Mid Year Conference

I had Madeline's fall conference with her teacher this morning, and it sure is different being on this side of conferences. While I wasn't nervous to discuss Madeline's behavior, social, and emotional development with her teacher (I'm very real about my child), I was very curious to hear about her through someone else's eyes. I found myself doing a lot of listening and learning about our daughter. I can't say enough wonderful things about her teacher, and I truly appreciate how much Ms. Lisa loves my child.

According to her teacher, Madeline:

• loves her friends & is very compassionate toward them.
• loves to play.
• interacts with her friends during playtime instead of just parallel play.
• has blossomed with her verbal skills since August.
• has blossomed in general & is no longer shy and uncertain.
• is very comfortable with who she is & expresses herself freely (and appropriately) during the day.
• is helpful during clean-up time (but not always willing to stop her play ~ she has her handful of moments when she has to be re-directed to clean up).
• enjoys playing with both girls and boys.
• has two best girlfriends, Aubrey & Charleston.
• is obviously being raised in a loving, structured home with clear boundaries and expectations.

Ms. Lisa was very complimentary of Eric and I as parents, and that's just nice to hear! We don't always feel like we are making the most appropriate decisions all the time, but we are just doing what we think is best in the moment.

Of course, I'm always looking for areas to work on, so I asked for suggestions of improvement. Ms. Lisa really didn't have areas of improvement for us at this time, but she did recommend putting some potty training steps into our routine to get that mindset going for Madeline (lots of kids in her class are well into potty training). However, Ms. Lisa understood that we have a new baby coming home in about a month, so she just recommended we continue to encourage potty use, act on it when Madeline wants to sit on it, etc., & get more serious about it once we are settled in with the new baby sister.

Overall, it was a great conference, and of course, I enjoyed hearing about Madeline's success thus far in the two year old program.