The SWC

The phrase is out there. It's been said.

Already.

LK was in kindergarten for 3 whole weeks when I had the first "talk" with her after school day care program. It was about that same time when her teacher said "While I have you here..."

LK is a "strong willed child". syn. stubborn, willful, defiant, aggressive. There are more, but what's the point? She is many of those things much of the time, some of them only occasionally, but it is not a surprise that teachers and day care providers find her difficult, especially at first.

She's also not terribly interested in stupid things like letters and numbers. And that makes life a little less than wonderful for her in this day and age of accelerated learning. Add to that our highly accomplished and competitive school district and I think we may have a recipe for some issues.

I think if we get to the 8 week point without a visit with the principal, we should be pretty much ok.

She wants to go back to preschool. Preschool where they let the kids play on the playground for 2 days instead of kindergarten where they only let them play for 2 hours. (obviously her concept of time isn't terribly clear, either) I feel for her - she was finally getting to the point where she really felt comfortable, wasn't getting in trouble all the time and was happy. Now her life is in turmoil and she has to get used to new things all over again.

Anyway - here we go again. This book was recommended to us. Believe me - I've bought books. I've lived in the house of ADHD for 26 years now, and I've read a ton of them. Some of them halfway decent, others ridiculous. But we do know we've got our hands full with this one. I believe she's probably dealing with some kind of a learning disability, probably due to her drug exposure at birth (and unfortunately, no doubt, prior). I'm sure we'll eventually hammer out just what kind, but for now we're not focusing on that. Regardless, we'll have to help her along as best we can and we will have to continue to find new strategies to deal with the "SWC". By the way, she may be strong-willed, but she is also delightful. I hear that's pretty common. Or maybe we're just predjudiced. Either way.

The floor is open - if you've had any experience with your own SWC or have any ideas, I'm open to suggestions!

What's new?

Someone started kindergarten last week. Someone also pretty much took over the class. I'm told the kindergarten gods put her in the right classroom - she will not be able to run over this teacher. We'll see.

What is it like to send your youngest off to kindergarten? Not nearly as traumatic as sending him/her off to college. I have sent my youngest child to kindergarten 3 times now. That might be a record. First time, it was hard. My eyes teared up. The next time it was just plain cute. That big old backpack on that little body. Freakin' cute. I suppose my eyes teared up again, but I remember more just waving and thinking how cute these little people were. This time - I'm just amused at the first time moms and the snifflers. But I'm also impressed that there were so few of those. It was still just absolutely precious and I still got choked up. But mostly because the first of my "youngest kids" is all grown up now and was with her dad and me to wave goodbye to her baby sister. Awwww.

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Oh - and guess who likes soccer?

(I LOVE the ending... btw, this is not soccer day, but this is the outfit of choice lately.)