Jocelyn is Not Julia

Parent-teacher conferences. You are excited to hear everything great, or at least that's my experience. No matter what your expectation, it's nerve-wracking. Someone else is judging your child and is going to give you YOUR report card. So, I am living the same experience I have had before with daughter #1. Somehow, we expect the child to be the same.

Of course, in this conference, I want to talk about how she doesn't care about her penmanship - nothing like her sister before - and yet I still expect the same...

"Seriously,(her teacher says) Do you think Jocelyn is Julia? same second grade teacher.( In my mind, I am thinking - am I in the wrong conference?) Because I'm trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. I saw them the same even though they were as different as any two people off the street.

I never did it again. Jocelyn was and still is the most creative person I know. If she made mistake in  her writing, she turned it into a picture, or a flower, or an animal, or a design.  She's an arcitect now with beautiful penmanship.

Allow them some breathing room.