Perspective from our son's school counselor

This morning we had a meeting with the school psychologist of our son's French school. Our son has done generally well, but also has had certain challenges during his first 4 months of school. The school is a 3 year combination of preschool and kindergarten. He is in the first year.

We found it helpful to hear the counselor's observations and suggestions. She pointed out 4 challenges that our son faced starting this school year: (1) This was his first experience in collectivity, while some of the other kids have been in nurseries since their first months. (2) This was his first time to leave home (even though he lives at home and has lunch at home). (3) This was his first time in the French language, while most of his classmates have it as their first language. (4) He has an independent personality that doesn't like rules. While we were aware of this, it was a good reminder that he has faced lots of change this year. One suggestion of hers regarding his strong personality was to maintain strong rules and regulations at home, rather than to cede to his strong will.

Both kids were in the room during our meeting. She said that she was pleased at how calm he was during this time, as he tends to float around from person to person during school, like a little bird going from kid to kid. When he does have an activity that he can concentrate on, like painting, he does very well. She suggests that as he develops relationships with different classmates, this will help him socialize better, as well as grow in his French. We observed how well he did with his classmate during the Christmas break. So we need to try to help him develop some relationships outside of school with some of his classmates. We've wanted to do this anyway, so this is further incentive.

She also suggested that it would be good to try to get him to express his feelings, whether this be in French or English. We need to model this for him as well. She said that schools do better to help kids name objects rather than in expressing their feelings.

The overall tone of the meeting was very encouraging. She suggested that his capacity with the French language would come and that he would soon be bilingual.

She asked my wife what steps she was taking to help our son. She reponded that one thing that she did was to pray. The counselor smiled and said that this was part of our business (as she knew that I work with churches).

We're very thankful for the choices in schools that we made for our son. It's inconvenient to not be able to drop him off just a 3 minute walk down the street from our apartment, as there is a traditional French school that close to us. However, I don't think that our son would have gotten the individual attention there that he gets at this more untraditionally French school. We feel like we're working together with the school staff to help raise our son, rather than working against each other.