Parent-Teacher Interview

I should have suspected something was up a few days ago when my big boy came out with "if you have a not-so-good interview with my teacher am I still allowed to go to the Blue Light Disco?" Have never really had a bad interview with any of his teachers - with the exception of his grade 2 teacher. She was mean.. even I picked up that vibe. Anyway, it wasn't a "bad" interview. Academically he's doing great. Reading and spelling a few years above his age. Maths is great. She feels he's "coasting" along and would like to see him push himself a little. I told her I think he prefers to coast as it makes him feel like he's winning. She agreed. He's struggling a little with peer pressure at the moment. Trying to work out if he wants to be one of the "cool" kids or the sensible Student Councillor. Apparently he told the music teacher that he didn't want the badge anyway. We spent some time together alone after school and we had a chat about it all. His biggest worry was that he was going to be punished. I tried to explain to him that his teacher tells me these kind of things because she cares about him and thinks he has a really bright future ahead of him. But that she worries because lately he seems to be really easily led and she sees him as a leader rather than a follower. She told me today that if she had to pick a school captain right at this point in time (out of grade 5) then he would be her choice. She followed that up with "but I'm not sure he is able to set a good example at the moment". Of course I didn't tell him that - firstly, his little ego would probably just explode and I really don't want him to feel pressured about anything like that. So we had a good chat about it all this afternoon and he said there was so much pressure in being a Student Councillor - that he had to be good all the time and if he made one tiny mistake it was so much worse because they expected better of him. I really hope he comes through the last term ok. His teacher is keeping a really close eye on him and removing him from other kids who are likely to distract him. Mind you, I'm sure he's not always the angel and has plenty of his own distracting moments. She also said she was wondering whether she should take his Student Councillor badge off him. I really hope it doesn't come to that. I know he has really high expectations of himself and it would shatter him. Hopefully he can have next year as just a normal student to give him time to think about whether he wants to join the student council again in grade 7. I'm totally ok if he doesn't want to - in fact I'd prefer it - simply because of the extra pressure it seems to put him under. I tried to explain that he really doesn't need to act any different to how he does every single day. Just that sometimes he needed to think about the choices he makes at school. We'll see... ahhhh... it just gets harder and harder as they get older!

And since when did kids become so obsessed with the opposite sex so young??? He spoke in depth about this girl that he really likes but is too scared to ask her out yada yada yada. I just wanted to grab him and say "NO, this kind of thing doesn't happen until at least high school!!!!!" I really couldn't give him any advice. I tried gently to say why not just stay friends - you've got so many other things to think about - just have fun!

Oh and after my dismal failure with the rosti last night, I backed it up with a scrummy spinach and cheese quiche (courtesy of the latest Weight Watchers mag) tonight.

I'm off scrapping tomorrow night - can't wait!