Another week another Gymnastics class. I have decided to sign up Holly for a second session with some reservations. She is currently in the Gym Tumbler class which is for 3-5 year olds and the basic beginner class. Her two friends Alice and Chloe are in class with her and there coach recommended them for the Gym Kids class which is for 4-6 year olds even though Holly is now four and both Alice and Chloe are still only three and a half. I was torn and didn't know what to do but Alice was getting a little board in this class and really needed to be pushed into the next one so there mommies wanted to move them up.
I asked one of the managing coach's if there were certain skills Holly needed to learn before she could move into the next class, for example she can;t walk by herself on the Balance beam and the other two girls can. But the head coach said no there is not a skill issue it is mainly an age thing, but of course I told her the other girls were younger, so then she said perhaps it is a following directions thing. And there she hit the nail on the head. Holly does not listen. She runs off, does her own thing, doesn't follow directions needs constant redirection and coaxing and is in fact a bell weather of misbehavior, because of course when she wanders off or starts to roll around on the ground or jump up and down her friends want to follow her instead of listening to the teacher. Sometimes when they are doing the obstacle course holly will get stuck at one place "playing" while the other kids continue through and do the circuit two to three times for her every one time, so she gets much less practice at everything.
So here in lies the issue. I am trying really hard not to be one of those stage Mommas but I simply can't watch class any more as it totally irritates me and frustrates me and I want to yell at her to pay attention, count and threaten and step in and help, and really she will never learn if I pay attention for her. But at times I can tell the teacher gets frustrated too and simply lets her just do whatever she wants and focuses on the kids who are engaged which in turn makes me mad at the teacher. What this has helped me to realize is this may very well be where Holly's issues lie. yes she has some developmental delays but for the most part she preforms up to task as well as any other kid her age, but when it comes to attention and listening skills she is severely lacking, and in the long run this may be her life long struggle through school.
I have to learn to be patient and help her and let her come to things in her own way, but also make sure she is still learning and accessing her education. So while I certainly don't think she is going to be an Olympic Gymnast that this class is the be all end all, it is the bigger picture of her lacking the skill set to pay attention in other environments which makes me very uneasy when I think about her in Kindergarten and elementary school. Especially when something like Gymnastics is something she is excited about and motivated to do. So in the end I decided to move her into Gym Kids with her friends and hope that she does better in the next class, she will never learn to follow directions if she isn't given the opportunity to practice, but I decided to cut back on some of her other activities, for this next session we are going to be skipping Ballet and Music class, as she is having the same issues in those classes too, and is disruptive and I think I need a break. I feel like I would be less frustrated with her if this was an issue we were working on only once a week instead of like 4 times a week since she is currently in several extra curricular activities. Also maybe if she has much more unstructured time perhaps she will be able to better attend the one time a week she needs to for Gymnastics.
Next year is going to be a big challenge for us as she will be in an full immersion class with more students and a larger adult to student ratio and a non special education teacher so she is going to really have to step up her game, I hope she does OK in the new class. I so want her to succeed and i know she has the capacity to if she can stay focused. A few weeks back she was doing the Standford Binet IQ test at the mind institute and she was missing questions I knew she knew the right answer too, but as Joel tried to explain to me, the test isn't simply about knowledge but her ability to listen to the question being asked, pay attention and then give the correct answer. She was distractable wiggling in her seat assuming she knew what was expected and would answer before even listening to the entire question or directions at times, giving the answer perhaps for the previous series of questions, but because the directions changed and she didn't listen to the instructions she got the questions wrong. She still did great on the test but it certainly demonstrated that perhaps her weakest skill is focus, attention and listening.
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