Adoptive Mummy

It was parent-teacher meeting day yesterday and time for school reports, I was a little apprehensive about it as we felt that the school were not seeing the ‘real’ Girl. We got to the school and outside the classroom was a table with all the children’s work books and a sealed envelope with the school report. We took a chair whilst waiting for our appointment; I chose to open the report and the Hubster picked one of the workbooks.

Now this is going to sound really strange. As I sat reading the report my heart was sinking. The report was very, very good, gushingly good. Immediately I felt mistrustful, it was like reading about a different child, all the things we struggle with at home Girl was getting right in school. They were seeing a Girl who could dress independently, a confident and sociable little girl, a girl who had no problems following instructions, who could think independently for herself. At the same time I was reading this, Hubster was pointing out that in her writing book on every page were the words ‘with support’, with support’. Now I am not saying I am unhappy about reading a good report, it’s surely what every parent dreams of but when you know your daughter has so many difficulties you expect to see some of that reflected. So what is going on here? What is missing? Why the conflict in what we are reading and what we are seeing? I felt myself welling up, desperate that nobody was seeing what we see.

However, this is where it all changed. The teacher called us in to our meeting and immediately thanked us for the document I had sent in on Attachment in the Classroom by the national Children’s Bureau (it is very, very good, bookmark it, you never know when you might need it). She had read it and then passed it round to the teaching assistants and also on to Girl’s new teacher. She then went on to say that upon reading it she had started to notice of a few behaviours that Girl was displaying, her emotions and the way she shrugs into herself when not feeling comfortable with a situation, the document fully backed up everything we had been telling her. She told us there had been a few incidents of aggressive behaviour that she had to talk to Girl about (why are we only just learning about this?). She pointed out that Girl seemed to like playing roughly with the boys at playtime (full marks teacher) and could easily get carried away with the aggression of the fighting games. I pointed out that they would need to keep an eye on that because if not pulled up in time she could easily hurt somebody through lack of self-control.

Lastly she acknowledged that Girl was having difficulties with her reading, writing and phonics and that they would be keeping an extra eye on her. Hoo-bloody-rah! We had a discussion about how her writing seems to be going backwards, that she seems to be ‘unlearning’ things. The teacher said they don’t like to bandy about the word Dyslexia and they don’t normally diagnose until 7 years of age but with her background, the adoption, the development delays it was a distinct possibility, that her difficulties were enough to worry them.

I also mentioned to the teacher about not doing much of the hoemwork with Girl. This is something I worry about but we both find it too stressful. The teacher did not seem concerned at all so that is a weight off my mind.

So that’s it, I am so pleased to know that I was not getting it totall wrong but a little sad that I was actually getting it right too, do you know what I mean?

(Oh and by the way she is bloody brilliant at maths and art!)