah. I was a wreck.

First we had the Kindergarten conference. I was late, but the teacher didn’t know because she ran over, so I didn’t come in making a bad first impression. We sat down and the teacher wanted to focus on academics. I finally told her, “My daughter is five. I am sure she’ll catch on to reading, writing and arithmetic…what’s going on with her social skills?” I held my breath as the teacher processed my question. Hoping beyond hope everything was going to be okay. Then she smiled and said, “She’s fine.”

I’ve never heard more beautiful words.

She has a little bit of a crying problem. Not for herself, but for others. She cries when bad things happen to other children. To a slightly absurd extent. I told her that we’re working on boundaries at home and she would get there and the teacher told me that she’d already seen improvement from the beginning of the year.

All is well and progress is being made. What more can you ask of a five year old?

Next was the preschool conference. My 4yo has only been in her new preschool a month and I was worried the transition might cause problems. We went over the same academic stuff and I said the same thing about social skills and again the teacher had the same reaction and said, “She’s great!”

There were some suggestions of things to work on, but they were SO small and SO easy I couldn’t believe how well things went. Both teachers think I’m funny and love how I parent my kids. They think I’m doing a GOOD JOB.

So yeah, I cried. I cried a lot. But they were the happiest tears in the world.

Everything is ok. I’ve been scared for so long that I almost forgot that I’m not an awful mommy.

My favorite part was when the pre-k teacher explained what patterns were in order to tell me how good my child was with them. I asked her, “Did you just explain what a pattern was…to me?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “You need to do that.” She looked at me, sighed, and said, “Yes.”

Wow. Who would have thunk it? The kids know more than their parents – sometimes even before kindergarten.