Daydream Believer and a Homecoming Queen
September 23, 2008 at 2:23 pm | Posted in Growing Up, Second Grade | 10 CommentsI’ve seen Clare in a whole new way in the past week.
Clare’s Mom went to the school year’s first Home and School Association meeting last week and open house at Clare’s school. Our fears that Clare is spiraling behind and will never make anything out of her life because she doesn’t like homework have been relieved. It turns out that nobody likes homework. Who knew? Clare isn’t the only kid adjusting to second grade. Thanks also to those of you who left comments telling me that your kids aren’t perfect little homework-doing machines either. It’s nice to get a reality check on things like that.
The struggles to finish homework are continuing—especially with spelling—but it’s not as bad as the first couple of weeks of school. And the work is paying off. Clare just brought home a 100+ on a spelling test. The “plus” was for spelling the bonus word, Mississippi. Ironically, she can’t spell Connecticut.
There’s something else that Clare’s teacher said that really struck me though. Clare, she said, is a daydreamer and everybody likes her. These things didn’t surprise me about Clare at all, but for the first time I thought, “We’ve got a daydream believer and a homecoming queen.” We’re raising Miss Congeniality.
Clare, like all kids, is growing and continually developing a personality. Sure babies and toddlers have personalities, but it’s maybe not until first or second grade that parents really see beyond the cuteness in all of them and start to envision the type of teenager and adult that their kids will be. It’s almost kind of sad to picture her grown. She’s tall, smart, stylish, friendly, caring, and I can totally see “daydream believer” and “miss congeniality” in her for years to come.
I think about the other kids in Clare’s class too—kids we’ve known for two years now—and I see it happening to all of them. I hate classifying kids or any people into types, but it’s inevitable. I can see who some of them will be. The brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, the criminal. Okay, with any luck there won’t be a criminal. And the basket case probably takes longer to develop. But we’ve got the princess covered. How about you? Were you a “type”? I was a brain and borderline nerd, but I think I grew out of it—I didn’t like science or math. If there’s such a thing as an arts nerd that was me. And how about your kids? Can you picture yours grown too?
10 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
As of right now my eldest would definitely be labeled “the diva”
Comment by Dad of Divas — September 23, 2008 #
Farmer Ted, reporting for duty.
Comment by Hygiene Dad — September 24, 2008 #
I got a call from Zoe’s teacher the second week of school–”She tends to daydream, doesn’t she?” And Zoe’s first progress report last year began with the sentence–”Zoe has a free spirit!”
I feel your pain, man! I guess the challenge is to channel their unique personality and let them become who they want to be not who we want them to be.
Comment by Ed (zoesdad) — September 24, 2008 #
My kids seem to be the princess, the athlete, and the nerd but that’s just skin deep.
Comment by Wayne — September 24, 2008 #
I was a brain and an athlete at my school. Of course I only had 19 in my graduating class.
Loved the Breakfast Club reference. Just keep Clare away from that Criminal when she gets older. He is baaad news.
Comment by James — September 24, 2008 #
My oldest seems more of an artist while the youngest seems like the athlete. Hopefully we can get them to try and appreciate everything. We shall see.
Who knows, maybe they’ll pursue a career in the custodial arts.
Comment by Whit — September 24, 2008 #
Hummm.. I guess mine would be, roughly speaking, the overachiever, the social director, and the tree hugging free spirit. And I am the basket case. (Seriously, my husband just told me so.)
Comment by Spincerely — September 24, 2008 #
Right now we have a ‘chess club nerd’ and a future ‘ringleader’.
Comment by DadStuff — September 24, 2008 #
My second son has the same problem about his homeworks as Clare does. From the beggining of new semester he reluctant to do the homeworks,
especially Kanji,Chinese characters.
I talkes with his homeroom teacher and made a graph that if he does his work he’s gonna get a point. But it’s not enough intriguing for him.
So I guess the struggle of letting him to do his works will continue for a while.
Comment by Fumie Yuhi — September 25, 2008 #
[...] DeHart – Clare’s Dad – Daydream Believer and a Homecoming Queen Clare’s Dad writes about development of a personality. The personality you start to see as a [...]
Pingback by Graco Heart to Heart Blog - Graco’s Monthly Nods - September — June 29, 2009 #