Scroll

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Scroll
Scroll

Top Posts

My Little Problem Solver

posted Friday October 5th, 2012

“Is it okay if we tell her about the underwear?” one of the teachers muttered to the other toward the tail end of Sophie’s parent/teacher conference yesterday afternoon.

Underwear?

Instantly, I was on high alert. (Who wouldn’t be?)

It had been a pretty good conference, as far as these things go. I dread parent/teacher conferences. IEP meetings are an out-of-body experience that takes place on another planet, but the twice-a-year conference — everyone goes to those. I walk down the hall to Sophie’s teacher’s room and glimpse conferences through the windows of other classrooms and know very few will be as eventful as Sophie’s.

After several years, I still get wistful when her classmates’ parents post on Facebook about their fabulous parent/teacher conferences. If only I could sum up what happens in one of these sessions in a two-sentence status update — let alone share news about straight As. Or any As.

In fact, the school is trying out a new report card format this year, and, as it turns out, the highest and lowest kids fall off the map entirely, because of the way performance is measured. And so Sophie’s report card is half-empty.

But her teachers are definitely of the glass half-full mindset. I brought up all of my concerns — that math is still too hard for Sophie (turns out some days the wrong homework has wound up in her backpack, they explained she’s actually working on very simple problems); that she’s socially inappropriate (oh no, they assured me, the other kids clamor to play with Sophie — she’s not stalking anyone); that she’s all over the place, all the time (that, they admitted, is true — but seemed truly unfazed).

I sat there feeling relieved, sort of. Also feeling simultaneously like I worry too much and that I don’t have the slightest idea what I should really be worrying about.

I didn’t know what else to say.

I told them to be sure to be as firm as they feel is necessary — that, actually, Sophie welcomes it and responds to it, though it might be a bit painful for all parties involved — and we were all gathering our papers, getting ready to leave, when the underwear came up.

Yesterday morning, apparently, Sophie confided in the special ed teacher that she wasn’t wearing underwear. Which wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except she was wearing a somewhat loose pair of shorts. (And, for the record, a sports bra she definitely didn’t need. Also for the record: I do monitor what she wears to school, but more and more she’s dressing herself — a good thing, right? I thought so til yesterday.)

So off to the nurse she went, to borrow a pair of pants. And a pair of underwear.

We agreed that Sophie had most likely done it all by design — part of her goal, most days, is to make it to the nurse’s office.  She might read at a second grade level and struggle with her multiplication tables, but that kid can problem solve like nobody’s business.

On my way out the door, I grabbed a photo of Sophie’s line drawing, displayed on the wall alongside her classmates’. I didn’t have to ask which was hers. It stuck out, just like Sophie always does.

And that’s okay — as long as she comes to school fully clothed.

Did you enjoy this article?
Share the love
Get updates!
Tags: Filed under: Down syndrome by Amysilverman

Leave a Reply

My-Heart-Cant-Even-Believe-It-Cover
My Heart Can't Even Believe It: A Story of Science, Love, and Down Syndrome is available from Amazon and 
Changing Hands Bookstore
. For information about readings and other events, click here.
Scroll

Archive

Scroll
All content ©Amy Silverman | Site design & integration by New Amsterdam Consulting