Parent-Teacher conferences were never that big of a deal for me when I was a kid. “Doyce could try harder,” didn’t have a hell of a lot of impact when I was getting A’s and B’s anyway. Sure, I could try harder, but with a full-ride anywhere I wanted to go to college (Thank you, National Merit Society), e’splain to me the point.

I somehow don’t think they fill Justin with a lot of dread either, although they probably should, but the thing is, we get this weekly update things from the teacher, and send her notes back on the same slip, and generally keep closely in touch. Justin’s also found out that it’s better to tell us he did something wrong before the teacher calls us.

I think meetings with Jackie and I are sort of surreally refreshing for most of the teachers we meet, after spending hours trying to bring up problems with parents who won’t hear an ill-word about their golden child.

Parents: Children lie. The teachers are telling the truth. Accept it.

Me: “So how’s he doing?”
Teacher: “Well, his focus has been a little off the last few weeks.”
Me: “You mentioned that. Should I take a half day off from work? I can sit on the side of the room and glower.”
Teacher: “… maybe that might help. We’ll see if we can turn him around, first. His math is strong, but he’s been missing assignments.”
Me: “Is there any problem with him staying in from recess more often? I don’t want to tie you to your desk, but he plays outside when he gets home… if he doesn’t get to go outside during school if his work’s not done…”
Jackie: “…that’s fine…”
Me: “Call it--”
Jackie: “Motivation.”
Me: “Right.”
Teacher: “Umm… sure, if that’s alright with you…”
Jackie: “If you think he needs to be working on stuff on the weekends, let us know, we’ll go get appropriate workbooks and kid’s novels to read.”
Teacher: “Well, I don’t want to be an ogre about homework--”
Jackie: “--no problem, I’ll do it for you.”
[We all laugh, the teacher looks confused.]
Me: “How’s his reading comprehension been? I haven’t seen any of that homework coming home…”

[Teacher goes into shock.]

Bottom line, the PTC doesn’t have a lot of impact on the day to day business of living, but it does give us some decent idea of how things seem to be going from a macro view. I suppose, when you’re fighting to keep you kid’s head above water (in this case, referred to as “C-level”), it’s more stress for me than him. For us, even.

I bring this up since the since our conference is scheduled for this afternoon. Should be interesting.