Parenting

So far, one of the most awesome things about having twins (and there are many) is that we have a much better idea about what is common to all babies and what is unique to Zoe or Leo, and even in retrospect, what was unique to Sammy when she was a newborn. We know because we can compare two babies who are at the exact same developmental level at the same time. Their differences highlight their personalities, and tell us that these things are not “just the way all babies are.” And when we see something that is common to all three of our children, we have to consider that maybe that is something more universal. We’ve already discovered things we thought were unique to Sam that turn out to be just common baby behaviors.

Now, we don’t want to make the mistake of translating infant behavior into projections of adult, or even childhood personality traits. A fussy baby does not equate to a wild teenager. And we don’t want to pigeonhole Leo or Zoe by “labeling” them, something my favorite parenting authors warn against. (I put that term in scare quotes because I’m not completely comfortable with it – I’m not sure it has a clear definition and I suspect it might be a package deal. I have to think about it more before I decide one way or another.) And yet, comparing them gives us such wonderful information about them!

Some things we’ve learned:

• Leo loves pacifiers (we call them suckers). Zoe could care less about them. (Sammy never wanted a sucker but we weren’t sure if it was her or if we just didn’t push the idea hard enough. Now we know it was her.)
• Leo almost always cries first. Zoe doesn’t cry much at all, but when she does, you don’t want your ear within 5 feet of her mouth or you’ll go deaf. Still, we call Zoe “unflappable.” Nothing seems to faze her. Neither Leo nor Sammy could be called “sensitive,” but they certainly react more strongly, especially in negative ways. Zoe is just chill and I hope she remains that way. It would be nice to have one like that. (We used to think that Sammy was a fairly “easy” baby, but, at least for now, Zoe seems to be proving us wrong about that. So far, Zoe is the easy one.)
• Leo seems to have reflux, or some kind of digestive system issue. Zoe doesn’t. (Sammy did.) He arches his back and cries in a way that sounds like he is in pain and spits up much more than Zoe. Related to the previous point? Quite possibly.
• All three of our children are great breastfeeders. Either that, or I’m good at it. Or a combination of the two.
• Both Leo and Zoe can be calmed quite easily just by picking them up. (When Sammy would get herself wound up, there was really nothing we could do but let her work it out on her own.) I hope this is not something that changes when they get a bit older – I can’t remember when it started with Sam.
• Leo really, really needs to be swaddled. Zoe is happy in a swaddle or a loose blanket. (Sammy needed the swaddle.) Again, I wonder if this is related to reflux, or whatever the problem is.
• Apparently, all babies make essentially the same faces when they have to poop. And they won’t poop while they are eating. It’s a whole big production which is fascinating to watch. (Leo is the cutest pooper because he makes these grunts that are absolutely adorable.)
• Zoe and Leo can sleep through just about anything. Zoe sleeps through Leo’s crying right in her ear all the time, and they both sleep through the dog barking, the vacuum, and Sammy’s high-pitched happy squealing during tickle-time. Sam was awakened by any loud noise when she was a baby. Do you remember the scene in Marley and Me when Jennifer Anniston puts the kids down for a nap and lies on the bed and takes a huge, deep breath, and you see the tension just flowing out of her into the mattress and you know she’s about to fall asleep in an instant but then she hears the beeping of a truck in reverse and she bolts upright and says, “Oh no, oh no,” in absolute horror because the dog is about to go crazy barking and wake the kids and that is indeed what happens and she totally loses her freaking mind? Well, that was me when Sam was a baby. Toby is lucky to still be among us. Thank goodness for the NICU with all of its noise.
• Physically, they are looking more and more different as they fill out. Leo has a triangular face with a pointy chin which I believe he got from The Italian (as I call our egg donor). His nose, so prominent when he was born, now seems just right for his face. Zoe has a rounder face and is kind of jowly. She also has much darker skin and hair than Leo which obviously comes from The Italian.
• Leo’s Big Thing – the thing that stands out the most about him – is that he is physical. He moves, he squirms, he uses his hands in amazing ways for a 4-week-old infant, and he is strong. Within a few days of his birth, he had a reputation in the NICU. We kept hearing how he would escape his swaddle and his diaper and then pull off his leads. We were told “He’s all boy.” When I asked what that meant, the nurse said that he was very physical. She warned us that he’d be climbing the refrigerator in a year. He was also called a “superstar” in the NICU because of his quick progress in becoming strong enough to go home. (Premature girls usually do better than boys so it was doubly impressive.) He can already hold his head up for quite long stretches. At his first pediatrician appointment, the doctor suggested that we put his mattress up at an angle to help with his reflux, since, “he can’t really move around yet so you don’t have to worry about him ending up upside-down.” Well, we had already put the mattress at an angle, and he is perfectly capable of ending up upside-down, thankyouverymuch. Leo is The Mover. And I love that about him.
• Zoe’s Big Thing is her vision. She looks at everything. When she was first born, she’d open her eyes and her eyeballs would roll up in the back of her head because she couldn’t control them yet, but she’d open those lids anyway. By Day 2 on this planet, this tiny little 4 pound baby had her eyes open all the time and was focusing on anything that was close enough. She keeps them open much more often that Leo does, and she looks at faces much more intently than he does. Her eyes are very prominent, and there is something about the way she uses them that is utterly captivating and endearing. Zoe is The Looker. And I love that about her.
• I wish I could look back and compare Sammy as an infant to these two, to determine what her Big Thing was. But the details are gone now. I remember my own judgments about her – my conclusions – but not so much the facts that gave rise to them. What I do remember is that we always called Sammy “highly opinionated.” From the beginning, she seemed willful, stubborn, and independent, and the term “highly opinionated” actually came from one of our midwives and was seconded by her pediatrician. But what particular behaviors made them and us see her that way, I don’t recall. Still, I think we were right, because I can’t imagine calling either Leo or Zoe “highly opinionated,” but it still describes Sam to this day. Sammy is The Rebel. And I love that about her.

Finally! Our Zoe is home with us. Our baby-making journey is complete. Our family is complete. And now the real adventure begins!

Zoe came home yesterday after 22 days in the NICU, exactly twice the length of Leo’s stay. By the end, we were getting quite frustrated because we couldn’t figure out why they were keeping her so long. When to discharge an infant is a judgment call on the doctor’s part, and I think Zoe just ended up with more conservative doctors. To us, she seems more solid than Leo was when he came home. She’s over five pounds now, eating and sleeping with no problems.

Both she and Leo are now more or less regular newborns. Their gestational age is almost 38 weeks now – exactly when Sammy was born. They’re still a bit small, but they have already outgrown much of their preemie-sized clothing. They probably sleep a bit more than a full-term newborn. We basically change their diapers, feed them, and put them back to bed.

Sammy, who was so much more excited about having a little sister than in having a little brother, wasn’t as moved by Zoe’s homecoming as she was Leo’s. Of course, it’s the same thing that I experienced when they were born. The first one has an impact that the second just can’t match. Hopefully this will be the last time that Zoe will necessarily be second. Maybe we shouldn’t have given her a name that starts with “Z”.

Still, Sammy is clearly thrilled. She didn’t spend as much time with Zoe upon her arrival, but later, she drew a picture of Leo and Zoe together, and wrote their names on it. She wants to kiss them and touch them as much as possible. And last night she woke up for a middle-of-the-night feeding and stayed for the whole thing, just like she did on Leo’s first night home.

With Zoe coming home on a Sunday, it was trial by fire for me and Adam. He teaches on Mondays, which means he has to do class-prep on Sunday nights. It also means that he has to wake up early and leave the house around 8am, so this morning I was on my own with all three children. With just Leo, on teaching nights I was doing the night feedings and letting Adam sleep, but with both babies, I needed his help. So we both got up at 2am and 5am and each took one baby. Thank goodness both of them slept very well and we had an easy night. And somehow, between 7:15 and 8:30am, I managed to feed both babies myself plus wake up Sam, get her dressed, get her breakfast, brush her hair, and everything else that goes along with getting her ready for school. It was not easy logistically – I couldn’t plan ahead because I didn’t know exactly when the babies would wake and which would wake first. I ended up doing a half-feeding with Leo before Sam awoke, then put him back to bed while I did my thing with her, then I fed Zoe and finished up with Leo while Sam took care of herself and finished getting ready. My babysitter arrived at 8:30 to take Sammy to school and we were all ready, no stress, and almost no crying at all! It was great! I hope I can manage it that well every time, but I know these class-day mornings are probably going to be the hardest part until the semester ends in December.

I’ll write more soon about Leo and Zoe (or, I suppose I should say Zoe and Leo) and their personalities and what we’ve learned about them and how we’re bonding and what it’s like to have two babies. But right now, Leo is ready to eat. Oh, he’s first again!

I still have so much to write about – Leo and Zoe’s birth story and all of our experiences in the NICU and more – but today Leo came home, and that’s what I need to write about. I only have time for one little part of it, and what I want to write about most is Samantha’s reaction.

For the past week, since I returned from the hospital, Sam has been getting more and more angry, especially with me. I mean, she’s getting shuffled around between our friends and my parents, and Adam and I have been at the hospital a lot and very busy when we’re home. We’ve tried to give her what attention we can, but she’s not stupid. She’s too mature to be fooled by gifts or extra TV or sweets. She wants to be number one again, and she knows that is changing. And on top of that, she has not been able to see Leo or Zoe. Because it is flu season (since when does it start so early?), there are no visitors except parents allowed on the NICU floor.

Sam has had her good moments. The other night she came up with the idea to have a date night with me and then a date night with her dad so that we could have some one-on-one time. I took her out for sushi and the next night Adam took her out for barbecue. That worked out really well for all of us, and it was her idea. But mostly, she just goes around the house stomping her foot and saying, “But I want it!” We’re muddling through as best we can.

But today, when Leo came home, she was so incredibly thrilled. She held him, she burped him, she gave him a bottle. She couldn’t get enough of him. While I was nursing him, she stood over us the whole time, patting his head so gently, and kissing him over and over, saying, “He’s so cute.” When I told her to be gentle, she said, “I will never ever hit him or spit at him or…or…or kick him. Never. I promise.” She’s already fallen in love with his scrunched up forehead and his tiny hands. When we talk about her being an older sister, or how she now has a little brother, her face shines like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

The sweetest thing of all requires a little context. Part of our bedtime routine with Sammy is that, just before we leave the room, we tuck her in. And it has to be done in exactly the right way or she will not be happy. We have to pull the sheet up first, then the comforter, and we have to pull it “all the way up to my neck.” She tells us this every night, as if we would forget: “Pull it all the way up to my neck, mommy.” And as I was nursing Leo, Sam took the burp cloth, put it on top of him and tucked it under his chin, saying, “I pulled it all the way up to his neck.”

Is this what people mean about the joy of multiple children? Is there more? I can’t wait to find out.

Sammy got her hair cut a few days ago. There was a drinking fountain in the salon which she could just barely reach with her lips if she stood on the tips of her tippy tippy toes. She had one drink, and then later came back for more – mostly for the challenge, I think. I watched from a few yards away as she struggled to coordinate the pushing of the button with the standing on the tippy toes with the placement of her mouth. Just then, the woman who had cut her hair saw her efforts and ran over to “help” by lifting her up. I swear, Sammy almost hit her across the face, also yelling, “No, stop!”

There was no actual hitting – Sammy just lashed out with her hands, but the woman was behind her so she missed. The woman immediately put her down and Sammy got her drink and didn’t make any more fuss about it, but was obviously a little bit disturbed. As we were leaving, I told Sammy that she was entirely right to say “no” to the help, and that the woman should not have picked her up without asking, but that she needed to control her hitting. I told her that a firm “no” would have sufficed. But thinking about it later, I shouldn’t have reproved her even for that. What would you do if you were in the middle of a physical task that requires focus, and some stranger came up behind you without warning and picked you up by the waist? I’m not sure I’d lash out, but I certainly wouldn’t blame an adult who did so. The important lesson in that situation for Sammy should have been that she did essentially the right thing, not the wrong thing. I should have kept my mouth shut completely.

I love my Sammy’s independence, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be a part of killing it. Shame on me. Next time, I’ll do better. It’s all a matter of being on the lookout for the good, not the bad. Kids don’t need to have every minor mistake corrected. (They make so many mistakes it’s not like we parents could ever run out of material!) It’s much more important that their achievements are recognized, and their virtues acknowledged. I think it’s all too easy to slip into the parental mode of just hovering over the child, waiting for the next “teachable moment” to guide their behavior. I’m a big believer in using those moments, but in our roles as guides I think we can get too caught up in looking for those situations. That is what turns even the best of us into the “critical parents” that we all strive so hard to avoid becoming. Let’s all just take a chill pill. I will.

So I’ve put myself on partial bed rest, and my condition is stable for now. My doc says to keep doing what I’m doing. I could develop pre-eclampsia any time, but as of now, I’m still technically not diagnosed with it.

We had some on-line friends come and visit today for the first time. (It was great to finally meet you!) I’m always a bit more sensitive about my parenting when around other parents, so I noticed something: I’ve started yelling at Sam. I’m not screaming at her in anger, but yelling her name to get her attention quite often.

She happens to be in a phase right now where she just does not listen. (Please don’t tell me it’s not a phase.) Both Adam and I have become very annoyed at having to repeat ourselves, and seeing her doing exactly what we ask her not to do (or not doing what we did ask her to do), even though it seemed that she had agreed since she didn’t object verbally to the instructions. So we’ve been working on this in constructive ways: we’ve been teaching her how to look us in the eyes when we are speaking to her, and how to acknowledge that she has heard us, and how, if she doesn’t agree with some instruction that we give her, she must first comply, but then she is free to tell us with words that she doesn’t agree and why not. (So, if we say, “stop jumping on the couch,” she must stop, and then tell us why she thinks she should be able to, if she disagrees.) We are careful to listen to her, and to model proper acknowledgement for her. And we’ve explained why it is in her interest to listen to what people say, to acknowledge them, and then to object politely if she disagrees. We’re working on all that, but I know this is one that is going to take a very long time to sink in, so I don’t expect immediate progress.

Still, when I tell her to stop grabbing another child’s toy out of his hands and she completely ignores me, I must act. Normally, I would remove the toy from her hands for her. But now, I am physically limited. So what can I do but yell? I yell her name and it gets her attention. Usually, she’ll come to me and discuss it after that – it’s just getting her attention that is the problem. I don’t really see what alternative I have right now.

But I’m worried that this will become a bad habit, especially since I’m still going to be tied to the couch much of the time after Leo and Zoe are born. This might be my very first parent-of-more-than-one challenge! I can’t stand the idea of being that mom at the playground yelling out her child’s name over and over. If anyone has any advice on other ways to grab Sam’s attention without having to get out of my chair, or how not to let this become habitual, please let me know!

Sam got lost today. I mean, she was really lost for the first time ever. It was kind of a good experience.

We were at Macy’s where I was shopping for new maternity clothes (yes, I’m growing out of most of my current ones already). We were both exhausted – my feet were killing me and I just wanted to be done as soon as possible. After picking out a few items, I told her it was time to go to the fitting room. She said, no, she wanted to lay down on the floor and rest. The maternity section was actually housed in a glass room within the store (the place they used to keep the fur coats), and it was deserted but for one saleslady. The fitting rooms were just outside this room. So, in keeping with our constant efforts at free-range parenting (it really takes effort to let go), I decided to let her stay. She was half asleep under a rack of clothing when I left.

We did this at IKEA recently – we left her lying on a bed while we went around the corner to pick out handles for our cabinets. We just told her to stay put and, that if any adults asked, to tell them that she was fine and mommy and daddy know where she is and will be right back. She also knows my phone number and how to “find a mommy” if she needs help. IKEA worked out fine.

But this time, after about, oh, seven minutes (quite a long time, really), I returned to find her gone. The cool part was, I didn’t freak out at all. The saleslady thought Sam had gone with me and gasped when she found out otherwise. I just calmly brought my clothes to the register and told her to hold them for me. Then I did a methodical walk around the surrounding area, calling Sam’s name as loudly as I dared. I was sure I’d find her quickly (one reason I feel okay leaving her alone is that she is not the type to bolt), but when I didn’t, I realized that this might be a problem.

The problem wasn’t that I was worried about her having been abducted or hurt or anything. I was really just worried that I was going to have to walk around for a while on my aching feet. Seriously, that was my main concern. Like, “oh shit, this might mean I have to stand up for another half hour.” And when I noticed that the escalator was nearby I did have a moment of panic, because that would have doubled my search area.

Anyway, I was just about at the end of what I thought was a reasonable perimeter and was facing the necessity of deciding what to do next when I heard the Macy’s Muzak stop. I knew exactly what would happen. A voice came over the speakers:

“Attention Macy’s customers. Will Amy Mossoff please report to the customer service desk behind ladies lingerie on the lower level. Amy Mossoff, please come to customer service on the lower level.”

Whew! What a relief. I had just covered lingerie and it wasn’t too far of a walk!

Of course, what had happened was that some good citizen had seen a child without an adult and had immediately taken her to the authorities. If she hadn’t done that, I probably would have found Sam in less than a minute (she’s not much of a wanderer, and I know her habits – she probably would have been right there in lingerie, pinching the push-up bras). But I can’t really blame people for trying to help this way. You just don’t see four-year-olds wandering around alone in the mall very often.

Anyway, it was a good, safe situation for Sam to be lost in. I was hoping she might learn a lesson from it, but she wasn’t really scared and I don’t think it had much impact. Since I wasn’t truly worried, I didn’t fake it and make a big deal of it to her. But I did tell her that she’s going to have to come to the fitting rooms with me until she’s just a bit older.

I’ve made a big decision. I’m eliminating Samantha’s afternoon nap.

She has been a great napper. I am the envy of many parents. Since I’m pregnant, being able to nap myself has been a life-saver. I never thought I would be the one to choose to eliminate such a blessing, but the time has come.

Sam’s naps had been growing longer and longer, and she had been having more and more trouble falling asleep at night. I’m quite certain this is how some of us become “night people.” Or maybe she just is a night person, and this is how it first manifests itself. Either way, the situation was becoming intolerable. We’d put her down later and later, but she’d still be up for hours, alternating between getting snacks, playing in the nursery (the room next to hers which is currently vacant), or screaming bloody murder. It was becoming common for her to be up until 10 or 11pm. It was obvious that she was simply not tired. One night I gave her Benadryl just to make her sleepy. (Didn’t work.)

The problem is, Sam still seems to need more than the eleven hours of sleep she gets at night. Without her nap, she barely makes it to bedtime, and she falls asleep every time we’re in the car. That is a sign of a child who needs more sleep, and I agree with Marc Weissbluth that sleep-deprivation is a serious problem. We can’t put her to bed any earlier because Adam works late hours and we’d have to eliminate family dinner, which would be a last resort. But Sam is going to have to give up her nap in September anyway, when she begins full-day school, so we’re going to have to find a way to get along without it.

So I’m going to allow her to go into her room and sleep any time she needs to, but I’m not going to read her a story or have any official nap time. (I wasn’t sure how she’d take to this idea, but she’s done it a couple of times now.) And depending on the time of day she sleeps, I’m going to wake her up after either a half-hour or an hour. No more three-hour marathon naps, no matter how pleasant and productive that me-time is.

I’m actually looking forward to getting rid of the naps. It was nice to have the time to myself, but it was also a huge hassle to be home every day from 1-4pm. It really killed the entire afternoon and evening for any kind of outing, because you can’t drive anywhere in northern Virginia after 3:30. So for the past two years, I’ve done most of my errands and grocery shopping while Sam was in school because the few times I’ve taken Sam to the grocery store or to Target after her nap, it’s been a living hell of traffic and mobs of people. So from 4 until bedtime, we usually just go places we can walk to, like the playground. In nice weather, it’s not so bad, but it was particularly difficult in the winter. And I’ve really missed doing errands with my daughter. She and I have a lot of fun together doing simple things.

After school last week, on the very first day of the new no-nap policy, Sam and I went out to lunch and then directly to the grocery store. It was wonderful. I didn’t feel that rush of needing to get home to keep the schedule, and when we did get home Sam was happy to play by herself quite a bit, so I ended up with some time to get my own work done anyway. (She tended to be very needy after her nap, so usually her awakening would mark the end of my “work” day.) I think I’ll even be able to take catnaps myself with Sam awake in the house. She’s mature enough to keep herself occupied, and I have supermom powers even while unconscious that seem to awaken me at the slightest sign of trouble.

School is out for summer in a week, and when Leo and Zoe arrive in September, who knows what will happen. But I think Sam’s nap is a thing of the past. It was a good run.

I only have a moment, but I wanted to quickly relate what I’ve learned and figured out about my concerns over Sammy’s effort.

First, I think I’m overreacting to just about everything due to the pregnancy hormones.  Second, I know that I am hypersensitive to this issue to begin with because of my own childhood, and my development of an anti-effort mentality. So, after a few days of reflection, the whole issue is much smaller.

Even so, the incident at school is worth thinking about. I spoke briefly to Sam’s teacher after she returned, and she assured me that Sam does not do this “all the time.” That part of what Miss R. told me was just a miscommunication, and that was the part that had me concerned. Sam does wander, observe, space out, and all of those things, but she doesn’t do it excessively. And, just as I suspected, this school does keep a close eye on this behavior to assess whether there is a problem or whether it is just what the child needs to do at the time. Still, as Sam’s teacher has noted to me since she started school, Sam’s tendency is towards needing a push here and there, whereas some children just leap into the work. That is fine and normal – that is just her temperament. And, as Sam’s teacher has been telling me, Sam has blossomed this year and is making independent choices much more often. So I’m 100% happy with how her school is handling this. (But I still want a better way to observe her in the classroom.)

So does Sam have any kind of “problem” in the area of effort, persistence, or independence?  I’ve returned to my belief, prior to last Friday’s incident, that the fact that I’m seeing improvement in her levels of effort is the most important thing.  I’ve also received some very helpful comments that have made me think about whether I am conflating a lack of persistence or effort with caution, introversion, or other, less problematic character traits. I think I do mix them all together, so that I see the effort issue as larger than it really is.

Also, from the comments, I have some new ideas about how to introduce new activities to Sam, about praise, about motivation, and some other things I can’t remember now. I guess I need to compile all of those ideas into my own list because there were obviously too many for me to remember them all. So thank you all for the great comments and advice!

I’ve written before about what I perceive as a persistence problem with Samantha, and the issue is cropping up once again. I don’t want to cover all that ground again, but here are two posts that describe my concern.  Rational Jenn just wrote a post about the same type of issue with her son, which is worth reading, and good background for some of the things I’ll write about here.

Lately, I’ve been more comfortable with Sam’s level of effort. She tries new things regularly, sometimes with hesitation or caution, but we have far fewer instances of outright refusal to try things that are just a little bit difficult or scary. She is taking dance class, and actually practicing moves that are difficult for her, and she just started swim lessons, which require her to put her face in the water and take other risks. Of course there are times when she just wants to be babied – I don’t see those as a problem, but normal for this age. So overall, things are better.

But yesterday I got a shock when I picked up Sam from school. Her teacher is out for a couple of days, so the assistant is alone with the children in the classroom. When Sam ran up to me on the playground (where I pick her up) she sadly told me that she didn’t listen to Miss R. that day. Then Miss R. came over and explained that there had been some crying. It took a long time for me to tease out of her exactly what the problem was because she was so concerned that I would flip out because Sam cried. These poor teachers are so defensive – I guess a lot of parents think children should never have their wills thwarted and if they cry it means the teacher was mean. But once I got through to her that I just wanted to know what happened, she told me. Sam had chosen a piece of work first thing in the morning, and then sat in front of it, not working at all, but just watching all of the other children, for an hour and a half! Miss R. prompted her to work or put it away several times, but Sam didn’t do anything at all until she realized that she was going to miss circle time and not be ready to go outside to play. Then, she quickly did the work and put the material away, but not before having some kind of a meltdown about how she didn’t want to do it. Miss R. noticed that when Sammy finally did the work, she did it correctly, so it wasn’t that she didn’t know how. She just wasn’t choosing to do the work. I asked Miss R. if this happens often and she said yes, it does.

Now, this is playing into all of my fears. First, I have never been sure that Sam is actually working all day at school. When I ask her what she did at school, she usually mentions one or two activities, and they are usually the easy ones that she’s been doing over and over since the first day of school. I’ve been assuming that she just can’t remember everything she does. As I mentioned recently, she is making a great deal of progress through the materials recently, so I figured that she must be working. But, since Montessori children don’t bring home a lot of work product and you can’t really observe them in the classroom (if they know the parent is there, they don’t behave normally), you have to rely on what the teacher tells you. And Sam’s teacher, Mrs. L., is not a good communicator.

I think Mrs. L. is probably a good teacher. But it’s really hard to tell what is going on in the classroom. When we have meetings or talk about Sam’s work, I get that same sense of defensiveness from her as I did from the assistant (and which I’ve gotten from every teacher/caregiver I’ve ever worked with). Instead of giving me facts, she seems to have an agenda of soothing me. It’s frustrating. But I’ve thought about it a lot and convinced myself that it’s a communication issue, not a teaching issue.

But now, if it is true that Sam is sitting and staring into space half the day, I want to know why I haven’t been told about this and what is being done to address it. Why did I find out about it only when Mrs. L. was absent? Does that mean that Mrs. L. handles it better or that she doesn’t do anything about it at all? It’s possible that it is not a regular occurrence, or that Sam doesn’t do it any more than any other child – there is a bit of a language barrier with Miss R., so I’m taking her explanation with a grain of salt.  I plan to meet with Mrs. L. to see if I can get a straight answer. That will hopefully solve the concern I have about how the classroom is run.

But if it is true that Sam is still not putting forth effort at school, and if it is not developmentally normal, then I’m back to fearing for her moral development. My problem is that I have no standards by which to judge whether this is “normal” or not. Reading the comments on Jenn’s post was somewhat helpful. There seem to be quite a few other parents out there with children with similar behaviors. But it’s obviously not true of all children. Jenn herself has two others, and at least one of them definitely does not balk at effort and persistence. I am willing to accept that these are temperamental differences, but I am not willing to accept that they are value-neutral. Effort and persistence are virtues, and if they don’t come naturally to Sam, I want to do everything I can to help her see how they will benefit her. So far in her life, this is the critical issue. (Well, there’s also her anger issue, but I’ll leave that for another day.)

I also want to be prepared for the challenges of homeschooling a child who is difficult to motivate. If I could understand what is going on psychologically with Sam, I could develop better ways of helping to motivate her. My biggest fear with homeschooling is that she simply won’t want to do any work at all (and I don’t believe in forcing “knowledge” down a child’s throat).

Like Jenn, Adam and I have techniques that we use to deal with this aspect of Sam’s personality, and I suppose that we should feel pretty good about what we’ve been doing since she is improving. But again, I see this as such a critical issue that I want to educate myself about it as much as possible.  I am considering asking Sam’s pediatrician for a referral to a child psychologist to get an assessment, but I hate to open up that can of worms. I think kids are way over-diagnosed and labeled in every area these days, when most of the time, they are just the unique individuals that they are. At the same time, some diagnoses and assessments are extremely helpful. So I’m torn about that.

I haven’t yet looked for any books on this subject. I suppose that is my next step. But first, I’ll ask you, my dear readers, if you have any advice.