This evening I fielded one of those phone calls every parent dreads. It was my almost-four year old's pre-school teacher calling to talk about his behavior in school.
Holden is a sweet kid. When he wants to be. When he doesn't, he's, frankly, a brat. He's stubborn, wants to do his own thing and doesn't care if he's punished. One of his saving graces is that he generally fesses up when he's hit, kicked or bitten a fellow classmate and he takes his punishment. But then he gets up from time out and does it again.
He won't sit in circle time. If a task doesn't interest him or strikes him as "wrong" in some way, he refuses to participate. Just refuses.
For example, today, his teacher gave the class worksheets with a Christmas tree to color and decorate. She asked the children to fill in the circles with red. (This was an exercise to see how well they can identify their colors and follow directions.) Holden piped up with, "But Christmas tree are GREEN!" Even after his teacher explained that they were coloring the decorations first and then they would color the tree, he refused to do it. He just sat there at the table while everyone else colored.
Holden hits and kicks the other children when he doesn't get his way and he honestly doesn't care if everyone else in the class is sitting quietly listening to a story - he's going to do what he wants. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that much of this behavior is normal for toddlers. But the extent of the behavior is the problem.
In my mother's family, we have this legend about the male H---- Family gene. My mother's 5 brothers and pretty much every male in my generation have all followed the same personality pattern, including my younger brother. They're all opinionated, amazingly stubborn, don't do well in formal classroom or work settings, and like to do their own thing. All of them are incredibly smart, but none of them did well in school.
I see all of this now in Holden. But I can't help thinking that we can somehow break this pattern and help Holden learn how to fit his odd-shaped personality "peg" into the round "hole" that is school. I know that the earlier we can help Holden with this, the better off he'll be.
