Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Tired of the Darned Dinos Yet?

Just one more update. It's a good one!

From N's teacher:
He did it! He read to me this morning and decided to read to the class after recess. When that time came he didn't want to do it, he hid in the closet, crouched down, etc. so rather than negotiate I asked someone to guess what N's dinosaur was. When R guessed t-rex, N stood up, put down his paper and said, "yes!" So I asked N to tell R one fact about the t-rex, he did. Then N called on different students and read to each one of them a new fact. It wasn't exactly the way we envisioned it, but it worked and he was very comfortable with it. It also made him stick with the schedule and didn't allow for the schedule to be postponed over and over as has happened before. He was able to be diverted from his anxiety quickly and didn't need to get the other students involved (as he did with the poetry practice trying to get the class to cheer him on, only to not follow through) which is a good improvement. He didn't want to take questions but told the class they could ask him later if they had any questions about his dinorama.
First of all, isn't his teacher awesome? I love her.

Second of all, I do realize that hiding in a closet isn't "typical" behavior, and that yeah, that probably means there's still a ways to go. But it's a shorter way than it was yesterday, so I'm choosing to consider it a victory. A triumph, even.

Either way, there's definitely a Like It size ice-cream in my child's near future. Maybe even a Love It.

5 comments:

Tamar said...

Awesome!!!! Better than if he'd done it the traditional way, in a sense: he interacted w/ a whole bunch of kids, turned them into individuals (challenging in its own way!) instead of a Mass of Scary Audience aggregate. That's a huge building block.

And that teacher... wow. Wish there were more like her. How great for N to have her intelligent support.

w said...

Yeah N!!

Niksmom said...

Wow, this is so awesome!ALL of it. Yes, even hiding in the closet. You want to know why? B/C it actually *is* typical behavior for a child who may be incredibly nervous about speaking/performing/being judged by his pers. I know this b/c I used to do something similar at family gatherings. I'd get so excited to dance with our little band that the cousins put together; when the music started, it felt like everyone was watching me and thought I looked stupid so I panicked and ran and hid under the dining room table. Or on my dad's lap.

N's anxiety is clearly very strong and whatever he feels in those moments is real and visceral. What he did today was huge. HUGE.

Oh, and FWIW, I went on to be a born performer in my later years. Go figure.

po said...

I love his teacher, and I don't even know her :)! The prep work you all did beforehand was tremendous too. Making this a Big Success should do sooo much to lay a foundation for future similar situations.

And of course all kudos to N, for stepping out of his comfort zone and earning that ice cream :).

Jordan said...

Well done - all of you!