You may know how it feels as a parent to have excellent 20/20 hindsight. When you kick yourself for not paying attention and reading your kids non verbal signs. I find myself becoming less aware of the visual/non verbal signs with the boys as they're developing more complex English. That's where the oops factor comes in.
I'm not sure at what point if ever we will be able to know they will express themselves 100% of the time. Don't get me wrong they do sooooo much better than where we started from. Case in point; last night Eli brought his homework paper to me and we set down at the table to work on it. I should also point out that he really wants to do his homework but there are times when he can't. He doesn't have the skill set yet. I also know that he tends to be easily distracted, I'm not blind to this either. I will probably make all you school employees cringe when I say...I don't care if he gets his homework done like everyone else or at all. If the work is so far beyond where he is that we have no way to connect the dots...we don't do it. We are also very lucky that our school and teachers know this. Most of the time things are adjusted, sometimes they aren't. As long as we move forward we are ok.
Last nights' homework was a variation of a book report that was read to the kids in class by a parent. That's what info I had from Eli. I hate book reports for ELL kids....no I did not say that to him but my prejudice on this probably helped lead to the missed sign from him. We tried to talk about the book but he got very quiet which sometimes means "I wasn't paying attention and now my mom knows." So what is the mature mother to do. I said, "Fine if you aren't willing to at least tell me what you can remember (I don't care what little piece they give me, just so that they were able to get something) than you will need to explain to the teacher why your homework isn't done."
I went to the laundry room and then it hit me. The look on his face, his body language and his shrugging. Oh! Darn! I missed it. I called him into the laundry room and said, "Hey E, is something wrong. I'm not mad but do you want to tell me what's wrong?" His first reaction is to think when it comes to school that adults are mad at him. It's a left over gift from his earliest school experiences. He stood there for about 2 seconds and then I was enveloped in a full body hug and the tears came. He had a "bad" head (headache)and didn't feel good all day and he didn't understand why he couldn't tell me the story. I reminded him that we have medicine for when he doesn't feel good but that he has to tell me because sometimes mom can't guess. I asked if he'd like to go find something to help his headache. Once again I was honored with a huge hug and then even better..."I love you Mom!" Lesson to me: PAY ATTENTION!
Sometimes it feels like I'm always about 3 steps behind when either of the boys feel ill. They tough out a lot of things and although it's much better they just don't think anything about feeling bad and that there are things we can do to make them feel better. I'll be so glad when and if those coping skills are gone. It masks a lot of things not only at home but at school and with others who will not have the time or desire to investigate.
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