Parent Teacher Conferences

The walls are a warm rainbow of pink fading up to orange and finally into light yellow.  The soft glow of incandescent bulbs fills the room and I smell citrus, and lavender and maybe a bit of sandelwood.  To the left I see water color paintings taped to the blackboard.  Behind is an artful rendition of "Puss and Boots" drawn in chalk and filling the space on the left side of the classroom.  There is a table draped with colorful silk upon which a wooden fairy house stands, surrounded by stones, shells, flowers and wooded animals.  There is beauty all around.  I can see it and smell it and feel it.  It is peaceful, it feels like coming home.  This is the beautiful place my 1st grader gets to spend the majority of her waking hours, and I'm so glad. I am here today for my parent teacher conference.  I'm looking forward to hearing about how this lovely daughter of mine is branching out to be her own person.  I love hearing about who she is when she is not with me.  As I expected, she is doing well academically, socially and otherwise.  Her teacher noted that she says "I messed up" often when doing her work.  Her teacher asked that I help my daughter at home to rephrase, to say instead, perhaps, "That turned out differently than I planned."  Her teacher wants her to say something different to herself on these occasions because "what comes out of our mouths, shapes our reality."  Yes!  Thank you, I too want to work on this.  I love this attention to this part of herself, this small thing that doesn't cause a problem in the classroom but will soon be wonderful for her when she starts seeing her "mess-ups" as nothing of the sort.  "Is this good?" is another question my daughter often poses to the teacher.  Her teacher explains to us that she has started asking my daughter this same questions, inspiring in her an inner knowing that what she has accomplished is good.  She doesn't need to look outside herself for affirmation.  Inside she knows all is well.  We as a parent teacher team will help her to re-frame these statements, not in an effort to change her, but in an effort to free her.