I am a weary mom. Just weary. I have been emailing one of Sabrina's teachers because of some challenges the two have been having with each other. This all boils down to a teacher that doesn't want an open book sitting on my daughter's desk because that is a sign of her not focusing on the subject matter at hand. And Sabrina refuses to remove the book because she thinks this is a petty thing, and she isn't even reading the book in class, she just doesn't have a bookmark for her book, and most importantly, she will not be controlled. So the teacher had some words with Sabrina, and Sabrina may have spewed some venom her teacher's general direction.
So here I've been diplomatically emailing the teacher about how Sabrina now understands how dangerous an opened book on her desk can be. That it can literally lead to a mutiny among this docile mass of kids who are mostly glued to their phones. Perhaps Sabrina gets some of her sass from her dear mother. Of course, I laid the diplomacy on thick while validating some of my daughter's concerns, one of which that she is being singled out in the class.
And I have chatted with Sabrina about how the battle over the opened book on the desk is not a hill worth dying on. And have given her a game plan for showing this teacher just how riveted and engaged she can be during this teacher's boring lectures and weak teaching strategies, since the teacher is gravely concerned that Sabrina is incapable of focusing or engaging in classroom discussion. This child who sat riveted through a three hour opera on Monday night and who has earned the respect of the more respected teachers in her school because of how she acts in the classroom. But I digress.
This is just plain exhausting. At the same time, Neil tried to register Jonah for 8th grade courses last night. Upon seeing that his schedule is once again devoid of elective space due to this extra reading resource class that he is forced to take set him off completely. So here we sit, wondering whether the emotional negativity of being different than everyone else is worth what academic help he is getting. If we choose to remove him from this program, we are facing loads of bureaucracy and paper work to do so. The kid just wants to be normal. He is normal. Since when does the school system get to decide whether my child is normal? This twelve year old who single-handedly wired every plug in our basement but sobbed after an IEP when he picked up on the term "learning disability" that was discreetly pointed at him.
I do not have the skills for this. Sometimes I feel so ill-equipped for the task that lies before me. It would seem that every other parent has their child figured out and that I am the only one floundering. With that, I have to pick up Spencer from art club, who by the way, signed up for high school classes today and now I am debating whether it is even worth it to try to push him to work toward the Regent scholarship when the kid is passionate about the theater and plans on being in every play the high school produces. This is not conducive to phenomenal grades in extremely difficult classes. Ugh. How will I survive the next five years?
