A. has settled in to school. And with that, has begun to get bored. (It’s happening earlier every year).
His ability to control himself is getting better every year — but it’s hard to explain that to someone who didn’t know him when he was three.
Part of A’s problem is that he’s pretty oblivious to what’s going on around him. He’s the classic absent-minded professor. And that doesn’t really work in a class of 24 and a school of several hundred.
They’ve had two psychologists or psychiatrists in to observe him, both of whom came to different conclusions (one said he should see a psychologist, the other said individual therapy would be a waste of time for him. Guess who I’m siding with?) and he has spend several afternoons in the Principal’s office, because they want to try to figure out what makes him tick and how they can make him fit in to school. They mention “Socialization Small Groups” and “neurotherapy” and reward charts and toss around labels like ‘persistent’ and ‘impulsive’ and “ADHD”.
I say, come over to our house and observe us for a day or two and you’ll see that the label you’re looking for is “Genetics”.
TheMan, like A, never sits still. Even when you think he’s sitting still, look closely and you’ll see that he’s surfing four websites and listening to a podcast. This is the man who came top of his year at University, studying on the sofa while watching Blind Date and Baywatch. But he also worked at Harvard (and not as a janitor), wins awards and gets all the Christmas presents bought and wrapped and ready to send before November even rolls around. Oh and he’s musical and funny and generous.
Then you get to me. I can explain complex sociological phenomena, analyze historical patterns, build you a website, gain a working knowledge of SEO Optimization in a week in my spare time, or play a Mozart sonata for you, but somehow I can never remember to put A’s library book in his bag on a Thursday or summon up the mental energy to organize the closets. I don’t see mess. I fail to realize that if I want clean socks I should wash them today, not tomorrow morning when I need them to be clean and actually dry. I put things down when I’m finished with them and walk away, and then spend the next three days looking for them. I’m aware of these things and I’ve made progress (my keys are USUALLY in the drawer where they’re supposed to be these day) but it’s taken me 37 years and I’m still not there. Oh yeah, and I have an MA, a successful, if accidental, career in customer service, and a brief career as a moderately successful freelance writer behind me. Plus people seem to like me.
I know how frustrating it can be to be around A when he’s in one of those moods. And I know they can’t spend all their time and attention on one child. And I really, really appreciate how nice they are to him and how much they like him and how much they talk to me and ‘keep the lines of communication open’.
But sometimes I just want to yell,
“He’s SIX!”
And most of the time I just want to take my little square peg out of his round hole and bring him home where he can be square today and round tomorrow and hexagonal for a week if he wants. And I think about the 12 years ahead of him and suspect he’ll never fit, and that he’ll spend that time figuring out how to get by, how to turn his mind off, or daydream, while still doing the bare minimum. And that it will dull his edges too much.
But the good news is that his father made it through school with sharp edges intact, and continues to push, so it can be done.
Remind me to ask him how.
P.S. Today’s title comes from a poem by AA Milne in which Christopher Robin has sneezles and wheezles so they bundle him into his bed. One of my favourite phrases is: “All sorts of conditions / Of famous physicians / Came hurrying round at a run”.
It finishes:
When Christopher Robin got up in the morning
The sneezles had vanished away.
And the look in his eye
Seemed to say to the sky
“Now, how to amuse them today?”
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