Weekend Reflections: PTC meetings don’t bring the nicest feeling that although we weren’t going to talk about me, it felt otherwise.
Yesterday, I had my first Parents-Teacher-Meeting this school year with Kerrigan’s teachers. She has three teachers guiding a class of 13 or 15 toddlers in Junior level. Two of her teachers were newly hired, and the other one has been with the school for a long time. To how long, I’m not sure, but she knows her way around kids. These PTC’s would always give me the slightest uneasy feeling, almost close to anxiety, because back in my day, these meetings didn’t exactly go my way.
I don’t recall much about my preschool years apart from those blurry memories of embarrassment because my “exchange gift” was filled with local candies while other got lovely gifts to give. That one time when I covered my pee with my chair because I couldn’t tell my teacher that I need to go potty. My memories were about me NOT doing what was expected of my age. For one, I learned to read a bit late for my school’s required age which was around six years old. I was about to become a first-grader when I was told I can’t enroll because I didn’t know how to read yet. It also didn’t help that my Maths were almost always “line of 7”, which was C+. I’ve been called out once or twice in grade school for being “too playful” then I’ve had those school report cards that say “too talkative” on them. In preschool, I got transferred to a Catholic school because I was told I was misbehaving. Those memories says a lot about my upbringing. It’s not ideal, I know. And I know the people surrounding me during those growing years gave their best in raising me. But from there I carved out my own style and designed my standards in parenting my kid.
My daughter and I are so different from each other in so many ways. For one, my daughter could assert herself and speaks her mind. I’m told she’s showing aptitude in Math with her ability to count by merely looking at objects. She’s very sporty too because she could follow physical activities with so much ease. At this point, everyone in school knows that she loves singing, dancing and acting. She would sing loudly and act out the emotions in a song. But I guess the funniest and one of my proudest mom moment was when the teacher said she would always inject her brand on the things she does. And would diverge a bit from her teacher’s directions. I love that about my daughter. She wouldn’t do exactly what she’s told to do. Your instructions must make sense to her; otherwise, you might as well forget about it. But what impressed me the most was when she knows how to respect and understand the norms in school. We didn’t have a chance to discuss it, but I was able to read it on her report. “Kerrigan gets her lunchbox from the cubbyhole, and she brings it to the table. The teacher reminds everyone to pray before eating. She stops what she is doing, puts her hands together, and recites the prayer.” It makes me happy to know that although she knows how to assert herself and would do things her way, she knows when to respect the norms set by her school. With all those things about her, I think she’s ready to take on extra classes. Maybe a day or two for extracurricular activities to enhance and support her further.
But there is also some feedback that I should look into like my daughter would not have enough time to play. She would compensate by sneaking in playtime whenever she could. This is because we are always late for school well because of me. She wakes up early enough, but because I couldn’t manage my time well in the morning, we would always be late for school. She would arrive during circle time which is equivalent to a second period. Yeah, that’s on me. So, I’m changing that.
I’d like to think that what she is now is what I was supposed to be if I was being raised by someone like me. But then I guess, my daughter wouldn’t be who she is today if she isn’t being raised by a person who didn’t have the ideal upbringing. Does it make sense? I guess my point here is that no matter how we were raised, the conscious effort to bring out the best of others and to always seek improvement matters the most.
PTCs, whether we like it or not, is more of a reflection of the parents’ performance in raising their kids and not the other way around. It may say so many things about how our children are when we are not around, but it also reveals a bit of who we are.
From my diary on October 13, 2019