Parent-Teacher Conference: The View From the Short Chair

I'm sitting in a tiny red plastic chair designed for a 4th grader.  It's like trying to get comfortable inside a yogurt spoon.

Parent-Teacher Conference.  These meetings aren't supposed to be emotional roller coasters.  And yet:

"So," Ms. S says, flipping through a folder with my daughter's name on it, preparing to dive in to a peppy discussion of my daughter's performance so far this year.  I haven't gotten to know Ms. S that well yet.  At this point, I know that she's young, smart and enthusiastic; and my whole goal for this conference is to please her.  It's very important that I be her favorite parent in the class.  So much so that I'm actually a little nervous in this moment.  Because obviously, none of this is about my daughter at all.  It's about me.

"I'm pleased to say that Mini-P is having a very good year so far!" Ms. S says brightly.

Whew.  Already, I'm breathing a sigh of relief.  If my kid was eating paper and growling at other kids like a bobcat instead of using words, this conversation wouldn't be starting with "good year so far."  I can relax.

"I'm most impressed with Mini-P's verbal abilities.  She's reading several grade levels above the norm."

My chest quickly swells chest with pride.  I sit up higher in my plastic red chair.  Yer damn right she's reading above her level.  That's my girl.

"Her writing is advanced as well.  She has a wonderful voice in her work, particularly when she's writing fiction.  I've had the kids writing short stories in response to various prompts, and Mini-P's work always shows wonderful flair."

Flair! Ha!  Hell yea, she's got writing flair.  You gotta have flair!  You know who doesn't have any flair?  Every other kid in the UNIVERSE.  I feel bad for the other children at this school, with their flat, boring two-dimensionality, and their flairlessness.  Future asphalt pourers, all of them.  Future french fry shovelers.  My kid?  Future recipient of the Nobel Prize, thanks.  Which she'll receive for Creating World Peace through Exceptional Use of Flair.

I won't say she gets her exceptional writing flair from me.  I'm just saying I happen to have flair coming out my ass, is all.  And she's not adopted.

Ms. S continues: "Now, I should point out that she doesn't always follow instructions as closely as she should.  I like to give the kids freedom to explore their own ideas during creative assignments, but I also look to see if they can write to the task they've been given."

Hmm.  Write to the task.  Well.... yea, ok.  She could do a little better at that.  If, you know, that's the sort of thing you care about.  Frankly, "writing to the task" sounds good for creating lackeys, followers, sheep.  My kid is about breaking boundaries.   She's rock star that way.  If this is my kid's biggest problem, that she won't always "write to the task," then I say we have no problem.

"Moving on to math," Ms. S says, flipping to a new page in my daughter's folder.  "She seems to be grappling with assignments a bit."

I blink.  Excuse me?  Did you just say that my daughter is grappling with something?  I'm sorry, but my kid doesn't "grapple."  She surmounts challenges effortlessly, scaling mountains with her fingertips, flying effortlessly over goats and sherpas.  She shows mountains who's the boss.  She doesn't need to grapple.  She grabs obstacles by the throat and fucking squeezes them into submission because she's AWESOME.

"Grappling?  In what way?" I ask.  (Interesting how my voice came out sounding slightly meek just now.)

"Well, she's clearly good at the subject.  She knows her multiplication tables, and is perfectly capable of solving multi-step problems.  But she tends to get frustrated quickly.  Her first instinct is often to give up before she realizes that she already knows how to do the work in front of her."

Ok.  Ok, that's ok.  That's typical for exceptional children with uncommon genius.  Frustration.  Marie Curie probably felt the same way when she was in 4th grade.

"In a way," Ms. S continues, "her frustration seems to stem from anxiety.  It's as if she's actually afraid of getting a wrong answer."

Afraid of getting a wrong answer?  What's that supposed to mean?  And why is Ms. S looking at me like that?  Is she implying something?  Is she fishing for intel?  She is!  She thinks I'm one of those perfectionist parents who demands too much from their his children.  Am I on trial here?  Does she think that I lob a basketball at my daughter's head every time she gets an answer wrong on her homework?  Is that what this "conference" is actually about?  She thinks I'm The Great Santini!

I should say something.  I should explain that I don't do that.  I need to tell her about how often I say to Mini-P, "It's ok, kiddo, everybody gets wrong answers, mistakes are how we learn," and all that other bullshit.  Stop judging me, woman!

Unless.. do I actually do that?  When I sit at the table with Mini-P during homework time, am I sending out Santini vibes?  Am I creating anxiety?

"I see," I say, my steady voice betraying nothing.  "Yes, I think I've noticed that at home....."

Oh, shit.  You know what?  Just last week the kid was getting whiny about the word problems at the bottom of her math sheet, and I totally lost my cool with her.  I told her to sit up, stop spazzing out and think logically.  I probably scarred her for life right then.  I created a future serial killer at that moment.  My daughter's just a clocktower and an AK-47 away from being on the news in a couple years.  Ms. S is right.  This is totally my fault.

"But," she continues, "once she slows down and looks at the harder problems carefully, she figures out.  Then she zips through ten similar problems with no difficulty."

Oh.  Well...  Ok then.

Then, Ms. S says: "There is one area that we need to work on with her."

I knew it.  I see what's happening here.  This is what you've been leading up to the whole time, right, Teach?  You were lulling me into a false sense of security with your nice talk about Mini-P's verbal skills, so you could set your crosshairs on me and pull the trigger here at the end, right?  So what is it?  What?  Is she chewing on her table partner's ponytail?  Is she turning feral after we drop her off in the mornings?  Does she turn into a werewolf at recess?  Just tell me.  She's a werewolf.  She's a werewolf with deep-seated emotional problems who doesn't play well with others.

"She seems to feel insecure when she can't identify a solution to a problem right away, and it makes her upset."

Upset like Hmm, I puzzled about how to put the finishing touches on this new cancer cure? Or, upset like I need to curl into a fetal position behind the hamster cage and scream profanity at the walls?  What exactly are we talking about here?

"Sometimes when she gets particularly frustrated with a project, she snaps at other kids who are just trying to help her," Ms. S explains further.

In other words, you're saying she has no social skills, and will be isolated and friendless her entire life.  You're saying she's going to grow up and be such an outcase that her Senior Prom will be the setting for a full-blown Carrie psychic meltdown.  Got it.

"Is she mean to other kids?" I ask, suddenly feeling small.  My red plastic chair is suddenly the exact right size.  And getting bigger.  My girl has deep-seated psychological issues that are going to challenge her throughout her life.  That's where we're going.  I can feel it.

"No no, she's not mean.  She just reacts abruptly when she gets that kind of attention.  I think she just hates to admit that she sometimes needs help, and when another child offers, it makes her feel bad.  It's almost as if she thinks that makes her less intelligent or something.  Which of course it doesn't.  Mr. Taylor, she's a great kid.  She just takes things hard."

I stabilize myself a little, and listen carefully.  Huh.  Prefers to do everything by herself.  Hates to accept help.  Tends to feel instantly stupid when things get difficult.  Takes setbacks personally.  I... uh... wonder where she gets all that.

"So," Ms. S says, "we're working on that."

I almost apologize to Ms. S right there.  It's my fault Mini-P snaps at other kids who are perfectly nice because she's feeling inadequate about something.  This, I'm pretty sure, is what she got from me.  Her verbal abilities?  Her reading skills, her big vocabulary, her ability to follow complicated stories?  That's all her mother.  Her insecurity, thinly and ineffectively camouflaged by bravado ("I said, I can DO IT MYSELF!")... that's mine.

Ms. S has plenty of other nice things to say about my girl.  And in the scheme of things, these issues with  Mini-P aren't exactly cataclysmic.  This is the stuff kids work out in 4th grade.  Usually, with the steady, nurturing guidance of a teacher like Ms. S, they work these issues out before they get to those evil Middle School years.

I rise from the tiny plastic chair, my knees popping.  Ms. S wraps things up with a string of compliments about the Mini-Pirate -- Quick-witted.  Artistic.  Creative. Goal-oriented.  I thank her, saying that I appreciate her time (which is true), and I make sure to mention that Mini-P really likes her class a lot, and has all kinds of great things to say about it everyday when I pick her up (which is also true).

The next parent arrives, and I leave, wondering what other issues of mine the kid has inherited.  Who knows what I'll find out next year.