My Teacher Likes It

I've said it once, I'm sure I'll say it a million more times during my lifetime...
Raising girls is not an easy task.

Then again, I don't think raising boys would be much easier. Either way, I tend to my daughter on a daily basis and despite my best effort, she has a way of making me question my success as a mother. (How do we measure success as a mother?)

See, my daughter started 1st grade this year and because we start school so early here, she has been in school for 3 weeks (plenty of time to get the hang of things.) My daughter LOVES to talk - always has and talking is her biggest problem area in school.

She is smart and does very well in the academic area, however, her conduct for talking has always been less than stellar. Last year we implemented a reward systems based on her daily color conduct chart. There were rewards for Green - Excellent and punishments for each color there after. The punishments were not severe, yellow was a loss of dessert with dinner, blue was a loss of a movie, dessert and cartoons the next morning before school and so on. She struggled with green last year. More often than not she had yellows, but there were those rare occasions where she would have a week of all green and her reward was a day at Chuck E Cheese. (She still asks for that as her BIG reward)

In preparation of this impending year I put a lot of thought into her behavior and what we would do about it. This year, she will get letter grades E, G, S, N, & U and for each there should be a reward/consequence. E&G = reward, S = loss of a privilege and N&U = punishment (I pray everyday I don't see these letters.) Being that she is getting older (thinks she is grown) I want to provide her more of an incentive in the areas that I think she will struggle...E. It's not that I think she can't do it, but more along the lines of probably won't do it because she likes to tell me, "Mom, it's ok...I just like to talk."

So with a system in place we start the year. Her goal is to get an E and for every E she gets during the month, I will give her $1 at the end of the month to do with as she pleases. For an entire week of E&G I will take her to Chuck E Cheese or some other activity of her choice. She is excited with this idea.

The first week comes and goes and there are no E's. She did good, G & S...and some almost E's but almost doesn't count I explain to her. Week 2 comes and goes and she has E, G, and S. She is very excited to have earned $2 that week - we mark it on her calender so she can keep track of it. Week 3 begins and so far this week she has gotten E's on both days.

She is VERY excited.

I am very excited for her.

Then she informs me...her TEACHER likes her to get E's.

But...but...what about me? What about MOM? You know, the one who wants her to do her best? Doesn't mom like her to get E's?

I won't complain too loudly, because at least she cares...I just wonder if my success as a parent - my ability to motivate my child to do well is really a reflection of me or her teacher?!

I am amazed at how one little girls statement can reduce me to a questioning idiot...now I just stare in the mirror and repeat... I am the momma. I AM THE MOMMA!

Do your kids ever make you question yourself? Did your teachers or your parents opinion matter more?