Grand-Dad we love you

Yes, we've been "on holiday".

That meant going to Devon to visit mum-in-law.

It's funny how when we tell some friends this fact they sort of "pooh pooh" the whole idea and say, "O! We thought you'd been away!"

Yeah, we'd been away. Away from home. Enough to have to ask a neighbour to make sure our bins were pulled out to the perimeter of our drive and that they were returned to their usual positions while we were "away".

Son enjoyed it. He enjoyed being able to sleep in his 'lion' sleeping bag put on top of a duvet that has been folded over to sandwich four pillows, on the floor, at the bottom of our bed.

For all his shortcomings, son takes the greatest pleasure in the simplest of treats: like being able to eat a meal in front of the TV, etc.

Staying in the same room as Mum and Dad while on holiday is another of such treats. To be able to use his 'lion' sleeping bag, sleeping on his 'lion' pillow, my! Christmas had come early.

Well, that, and be given a couple of new sets of Lego for attaining his Orchestra badge at school.

He'd also been asking about, late, Grand-Dad.

One day we did something unusual: we actually went to a tourist attraction near mum-in-law. (We often visit at times when these attractions are closed.) We passed the cemetery that Grand-Dad is buried.

I suggested that we stopped by on the way home, to avoid having to drive out all this way again, to see if we could find Grand-Dad's grave stone.

And we did.

But of course the cemetery had become much more 'populated' since he was buried. We had not been for nearly eight years -- since the time he was interred, in fact.

So out of the car ... husband said "it's probably in this direction" ... "I know there is an engraving of a rose somewhere" ... and we searched.

We told son to look for "P---- T--------" and split up.

Then a voice rang out, "Dad! What's Grand-Dad's full name?"

Dad shouted back. I turned to look.

A little face lit up with excitement and a long limb stretched out with a pointing finger, "I found him!"

I remember when Grand-Dad died my sister-in-law tried very hard to protect her son (our nephew) from the reality of death, speaking of it in euphemisms.

And there we were, our son, about the same age that that nephew was when Grand-Dad died so, so suddenly, engaging with the process of death through this visit.

So this is also for Grand-Dad, we miss you so very much. You were the best father-in-law I could wish for. And I wish you could be around to see this grandson of yours.

We didn't even have a chance to tell you we were expecting him when you died on that day of the solar eclipse. Now he is nearly eight, and guess what? I think he has inherited your great sense of humour.

He is not at all like your sporty self, but definitely has traits inherited directly from Grand-Dad.

We miss you!

Boy done good

The highlight of the term for some, not all: the school cross-country.

Got to the grounds just in time for son's race to start. As I noted elsewhere the Form I and Form IIs had to do two laps of, I don't know, about 250m, perhaps. Not quite cross-country, but a resonable distance for seven and eight-year-olds.

In this instance they were competing against the Form IIs (age eight-plus) some of whom were very nearly ten years old (if they turned nine early in the school year).

Son came in 13th, a very pleasing result as far as I am concerned.

On Thursday when we studied the results it turned out that he came in 13th in a field of 41 (with perhaps six or seven being absent from illness). He was about 7th in the whole of Form I and third in his half (class) of Form I (the more athletic ones seem to be in the other class), in a time of 5 minutes 55 seconds (or is it 5.55 minutes?).

This is pretty good going for a boy who does not usually excel in sport.

Thursday was the day he had been waiting for for the whole term.

Early morning rehearsal for fun choir, piano lesson, Mass, lunch, and then end-of-term concert followed by headmaster's assembly. He plays his first concert with the school orchestra and he expects to get his orchestra badge to go on his lapel.

And he did.

The other boy who was getting his badge was a Form VI boy about to leave the school (and orchestra), and who took this long to get his badge because his attendance and punctuality were always not up to scratch.

When this senior boy vacates his chair, son will be the only clarinettist. He prefers to call himself the 'lead clarinettist', but goes on to say, "However, it will be nicer if I did have someone to lead!"

The good news is his best friend has just started clarinet lessons, and another boy from his Form will begin next term. In due course this Form would have three clarinettists and I look forward to their playing some nice clarinet music together.

He also got his term grades and again has done excellently. There is plenty of room for improvement (C's in Religious Studies, PE and Swimming). Honestly I cannot understand how he could be given C's in a subject he was not tested in, and PE and Swimming which he continues to make steady progress in, but is still not as good as the other stronger more athletic boys in class.

Still, as a parent, I am happy to see A's in English, Maths, Technology, French, Art and Music, rather than in PE and Swimming.

Perhaps most pleasing of all is the confirmation from the form teacher that he is certainly much calmer now, and contributes more to class discussion, compared to the situation last term.

Easter Egg Hunt -- not

Son told me at pick-up he didn't take part in the Easter Egg Hunt. He had lost his £1 coin and couldn't take part. (The boys pay £1 to take part, get some mini-eggs or win a big prize if they found the 'big egg' sticker.)

He had been really looking forward to this, so a great disappointment indeed.

I felt guilty as I came home in time for me to get down to the school if I needed to. But I knew they had enough help and I wanted son to cope on his own.

And this happened.

Better news is he has completed his swimming test. He thinks he passed.

Evening: mum of boy who has allergies phoned to say she was a bit disappointed that her son did not win a big Easter Egg despite having found the 'big egg' sticker. I do not know the details.

I had taken trouble to procure and convey to the new chairman a fruit bar that we know this boy is allowed to eat. The mums helping might have just been cautious in not handing over an egg he had duly won. I don't know.

Mum of boy expressed that her boy was deprived of feeling the 'sense of elation' of winning because the prize egg was not given him.

I stopped her to say: my son did not even have the pleasure of taking part because he lost his £1 coin and was apparently in tears.

Music-Ally (Part 2)

Last weekend we decided to swop CD players between the study and son's room.

His CD player has gone a bit wonky because he had a tendency of leaving it on 'Pause' overnight or something like that. The DAB radio works fine, so we could not possibly throw it out.

He got my Amstrad instead which I had not used for a long time, and discovered a tape player. He didn't have a clue how to work it.

Put in a tape -- bought at an Arts Festival in Singapore c 1990 -- and son decided that he likes the musical style of Cantabile as well.

Bought a few more CDs of this group.

Delighted that my son shares my interest in this type of music.

Trunk Aid

This is not about saving elephants.

Last week was a tough week for son. He had music lessons on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The last one was to make up a lesson missed because of the teacher's performing schedule.

That meant having to miss a swimming lesson which he was not happy about. We packed the swim gear any way just in case there was a no-show and he could have an earlier slot.

Pick-up time: "I missed swimming but you have to wash the gear any way because J used it."

"What?"

"J forgot his bag so I loaned him my kit."

It transpired that they just whispered amongst themselves and agreed on the loan and the teacher didn't know till after the event. I don't think J's mum is even aware of that, to date.

We talked about this in the evening and I said that was a very kind and grown-up thing to do. He was afraid that I might be angry with him because that meant I had more washing to do.

Well, I wasn't. I was chuffed that my son is learning to be less selfish and is able to think about being helpful to another person.

The fact that J is about the same size helps!

Music-Ally

Haven't we all gone through that experience? Teacher picks two captains who are asked to pick their team members.

O, the shame of being the last to be picked!

Son has come home from school moaning about even how his best friend wouldn't pick him for a football team. Gosh! Was my young man cross with that.

At the end of the last half-term -- for some reason I haven't yet recorded this -- he came back one day to say J picked him first for a quiz at music class. The other captain A wanted him too but was too late. Of course, my son answered correctly the question that brought them victory.

The following day, they continued with a quiz, but this time A was allowed to choose first, and my son was first to be picked. Again he answered the question that stopped his team from losing. (The teams drew.)

So I had a happy boy who, because he is quite hopeless at football doesn't ever get picked, was picked first twice in two days for a music quiz which his friends know he would be good at.

Fact is I told him this ages ago that his friends will soon know who is good at what and would pick accordingly. He didn't believe me.

Perhaps most significantly I asked who was the last one to be picked. My son didn't remember. To him it was not important who was the last to be picked.

The boys, despite being just seven or eight, only wanted to win and would pick what they hope will be a winning team. They still live in a "me-first" world.

But of course the last one to be picked would no doubt go home to moan about being the last to be picked. It is no consolation, I imagine, to these children if we told them the other children would not remember who was the last to be picked.

Half-way through the year

He's been back at school for the third day now after half-term break.

I was not looking forward to half-term at all. What will I do with him 24/7, this boy who would not take any criticism and shouts at me when he's in distress, and who doesn't know how to accept help when he shouts for helps?

As it turned out, it was a rather pleasant week together with him.

First of all, there was Geography project. Unfortunately for him he drew Northern Ireland out of the bag and I know little of NI's geography. I know something about its politics, but he wants facts about its geography.

If not for the internet,we'd have to be at the library doing research. Instead we just plonked ourselves down in front of the computer and away we went.

He didn't do it all in one go. He had a plan, see, and his plan was to take things slowly and did a bit every day to cover the whole week.

But he hadn't a clue what the project was about. And neither did I. He was attempting to put all the information about NI in the little space on the map and of course it did not work.

Thankfully he eventually -- miraculously may I add -- came round to the idea that he needed to use symbols to represent the different information, and to use a key to indicate what was what. He even took on my suggestion to put all this information in a box. Wow!

By the way, I've been doing a Dionne Warwick. Every morning I wake up, I say a little prayer for son. And every night when I go to bed, I thank God for the emotional strides he'd been taking. Maybe I should learn as a mum to do less and pray more. Son certainly thinks I should say less!

Monday we were at the library to borrow books. Met up with his godmother for lunch and best thing out of this was we've got ourselves a new cleaning lady - who is right now cleaning our house for the first time.

Tuesday we had to stay in because I was waiting for a delivery. Then we went to the park for a cycle, I think. He was cycling like a maniac, the chain broke off, he fixed it, and he fell off his bike, etc, and there were tears, but he mended himself eventually.

Wednesday we were going to go to the Science Museum, but we changed our minds. I figured this was probably the only day the young lady could come about cleaning the house. I was right.

Thursday we went to the Science Musuem as planned. Had a great time, but let down by the Circle Line and ended up having to take a taxi from South Kensington, back through the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, etc to Baker Street.

Friday was a quiet day finishing up bits and pieces, etc.

And there was piano and clarinet practices thrown in, without tears!!

So far he's had orchestra rehearsal on Monday and he found himself the only clarinettist there, so he called himself the "lead clarinettist".

Yesterday his piano teacher stopped us and we discussed his playing a jazz piano piece for headmaster's assembly next week.

Today, he would have had a clarinet lesson. Tomorrow, piano lesson, and Friday, clarinet lesson again (to make up for a lesson missed).

Busy bee. Son sees himself as being on course to vie for a music scholarship. He was totally inspired by the current Head Boy who has done his parents and the school very proud by winning a music scholarship to Harrow School, as well as another very reputable day school.

Never say that children are too young to learn. While son does not articulate all his thoughts, it is clear that he has aspirations. He watches all those senior boys and secretly aspires to be JG who won loads of prizes on Speech Day, and be NK, the most popular boy in school last year, etc. Now he hopes to be DL, winning a prestigious scholarship. Son also has a firm idea where he wants to go.

Back soon, perhaps.

Have a go at the teacher

Son had a friend over on Friday after school.

This friend tells me that one of the new boys told the Technology Master, "I'm telling off you."

I was very amused by that. My son never tells me stories like that.

According to friend, this same boy also once told a teacher to "shut up".

My jaw dropped, because the boys are noted for their politeness at this school, so obviously this new boy hasn't learned the 'culture' of politeness yet. Give him time.

What concerned me more was that son said, in the middle of playing, "J got a House point for giving the wrong answer and I got told off for giving the right answer."

That can't be right. But knowing my son, I knew there was another part of the story that he was not relating accurately. Son's view was that he was "told off" for being "too precise". That, however, is definitely a possibility.

Any how, dad got the story out of him. Teacher drew an angle and used the curve connecting the two lines to indicate an angle. She was probably trying to introduce the concept of "angles" to the boys.

Son pointed out that it was a right angle (because it looked like one to him) and so teacher should have used a "box" instead of a curve to indicate the angle.

If I were the teacher I would also have got annoyed with him, I guess. Not only is he confusing the rest of the class, introducing the idea of a "right angle", etc, he was also challenging the teacher.

I do not know how long an argument they might have had over it, but I think dad had set son right, that the teacher was not wrong, although son could technically be correct.

Then he moaned again, "Why do I have to sit through lessons about things I already know?"

Time for another teacher-parent conference?

Choices, choices

In the UK whenever the public are unhappy with new rules, options, etc, the government reply is often, "We want to give people choices."

Son came back with a difficult choice to make last Friday.

He was selected to play hockey (Unihoc) against another school on Monday afternoon 2.30pm to 4pm. But he also had to attend a full orchestra practice on Monday 3.45pm to 4.30pm.

He most definitely preferred to do orchestra, but he also desperately wanted to play hockey. (I haven't seen him play, but son thinks he is good. His paternal grandfather nearly got to Oxford on the basis of his hockey playing, so potentially son could be an ace hockey player. [She stifles a giggle.])

Life was easy, then he got more and more upset that he would have to miss hockey. I offered to talk to his teachers to see if we could (1) leave the hockey game early, or (2) start orchestra late, etc, but he didn't feel comfortable about it.

The teachers only live down the road. We could have knocked on their doors for advice. But it will not be fair to bother them on weekends, surely.

So, amidst tears, he decided that he'd go for orchestra and I had to say 'no' on the form to be sent back to the Games Master.

When I picked son up after orchestra, the Music Director then told us in the friendliest way possible: if there is a clash between sport and music, sport takes precedence.

Son would have been excused from orchestra. No trouble at all.

Sometimes it is much better when we are not subjected to the need to choose.

No need for all those tears, had we known. Never mind, we learn.

Big Mouth

Son got a House point for 'Technology' today.

It was for a 'Chinese lantern' he made. On it he had meticulously written 'Chinese characters'. On closer examination, it looked like he had alternated the writing of 'da(4)' (big) and 'ko(3)' ('mouth') on the sides of the lantern.

When I saw it I burst out laughing. "Do you know what you've written?"

"What?"

"Big Mouth, Big Mouth, Mouth Big, Mouth Big."

"Those were the only characters we had to copy."

Of course, these are easy characters to copy (just three strokes if you wrote them correctly), and the shapes are so contrasting. You can understand why the Art and Technology teacher would have chosen those. From a distance, the well-spaced out characters do make a pretty pattern.

Any way, I said we should put up our Chinese lanterns for Chinese New Year next week. Son asked for one of these to take to school on Monday for Art Class.

I'm pleased that he's even showing some interest in Chinese culture.

Hockey, no hockey

There was a match yesterday for the Under-9 A and B Teams. There was some confusion as some boys got the consent forms, but others didn't.

Son was not selected to play. He's in Football 'C' Team, and assumes that he is also 'C' in Hockey. The 'A' Team are mainly boys in the Form above him and a few really good younger boys. The 'C' Team are mainly boys from son's Form with a few Form II boys who are clearly not that great on the sports field.

Coming home from school yesterday son didn't seem at all disappointed that he was not chosen to play. It was a 'Home' match, but they were playing at grounds a short drive from 'Home'.

"Well," I said, "If you were not ill last Monday, you might have been selected to play today." It appeared that they played hockey the first time that Monday.

"But," I continued, "If you were playing hockey today, I would have had to rush you back to school for orchestra rehearsal. Or you might have to miss it altogether. So it worked out well."

He agreed.

A bit of excitement for us to know how he fared with a whole orchestra rehearsal.

At sectional practice he sits directly in front of the conductor. At whole rehearsals he is right at the back.

"Did it go OK?"

Mumble, mumble.

"But the second violins were rubbish."

There is only one other clarinet player, a Form VI boy, who'd leave the school at the end of the school year.

"Well, I'm really looking forward to playing first clarinet for the London Philharmonic Orchestra or something like that."

Perhaps not, I thought, but come next year, he'd be the most senior clarinettist in the orchestra, and he'd still only be eight.

What's the hurry?

Orchestra practice

We attended Vespers at school chapel together for the first time yesterday.

I was a bit overwhelmed by the incense, I must say.

In fact I started sniffing when I walked into the chapel. So sensitive is my olfactory radar. It calmed down after a while, thankfully.

Son sat next to me, but eventually shifted across the aisle to sit next to a mate.

It was an interesting experience. Son seems interested in joining the Chapel Choir (IF he gets invited and passes the audition), so there might be more of such services to attend.

At home he seemed excited about being told that next week orchestra rehearsal is on Monday. At Headmaster's Assembly a list of names were read out and these brass and woodwind players were told to be at whole orchestra rehearsal on Monday (after school) instead of sectional practice on Tuesday lunch-time.

I was pleased to note that he was listening so carefully at Assembly.

Son also asked if he could take part in a chess tournament. Of course the answer is 'yes'. I was surprised that he was interested and brave enough. So far he has only beaten one other person at chess: a boy one year older who was his role model while in Junior School.

The truth is we are finding it more and more difficult to beat him at chess. He is playing very well defensively. In due course he would play a more attacking game. But it's good that he is playing.

I asked him if he remembered his first game. He smiled and showed a sweeping movement with his arm. He had swept all the pieces off the board when he realized that he was losing. Not a very good sport, but he's grown up -- if only just a little -- since then.

Let's hope the chess tournament will be a good experience.

Four P's

One full week back at school and we all manage to take turns to fall ill.

First it was Daddy. Flat out for a day and then slow but steady recovery.

Then I copped it. It was a slow-onset sore throat into full-blown cold kind of thing and I'm still left with a tickly cough.

Son was straight into cold, fever and all that on Saturday evening. He seemed very well on Sunday, but the fever was back in the evening. So let him stay home on Monday, but made sure he was bored. Lest he gets the idea that staying home is more fun!!

Anyway, he's back at school and seems to be enjoying it. Second orchestra rehearsal yesterday (brass and woodwind section practice) and he complained about a squeaky clarinet (new reed) and sticky keys.

Working on his coping with (un)Predictability, Presentation, Politeness and something else ... ah! Prevention. He's been suffering red and sore skin around the lips because he licks his dry lips AND the area around them.

So we say we must now try to prevent that from happening by rubbing jelly on it. The skin behind his knees also tend to break out in spots and these need to be moisturized as well.

Another badge in sight?

Son has been four days back at school. The most exciting thing so far was clarinet. Or rather the orchestra.

He had been talking for a long time about the orchestra. I wanted him to learn an instrument like the clarinet so that he could play in a band or orchestra. Son seems bent on playing in the orchestra just so to get another badge on his lapel.

The clarinet teacher was happy enough with the state of his new top front teeth for him to resume lessons. The director of music at school has also told me that he is required at section practice next Tuesday. So it is happening.

He was also happy with his school music lesson this week when they are doing scales and triads. Then on Wednesday they were off to watch Tintin at the Playhouse. Positive comments all round despite having to cope with rush-hour crowds on the Tube for the return journey.

Piano on Thursday, he was told by his teacher that nobody got a merit from the examiner they had because he was very strict on marking. All except the little boy who does not attend the same school (but presented at the school for convenience). He scored a 123, below his previous 127. But this chap (six years old and practises more than an hour every day) was supposed to have been good enough for a distinction.

That was quite a consolation for my son then. Any way he came home and jumped on the piano and played some of the new piece he'd been doing. Realized he needed the music, retrieved that, worked through the music and did marvellously. He even seemed to enjoy it. It's good to see him enjoying the challenge of learning a new piece instead of being bored with an exam piece.

Friday he was happy with Geography, his new favourite subject.

Not a bad week, although there were the same frustrations with him not responding to requests and orders, and his obsession with playing the computer and PSP.

He coped OK with my not turning up at usual time on Thursday and went to Late Class, finished his homework and read. There was torrential rain and I was drenched.

This next week will be interesting with orchestra practice, visit to the dentist, fellowship group, etc.

The knives are out!

In the last week my son learned to use a kitchen knife to cut up broccoli and carrots into bits suitable for cooking.

He also made himself a sandwich for lunch, twice.

This is the same boy who aspires to make me a cup of hot tea, but is not yet allowed to handle boiling water. (Can't think why as I think I was making tea for the whole family when I was his age. Hmm. Must re-think that one.)

He also decided that he does not wish to learn the piano any more because "piano practice is getting in the way of my life".

What was his life about then?

Playing the PSP, and the computer (usually Lego something or other).

We put our foot down. He must continue with his piano. He does not need to sit any more exams, but he must continue with the piano as he is good, and has the potential of being very good.

We just reduced further the time he is allowed on the computer and PSP (20 minutes a day, now restricted to weekends). And yes, if he complains any more, even the 90 minutes of TV a day would also go.

We try to run a 'democratic' system in the house, but sometimes it does not work. What if one day he decides that he does not wish to go to school? Or he does not wish to wash himself? Or he does not wish to eat?

God has given us parents to tell us what to do until we know what to do.

Meanwhile I rejoice that he is honing new skills with a kitchen knife.

Right now he is attempting his first Airfix model with his dad.

God, please grant me wisdom in dealing with this boy.

Twelve Days of Christmas -- Star Wars version

I just searched and there are other versions on the Net.

But what a surprise it was that on New Year's eve my son asked me for a piece of paper, and a few minutes later came back to sing the following to me. This is the same (I have only one) son who has been described by teachers as lacking in creativity and until recently refused to write anything on paper:
--------------------------------------------------

Twelve Days of Christmas (Star Wars version)

By LT 31/12/2007

Twelve x-wings crashing

Eleven y-wings turning

Ten Jawas jumping

Nine Rebels shooting

Eight b-wings looping

Seven good guys winning

Six ewoks dying

Five Clone Troopers

Four Wickets screaming

Three bad sith lords

Two count dooku

And a Jedi in a ghost form

-----------------------

I think he's done very well.

Piano exam results

We were hoping that the results would be announced by the end of term, but they didn't come till the day after school closed.

Son's teacher emailed to say he scored a good pass (117), three marks short of a Merit.

We were disappointed, but not surprised. Son however soon said, "It's 17 above Pass. That's very good!"

He is right, of course. It was just that he had set a precedent with getting a Merit and had aimed for a Distinction, failing which he would settle for a Merit, that we felt bad that he only got a (good) Pass.

Now he's determined to do much better for his Grade Three. (At one point he was so fed up with playing the exam pieces he said he would not bother with exams any more. We said, "That's OK by us, but you must continue with lessons.")

It will be so nice if son could just play and do exam syllabii but not sit every exam. But he takes lessons at school and the school likes to present as many boys as possible for exams, to give them something to aim towards. It's also good on their CV when applying to senior schools.

The teacher has now given him a jazz book. He's learned the first piece, but does not show any interest in playing more written music. Instead he just sits at the piano and makes up his own.

Yesterday we ran into the school's Director of Music who mentioned 'clarinet' (ie exams). I said we'd talk about it another time.

Meanwhile son is still on an enforced break from the clarinet because of his top front teeth growing out (nice and straight at the moment). The Director of Music has said son could join the orchestra in the new term. Son is really looking forward to that.

Predictable unpredictability

After the clarinet teacher fiasco, I thought I must introduce some 'controlled unpredictability' so that son gets used to things not always going to plan.

From a very young age, son thrived on structure and boundaries. When these are clear, he's happy. He knows exactly what is expected and he performs.

When things do not go according to plan, however, hmm, the world falls apart -- or so he thinks.

So from this week I said he might need to be at Late Class. I shall not tell him when he might be required to go, but if I am not where I should be to pick him up, he should go to Late Class like the other boys whose parents are late in picking up.

I shall be interested to see what the outcome is.

I noticed that whenever we noted a problem and we discussed and worked on it, he usually gets better in that area. It is just SO TEDIOUS to have to work through these issues one by one.

But I am his mother. If I want him to grow into independence, then I must do my job.

God help me!

Piano exam over, but then ...

Smiles as he came to me after school yesterday.

Thought he did well, but made a mistake in his scales. (Eventually he let on that he "ran out of fingers".) The examiner let him play it again, so he felt OK.

Celebration at home as planned.

Piano teacher group emailed to say everyone "had an odd blip". Ah well, that is life.

His new clarinet arrived. Although we had a note that says his lessons are suspended for at least two weeks to let his new teeth grow out, he spotted his name on the notice-board for an 8.30am lesson.

So we were there with his old school clarinet and his new clarinet. The Director of Music came around, retrieved the old clarinet and son continued to wait. When the teacher hadn't shown up by 8.50am he was in tears.

A prefect on late duty was taking him to the office when I emerged from the office after trying to sort out a little issue of the float for the school fair on Friday.

Told him to get back off to class.

Later I had an email from the Director of Music and a phone call from the teacher to say his lesson was indeed suspended but he didn't have time to rub out his name on the notice-board.

Ah, well, confusion cleared. Teacher was kind enough to talk it through with him personally.

Son was happy enough after Fun Choir, especially when he was rewarded by a chocolate biscuit. (They get a treat after rehearsals.)

Let's hope he learns to deal with unexpected situations much better as he grows up.

Poor boy. Has it been my fault for being so protective and always giving him very specific and clear-cut instructions? Should I cut him some slack? Let him flounder a bit more?

Hmm.

Piano Exam again

Tomorrow he sits his Grade Two exam. Did the mock exam today and only got 114.

Would he have the energy to put in another 6 points to get a merit?

This exam preparation has been too protracted for him, a marathon. He is so bored with playing the pieces we won't blame him if he messes it up. Would he have enough sprint left with the Finish line in sight?

At Fun Choir they were doing Jailhouse Rock. Over the weekend he started putting together Jailhouse Rock on his own. The result is quite impressive.

Husband and I agree that if he didn't do another piano exam again, we won't mind. But we want him to continue his study of the piano. He would be able to do so well, to enjoy himself and bring so much pleasure to others.

For now piano exam is a chore -- and he got himself a paper cut before going to bed, nice!

He's looking forward to being able to play in the orchestra. The Director of Music has invited him to join and son is chuffed.

But first those front teeth must grow out (down, actually) first. "Toothless" has been excused from clarinet lessons for two weeks.

Tooth be told, exam results

Went off after school with his German classmate. A few boys in his class just love having him around. This German boy, in particular, wants my son to be his brother.

He was supposed to be dropped off when older German brother goes to play football, but the session was rained off. So we picked him up instead.

While stuck in traffic (thanks to road works), we were told that he had outdone even his best friend at the 'beep test'. They did this two weeks ago and because he was late from piano lesson, didn't have a fair chance at it. The Games Master told him to report after lunch for a re-test and he did.

He's top of the his class at the beep test, it seems -- but only because the stronger boys are in the other class.

Then trouble: his other tooth was out. Great big grin on his face. He's been jabbing himself in the jaw somehow due to this offending tooth and now it's out. Great big grin showing a great big gap.

Then I realized I really ought to have a chat with him despite it being so late. It soon transpired that he was given his exam results and it's Maths: 100% (average 62% in class); English 81% (average 50% in class).

Glad that he could go to bed happy, but he's lying in wait for the tooth fairy.

Tooth be told, exams over!

So we celebrated by eating at one of his favourite restaurant. It's nice to 'meet Daddy' after work. He decided that he would dress smart, so put on his new suit and red 'musical notes' tie.

It was a very cold day.

It was a really lovely evening.

Home, and bed-time ritual.

Oh-oh! Bloody mouth again. A tooth was bleeding somewhere. We decided that he should rinse out the blood, carefully, with the plug in the sink, to make sure that even if he did spit the tooth out by accident it does not get washed down the drain.

We were having a good laugh when it was clear he had stopped bleeding and then I looked at him and saw a gap in his front teeth. He had lost it!

But WHERE was the tooth?

Checked in the sink. The plug was still in. No escaped tooth. We hunted around and found it on the bathroom floor, and there was celebration again.

Any way today on the phone to Nanny I heard him saying about the exams, "It was very difficult [pregnant pause] to get it wrong."

What cheek!

We also discovered on the floor elsewhere in the house a 'Special Award' certificate from school for being kind and befriending the new boys in class.

Well done!

My son -- the next Steven Spielberg? George Lucas? Whatever.

My son is currently into making mini-movies.

He's really into Star Wars. He's really into Lego. Put the two together, you get Lego Star Wars movies.

The Lego site for children has mini-movies made by other Lego/Star Wars enthusiasts. My son has been so inspired he's been making his own using our mini digital camera.

I like his sound effects best.

Any way, still in the vein of the Parenting a Prodigy post, just because he shoots these mini-movies it does not make my son a 'film producer'. Does it?

(The all-dreaded) Writing exam

Today's the day. Trepidation!

Son has got his 'English II' exam paper.

Considering how he had frozen over the last time he had to write an 'essay' in an exam, I was really worried.

Monday was 'English I' (Comprehension, etc.) and he came back confident that he had answered all the questions in full sentences.

Today was writing a story based on a picture which was 'pirates': 'an adventure on the high seas'.

His verdict: It was fun.

Did you complete the story?

Of course. I filled up the whole page.

That's my boy.

What a relief that there weren't tears and tantrums. Especially when a bloody wobbley tooth at breakfast caused him some distress.

Praise God!

Parenting a prodigy?

Saturday morning last I was feeling a bit under the weather. Heard on BBC Radio 4 Today programme that a seven-year-old from Singapore is looking for a place at university to study chemistry.

When I felt well enough to look up this news item I followed links to read his dad's blog and his comments, answers and responses to other blogs.
Here are my thoughts:

1. Poor seven-year-old. I feel sorry for him.
2. Poor parents. The more vocal dad, as a proud father of a very gifted child -- and why not?, sadly seems to be somewhat deluded.
3. A combination of "I used to be gifted but no one recognized that" and "here's a chance that my child might be extremely gifted" is a dangerous combination indeed, an almost-certain recipe for disaster.
4. While the father writes profusely about how advanced his children are in their physical and intellectual development and in particular how advanced his eldest son is in his knowledge of chemistry, I am mystified that nothing is said about this little boy's friends (if any) ... and the games he plays (if any) ....
5. The father's blog empasizes how bored he is with school, etc, but no mention of tears or tantrums. One gets the impression that this boy is very ordinary, very well-behaved, except that he is extremely clever in the area of chemistry.
6. He is so clever in chemistry that he sat his O Levels recently and came away with a 'C'. He is now being prepared for his 'A' Level chemistry, and that is why his parents are looking for a university where he could have lab facilities to carry on with his chemistry education. In The Times, a reader commented: Hello! This genius only got a 'C'! Implying that he is not that much of a genius really. Clearly this child has an exceptional memory, so I imagine he would do well in organic chemistry, as all you have to do at A levels is memorize about a hundred equations.
7. In a blog entry the father recounts his shock when prodigy son asked, "What do you get if you collide Calcium and Californium in a cyclotron?". The answer was apparently "Ununoctium". The father of prodigy has entitled this post "Socratic questions of a genius". Really? If you did a google search on these key terms you will find that just before this posting, this was the hottest news in the scientific world. Scientists believe that they have at last found element 118. It was so new that they had given it a temporary name "Ununoctium". If my son were to give me similar information, I would first ask, "Where did you read that? Show me," instead of delaring to the world that he asks "Socratic questions".
8. Father of prodigy mumbles about MENSA not being interested in his son. (MENSA does not test children under the age of 10-and-a-half, according to their website.) Then he writes several blog posts about how IQ is a con, and that it does not actually show one's intelligence. However, he also goes on about the genius of Rembrandt, and out of somewhere (source not quoted), tells us that Rembrandt, so clearly a genius, only had an IQ of 110. Well, elsewhere someone worked out that Rembrandt had an IQ of 155. Honestly, how these people managed to test or speculate the IQs of dead people is quite beyond me. I believe this child has never had his IQ assessed.
9. The prodigy is supposed have "written books" on science. Many children staple papers together to make 'books', and write their ideas, some original, some not, down and draw pictures to illustrate. It does not make these six-year-olds authors. My son also started on 'The Book of Everything", how wonderful was that? A book, booklet, leaflet, essay, is more than writing random thoughts down on pieces of paper.
10. In The Times article which first alerted the BBC to this genius, father of prodigy took offence at a comment by Joan Freeman (probably reported out of context, who knows?) that “to send a child to university at 7 is like you are not regarding him as a human being, but as a performing monkey”. He responded by saying that she had no right to comment unless she herself is a parent of a prodigy. Yeah, except that she happens to be a an expert on gifted children. And by his reasoning a psychiatrist cannot pronounce a diagnosis of schizophrenia (eg) on patients unless the psychiatrist himself had experienced schizophrenia. Just to give a flavour of the hysteria here.

I am a parent of a very gifted child, so I hope that gives me the right to comment. Two weeks ago my child was comprehensively tested by an educational psychologist. Despite scoring comparatively lower on 'social comprehension', he has an IQ in the 140s. In some areas he has the ability of a 16-year-old.

Anyone who reads "About my boy" will be familiar with the real struggles that he faces, the fears and anxieties, the need to be perfect, etc. It comes with the territory of being gifted.

It is precisely because we do not want to be in the position of: he's finished his A Levels at eight years old, what now? that we took pains to keep his interest in maths and science and a lot else in as broad a manner as possible without having to keep completing curricula for 'O' and 'A' Level exams. We believe there is more to life than sitting exams and going to university. (What good is university if you can't enjoy the social life? Come on!)

When your child is clever, you know he or she is clever. There is no need to prove to the world that he has Os and As under his belt at age seven, eight or nine.

The difficulty is -- and we sympathize with father of prodigy -- such children get very bored at class. Maintaining interest is a challenge.

But there are also areas that our gifted child is weak in. He knows that. He acknowledges some of these weaknesses, not all, and we are working on these. Football and penmanship are two. But bless his heart, in the last few months, he has been trying so hard to be better in these areas, without going overboard with feelings of underachievement.

Friends used to say, "Wow! He could say these words," or "Wow! He's already doing this." My reply was always, "Yeah, but your child will soon be catching up." And THEY HAVE in all the important areas that matter.

"I used to be gifted once."

I must have been. I got bored in class, but I was not disruptive. Then I got to the best school in Singapore on the basis of an EXAM. Then, as the girls have been recently recounting (gleefully) in our forum 30 years after we left that school, we started getting red marks, failing exams, realized we were not that bright after all.

Being gifted at aged eight does not guarantee that one will remain gifted for the rest of one's life. When in this top Singapore school I often thought "I must have peaked at 12." My school results never got better than when I was 12.

The rest of my academic career was rather lack-lustre. Not till after I finished my Bachelor's degree did I find it in me to move ahead academically. I have found my forte in research: designing research, formulating hypotheses, gathering information, writing up results, etc.

So in between supporting my parents financially, becoming a full-time Christian worker/missionary/minister of religion, and various other roles in between, I finally got to the PhD I really wanted.

People assume that I am clever because I have a PhD. Am I? The more I know, the more I know I don't know. That is the truth.

My son thinks he is very clever, because he is obviously very clever in some areas. But I am glad that I am able to tell him that it does not matter if he becomes ordinary again. In fact, part of me hopes and prays that he would not be off the scale in his progress in Maths, Science and French.

The advances he has made in his music is striking too. How anyone could practise maybe 5 minutes a day and still get a merit in his piano exam just ten months after his first ever lesson is beyond me. His teacher has another student, slightly younger, who also got a merit. This boy spends more than an hour every day practising the piano, and missed a distinction by three marks.

If my son were to practise an hour every day would he have got a distinction? I fear not, because repetition bores him, and he gets worse instead of better. But the exam curricula give him the skills to compose and improvise which give him (and us) much joy and pleasure.

I don't think we would ever be able to stop our son being interested in Maths, Science, French and music composition. But we encourage him in every way to study AROUND the subjects: history of maths, philosophy of science, different types of music, eg, instead of progressing him simply in the direction of school exams.

When he asks questions on trigonometry, we try to give him some answers, not brush him off. Then he is allowed to explore for himself. (So he goes and draws a 'sine wave'.) He was very keen to learn about quadratic equations, but when we talked about it, he realized that ah, he needs to learn algebra first, and he's not really into that at the moment. We (gladly) let the subject drop.

On the advice of the psychologist we are not going to push him in academia at all. We practise no spellings or times tables. Instead we are working on his social skills.

And no, the last thing we want is for him to finish his 'A' levels in two years' time. What good is an 18-year-old mind trapped in a 9-year-old body?

What a refreshing change to read this: The Downside of Being a Child Prodigy

Love Me Tender

I had arranged a meeting in the afternoon.

Yesterday son came home to tell me parents are invited to today's concert at school. So I had to re-schedule the meeting.

What joy to see him singing 'Consider Yourself' and 'Food Glorious Food' so confidently with the rest of his mates.

He wanted to play 'Ode to Joy' on his clarinet, but one of his best mates is playing that on the violin. After chatting with the teacher, he decided to play 'Love Me Tender'.

He did well. No squeaks. Good tone. Must work on breath control though.

Interestingly he had chosen the clarinet, not the piano, which he is able to play far better than any of his classmates.

A part of me wonders if this is because he thought it was rude to come across as being too good. Is this a sign that he is trying to fit in?

His answer to my probing was a simple: the clarinet is more of a challenge.

So I got asked by other parents how long he had been playing the clarinet.

He started in September at the start of term and had six half-hour lessons.

Growing up

It's been two weeks of half-term break and I am thrilled to see/feel how our son has 'matured'.

Last Friday we took him to a Thai restaurant. He was very well behaved, all things considered, and was most fascinated by the naked flame on our table.

Then he's learned to say things like, "O! Why are you wearing THAT?"

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"I've never seen it before. You look very nice in it."

From little things like taking his crockery back to the kitchen to making his bed without being told (though he sometimes forgets), he seems to be more in charge of himself.

There are still the signs of frustration when he is not able to cope with some things in life, but he's getting better all the time.

We often forget: he is only seven.

Any way, today (Wednesday) he came home asking me to write a note to his music teacher to say he does wish to perform on the clarinet for the children in the Junior School. On Thursday he discussed this with the teacher and decided that he would play Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender".

He's not actually played this even for his clarinet tutor. So I think he is a very brave boy.

Piano exams around the corner. His sight-reading is still not brilliant but is improving. His exam pieces however seem to be 'over-practised'. He gets them wrong when we know he could get them right. So I am not hard on him when he does not bother to practise.

I am a bad mother!!

A Colour Badge - Boy Done Good

Last day of school yesterday before the start of a two-week half-term break.

I edged away from a conversation between two new parents, one of whom was asking about a Maths tutor for her son.

Then another mum approached the group of mothers I was with and asked if Thursday's maths homework was a bit of a struggle. She said she took a very long time to explain the intricacies of the different mathematical concepts to her son. Another said they took 40 minutes to complete it.

One of the mums said to me, "Obviously, your son must have completed it without any problems."

Well, he didn't.

I now know why my son had a worried look on his face when I picked him up on Thursday. They had been warned that Maths homework was supposed to be quite difficult, so it's OK if they did not complete the second part.

Even before he got his shoes off my son whipped out his worksheet and sitting at the bottom of the stairs, we read through it.

It was history of the Romans in Britain combined with maths. So questions like "If he started out with one legion and eight joined him each day, how many did he have when he arrived at Londinium?" (Answer: 25)

And "When the Roman army finally faced the Celtic army, the Celtic women fought beside their husbands. They were all killed with the Celtic army. If one in every two Celtic soldiers had a wife, what fraction of the Celtic army in its final battle was women?" (Answer: 1/3)

They had to add several numbers together, including the denominator (3) from that last question to arrive at a final 'check number'.

My son got the fraction wrong, so his answers did not tally with the 'check number'. But he duly went back to try to think through the question.

Fearing that he would go into one of his shouting rages, I offered to explain it to him.

"No, no, no, I must work this out myself."

He tried using a number (100) to work out the fraction. I suggested he didn't.

"No, don't interrupt me! I must do this myself!"

Then, "One -third. The answer is one-third."

Ironically this was the first piece of homework he found "enjoyable" this half-term. It made him think, and though he initially got the answers wrong, he was not afraid to go back to it and when the pieces fell into place he was a very happy boy.

Any way, there we were waiting for our boys when my son approached, grinning ear to ear, "Have you noticed something different about me?"

He was wearing a little round blue badge on his lapel. A colour! He has been awarded a colour!

"This is for hard work. We get to wear it for the rest of the term. If we keep up with the good work, we get to keep wearing it."

Then he let on that he was given the wrong colour at Assembly. The badge should reflect his house colour. Of course he didn't know this at first. Anyway a teacher spotted the mistake and he was given the correct colour by the end of the day. Only one other boy (his best mate) in his class was awarded a colour.

He also came home with his 'grade card'. 'A1' in French and Music amongst other very good grades.

Boy done good!

Winning Goal

Yes, when he should be sleeping, son slipped downstairs to say, while they were playing football at PE today, he managed to score the winning goal. Well done!

French

After several attempts to see the Headmaster, son finally had his Blue Card validated. He is very pleased.

The senior French teacher also sent two of her senior boys to son's class and 'marched' him and his best mate (who was also awarded a Blue Card for French) to her own class to listen to their demonstration, to ensure that they were of a sufficiently high standard to deserve the Blue Card.

Well, looks like they passed the test. The Form VI boys applauded their efforts, I was told. Later on when son was finishing his Prep in 'Late Class' because I was helping to set up the hall for a PTA event, the head boy (whose mother was helping me) said to son that his French was really very good.

Yesterday we were told that his French teacher had asked him and his mate to coach the other boys so that they could also get those Blue Cards. However, the other boys chose to play football instead of going to these two for extra coaching at play-time. I'm not surprised.

Son has also been immensely helpful as we prepared for Quiz Night last Saturday. Dad had to work most of Saturday despite a cold and when he got home, it was not fair to expect him to attend Quiz Night.

Son was distraught over his B Minor scale (left hand) in the morning. He lost it. So did I, as I was feeling a bit stressed out about the Quiz Night arrangements. We talked. He went back to the piano, and then he got it, that B Minor.

It's always like that, it seems. It has to become so very bad before he lets himself have a chance to succeed. Weird.

Played a football match yesterday. (We only discovered in the morning that they were doing this.) He was in good spirits and positive (they lost again). Supposed to play another match this afternoon, but it was rained off.

Instead we made it to the school wind and brass concert, featuring the boys (and guests) who play various wind and brass instruments (and drums, too). There were no clarinets. Son was not invited to play this year (he's only had four lessons), but we like to think that this time next year he might be playing something really bluesy at this concert. He likes blues.

I'm tired. (See other blog)

Being obtuse again

At prayers last night I said we should pray for another mum who is in hospital.

Then we talked about medical conditions being chronic or acute. (He knows Dad has a chronic disease.)

His cheeky face lit up, "So are there obtuse diseases?"

Deja vu and carte bleue

Son and mates played another match today. It was an 'away' game at a school unfamiliar to us parents so most of the boys were bussed back to school.

It was a dismal day, weather-wise. They lost all the games. But surprisingly my son was chirpy. He seemed to have enjoyed the match even though they hadn't won.

It was a very positive spirit and I congratulated him on that.

What disturbed me was his accounts of how a classmate has 'threatened' him with words like, "I will take you to the park and whack you hard," etc. There was talk of blood and all that. This classmate also demanded to have all the money from my son's piggy bank if my son does not want him at our house before his best friend gets there.

Huh? Pardon?

It was not even that my son was being bullied. He didn't let any of this bother him, he claimed. But I was very disturbed that a fellow seven-year-old could use such language and think such violent thoughts. Clearly there was no way he was going to carry this out, but still ....

My son said that his classmate was probably feeling (and he acted this out: a crying baby). This other young man was probably a little jealous of someone else being invited to our house, and not him.

"But you can't get people to become your friend by threatening them," I said.

My son was not even bothered. He seemed to have learned to stick up for himself. Good for him.

But the big question is: do I approach the parent of this other boy to alert him of these thoughts that are being expressed by his son?

The other news is son has got his first 'Blue Card'. The school has a system of rewarding good effort, results, behaviour, etc with points for the House. They earn a House point here, and a House point there, and at the end of every term, the biggest cheer at end-of-term assembly is for the winning House.

My son is an avid earner of House points. The Blue Card is worth a whole dix points. Today he and his best friend were awarded the first Blue Cards for the Form for their ability in speaking French. These cards have then to be validated by the Headmaster.

Son is looking forward to seeing the Headmaster soon to show him the Carte Bleue and to demonstrate his fluency in saying:

Good morning, Mr B.

[Mr B answers.] How are you?

I am fine, thank you. And you?

[Mr B to answer.]

My name is ----. I am seven years old. I live in ------ in England. The name of my school is ---- ----. Etc, etc.

Can't wait to hear what he has to say about this experience.

Not the 'A' Team

When I got to the football ground I was embarrassed to find that I was the only mum from son's class to be there.

It was our wedding anniversary -- our nineth -- and I had plans to do as little as possible. But son wanted me at his football game. So there I was jumping up and down by the goal-line of the opposing team. They had a larger fan club.

But the goal-keeper was really bored. All the action was on the other side of the pitch.

My son's team was thrashed. O, never mind.

I was heartened, however, to see that he was taking an active part and had indeed made many good defensive moves to keep the score difference down.

Amongst other things, they had at one point, the boy with the smallest stature at goal. The opposition kicked the ball so hard he managed to catch hold of the ball but the momentum of the kick pushed him across the line, at which point he dropped the ball. So it was a goal to the opposition.

At other times this and the other goal-keepers had their backs to the rest of the team, watching the 'A' team battle it out on the adjoining pitch. "Stand in front of the goal line!" I found myself shouting at whoever was at goal.

It was hilarious. It was.

The other consolation is the boys whom I know have been taking football lessons weren't any better than my son. So, there!

When we got home there was still homework to do.

Made it to the football team

Son did manage to get to school yesterday (Monday). I was on edge all day waiting for the school to phone to say he needed to be brought home.

No phone call came.

The football match they were supposed to play was postponed due to an administrative oversight.

Pick-up time: son was smiling after having three periods of 'Games' in the afternoon. He was excited.

He had been picked to play in the postponed football match now on Wednesday. He would have to miss the theatre visit of a group presenting Wizard of Oz, but "who cares?" he said.

He's not in the 'A' team, but in the 'Mixed' (meaning mixed ability, I think) team. But who cares? And he has the right attitude towards it, too.

But this morning, there was a moan about having to go to school. It's swimming day and again he's not feeling confident about his swimming. Sigh. After having done so well to "escape" being put in the "beginners club" he is finding swimming very tedious.

Fever Las Vegas!

Young man woke up early yesterday with something bothering his throat. But he didn't let him affect his activities too much.

By evening, however, it was clear that he was not well. It was difficult to get him -- wrapped in his favourite blanket from head to toe -- away from watching the Elvis impersonators on TV, but I managed and sponged him down.

When he got to bed he was able to say, "I'm feeling a bit drowsy now ...."

He was perspiring a lot in his sleep and yet drew the duvet well up to his neck. This morning it appeared that the fever had finally subsided, but it could just be the effect of the medicine.

Any how, he is good as gold and being most polite. He's always most polite when he is most unwell.

I am not complaining.

He had been going on about a football match at school tomorrow. He's been trying very hard to improve in his football and would really like to put his new skills to the test.

We shall see whether he even gets to school.

Being obtuse

Yesterday, as a special treat, I bought a little chocolate fudge cake, organic, of course.

Just as well, because son was not very pleased when he got home. He had been to 'Fun Choir'. It appears that the older boys were asked to vote who was the best singer amongst the youngest boys, and vice-versa.

Son thought -- it goes without saying -- that he was very good, but every older boy bar one voted for the youngest boy in the choir. One brave soul voted for one of son's good friend. But nobody voted for him at all.

He couldn't contain himself any more when we sat down to have our snack (said chocolate fudge cake). "Why didn't even ONE boy vote for me? I can't understand! B-- was rubbish and mucking about and yet they voted for him."

It wasn't made easier when one of these older boys said to him as we were going home, "... you were the best. Really, you were the best."

Look of distress on son's face and then, "If I was the best, then why did everyone vote for B--?"

It took some time to calm him down. I can't think why it mattered so much to him that someone "at least showed appreciation" of him.

Any way he did cheer up after this. But he couldn't have any more cake after dinner as it was past six o'clock. Chocolate after six makes it quite difficult for him to fall asleep.

This morning he looked at the cake and said, "I am going to have a piece with an obtuse angle. That will leave Dad with one with an acute angle."

"What is an obtuse angle?" I asked.

"One that is more than 90 degrees."

"And acute?"

"Less than 90 degrees."

"Have you been learning about angles at school?"

"Of course not!"

"Then how do you know obtuse and acute?"

"From a book, perhaps?"

He then proceeded to show me a "reflex angle".

Marching boys

Walking home from my business group mentoring session (I walk through a fairly large park, it helps to clear my head after three hours of talking business and exchanging ideas) I ran into the school cook who asked about my son.

She observed that he seemed happier. He was always so serious looking. Then she recalled that a few days ago he and two others were "marching" into the Dining Room. So he does lighten up a bit.

I mean, he often has us in stitches at home with his jokes and the way he describes something (that happened or in his imagination).

Yesterday I mentioned that after a hard slog I finally managed to get tickets to the British Museum to see the Terracotta Army exhibition. Daddy has always wanted to see these soldiers and has planned to go to China for a visit at some point to see the "real thing". So he was chuffed when he found out that the exhibition was going to be here, right in London.

I said, it's once in a life-time, a bit like Daddy being taken to see Tutankahmen.

"Tut who?"

"Tutankhamen, you know that Egyptian Pharaoh ...."

His response was, "What do you do with an Egyptian door bell?"

"What do you do with an Egyptian door bell?"

"Toot and come on in."

Of course that was not original. He read it somewhere, but at an appropriate time he was able to recall that to good effect.

Yet we were told he does not smile in class.

I ask him after school every day, "On a scale of one to ten, what was the day like?"

"Five hundred. No, make it ten thousand," or something like that.

He seems happy enough, and I am pleased.

Confusion

Son was happy at the end of the school day. He could not wait to tell me how hard he tried and now he is off the "beginners" swimming list.

He was not pleased when he discovered on Thursday that he had been put on this list which means additional swimming lessons on Thursdays. It would mean his having to miss Art Club at lunch break.

So he worked very hard and now he does not have to do extra lessons, he thinks.

As to why he joined Art Club, I do not know. He tells me he's doing a special sketch for me and the Art teacher is helping him. OK.

Prep time. He was supposed to spend not more than 20 minutes on Prep. There were 40 animal names he needed to put in alphabetical order. When 20 minutes were up he was less than halfway through. I tried persuading him to stop and either carry on the next day or let the teacher know the Prep required more than 20 minutes.

No, he wanted to carry on, and when he came to the "L's" he got confused. I tried explaining but he would not listen. He said he didn't mind if he got them wrong. That way he could learn from his mistakes. Lots of tears and shouting.

He met with the same problem again when he came to "W". Somehow he managed to remain calm enough for me to show him he must not "cross-compare". Then he realized why the "L's" were wrong.

I don't know what to think of his attitude. He had been so good and positive all week, and at the end of the week he just seemed unable to cope anymore. He was clearly physically and mentally tired, but he insisted on carrying on.

More pertinently I realized that despite his reading age -- he's said to be able to read better than the 12-year-olds -- he does not yet know the English alphabet off by heart!

Hmmm.

Voices and noises

Husband and I had a good meeting with the headmaster and two of the staff.

Basically we agreed that we need to seek professional help to ascertain what is bothering our son. I have in fact tried to kick-start this process by going to the GP. He has referred, but is not quite sure whom to refer son to.

Any way the school now knows a little more about son's peculiar habit of asking for instructions over and over again. This had previously be put down to his wanting to be perfect.

In the past three years he had been told consistently not to be too hard on himself, it's OK to make mistakes, he does not need to be perfect. I have since discovered that it might have nothing to do with wanting to be perfect. He asked instructions over and over again simply because he does not remember them.

For example I've been saying in the mornings for a week: brush your teeth, clean your face, get dressed and make your bed.

But after brushing his teeth he forgets what is the next instruction. "What do I do next?"

Yesterday I said, "OK, the sequence is 'teeth-face-clothes-bed'."

Son then muttered something like "Teeth are in the face, which is in the body, and the body rests in the bed which is where the clothes are." Sorted.

I had to print off some photos for him in a hurry and left him to his "routine". What a surprise it was that when I came upstairs again he was sitting in his bed reading a book, fully dressed on a well-made bed, having brushed his teeth and cleaned his face . Bingo!

Today, well, he got a bit distracted. He completed the routine but stopped in between to read something. Still the routine seems to have registered.

His continuous need to seek reassurance on instructions was seen as timidity and a lack of confidence and anxiety. Now I am beginning to wonder if it was just his way of checking and counter-checking, because some instructions, especially verbal ones, just do not seem to register.

Chatting with an old classmate over the net about her son said to be suffering from CAPD, we ventured into the area of being a spatial-visual learner. Then I remember how son always had trouble discerning where sound was coming from.

He's nearly pitch-perfect. You sing a note, he goes to the piano and nine times out of ten, he plays that exact note . You could even play intervals and he could identify these as 'doh-soh' or 'doh-fah', or whatever. More frequently he hears a tune on TV and he goes to play it on the piano.

But there had been countless times when he shouts "Where are you?" and I am upstairs in the en-suite bathroom with the door slightly ajar and I shout back, "Here!". Even though he might be in the next bedroom, he could not identify where the sound comes from. He would then wander off downstairs, check every room, and not finding me, starts crying, "Mum, where are you?"

And I am shouting myself hoarse upstairs in the loo, "Here, I am upstairs."

He wanders upstairs, "Upstairs, where?"

He's outside our bedroom and I shout, "In the bathroom in the bedroom." And then he finds me. He's in a flood of tears.

Of course now I shout "Here in the en-suite bathroom" or something like that instead.

Sometimes this happens when I am in the conservatory and he's in the next room. No bathroom door in between. I say, "I'm here" and he goes to the room further away from me to look for me.

It appears that he has no sense of where sound is coming from if it is not immediately in front of him, where he could see the speaker.

I wrote about how he was disturbed by the sound in an indoor sports hall. It was not loudness, perhaps, but that the noise and echoes were coming in all directions, unrelentlessly, and that upset him.

Ironically when he uses the bathroom he would turn on the light even in broad daylight so that the fan would turn on. "I like the sound," he says. The sound of the whirring fan comforts him,

O yes, when he was a baby I could not use the food processor until he was in bed, or shutting two doors between us, but the washing machine and tumble dryer were OK.

He was taken to the cinema by a friend when he was three and refused to go again for another three years time because of the "noise". (The sound level in the cinema was indeed very high.)

We have a friend who has suffered a head injury. She tells us that she too cannot distinguish the direction from which sounds are coming from. Everything is a blur and it tires her out just trying to process these stimuli. She cannot filter out the unimportant noise from the important noise. This lady also sings beautifully.

Could our son be suffering a similar condition? Does that explain why certain types of noise upset him so much?

Then I recall how much he had calmed down in the last half-term of school last year. Something caused me to think this coincided with the sudden departure of a boy who was very disruptive.

Our son used to get very upset if this boy had made it impossible for the whole class to "do any learning". He complained about this boy's whingeing. Could the whingeing have had an impact on my son?

Why do the episodes of anxiety happen only on Fridays?

Is it because he gets taken out of class for his piano lesson? And this often means he misses handwriting class? Does this make him anxious and then coupled with swimming -- which he perceives himself not to be so good at -- right at the end of the day, he gets too tired to compensate, and falls apart?

What are these "bad voices" as he was supposed to have said that bothered him?

But this week he has made phenomenal progress on the clarinet. He practised really hard to get rid of the puffy cheeks. (It helps when Mum plays wind instruments.) He tried and he tried, and by Sunday he got it. Dimpled cheeks while making a solid sound on the clarinet.

He learned to play two more notes on Wednesday (yesterday) and he's playing tunes, even those not in the book, as he makes them up.

His piano too is coming along and husband and I are really enjoying the exam pieces he has chosen to play. They are not easy to play, but very pleasant to listen to.

The teacher will decide in two weeks' time if he should be presented for exams in November or March.

Son also joined the Fun Choir, the Middle School boy's rite of passage, it seems. They are doing songs from Oliver Twist and son is enjoying 'food, glorious food'.

First day back at school

Actually it's second, but 'second day back' doesn't have the same ring, does it?

There were too many nervous parents. The 'old boys' were moving from 'junior school' to 'middle school'. They were moving from short shorts to long trousers. Instead of little plastic school bags they now have sports bags and a school-issue back-pack.

At lunch they would now be able to choose from a wide selection instead of being given a specific menu. (Junior school pupils would take too long to make up their minds, I imagine.)

So 3.40pm, give or take, parents were gathered to pick up our children. Son was making some 'happy gestures' while waiting to be dismissed.

He was all excited because, "Guess what? I was given my piano certificate today, and I received it from Mr B (the headmaster)." He was chuffed.

"I was the only one from Form I who was given a certificate."

"I was the first one to be called."

Then it was how they would all get their first house point if they could manage to remember their caps the next day.

And they now have their Prep Book, kept always in their school blazer, and he has some Prep to complete (sticking the sticky plaster-protector-thing onto the Prep Book.

He was so excited, so happy. When he got home he talked in such a grown-up way it felt like I left a seven-year-old little boy at school at 8.40am and seven hours later I got back a seven-year-old very polite young man instead.

He duly completed his Prep, did his piano practice, and was able to relax for the rest of the day.

No problems with writing so far. He's been writing names and information at various places and they are all legible. What a pleasant surprise!

Day Camp Over

Thursday we discovered that he was playing hockey and volleyball as well at the camp. He thinks he's quite good at hockey.

I hope so. His paternal grandfather was an ace hockey player, it seemed (as well as being good at cricket and golf). He was offered a place at Cambridge on that basis and if he could get those A levels as well, and it was assumed that he would then become part of the Hockey team and then a 'Blue'.

Sadly Grandad was far too busy playing sport to get those A Levels he needed. (I imagine my husband's life would have been very different if father-in-law did get to Cambridge. As it is, it was a real blessing that he did not.)

I enjoyed playing hockey, too, while in school, when Miss Lim made us play all kinds of sport during PE.

On Friday son went dressed as a 'seismologist' -- someone who wears glasses -- and came back with a picture of a computer screen, the map of UK and concentric circles emanating from two cities. They had to go as the person they wanted to be 'when they grow up'.

Bradley apparently went dressed as a pirate. I am surprised that his parents let him. But Bradley also complained every time he was 'out' in a game, and broke the bumper of the go-cart, etc. Many of the girls wanted to be pop-stars and singers. Only one (other boy) wanted to be a scientist.

He's also been talking about the various techniques he's learned at football. Clearly his confidence has grown in that area, and we are very pleased.

The biggest surprise on Friday was when I rummaged in his bag and found a certificate: for being first at volleyball. Whatever that means. It does not matter.

But no more camp next year. Next year we will be spending most of the summer in Singapore, we hope. He would go to a 'camp' there to learn more about Singapore ways.

I hope.

Day Camp

This week started with a great deal of trepidation on my part. I had, months ago, signed son up for a week at activity camp.

With eight long weeks of school holiday and us not going abroad at all -- like most of his mates -- I thought it would be wise to break up the hols with a week doing some structured activities. Besides I really wanted to 'push' him outside of his comfort zone, force him to do something out of the ordinary.

It is difficult for son to do this. Unlike most children I know, he is quite happy to stay inside the house all day, all week.

But then he also goes, 'I'm bored. What can I do?' and keeps asking to play on the computer or on his PSP, or watch TV. Sometimes he would quietly read a book, and sometimes he would decide that we could do something together, but only sometimes. Much easier to build a complex Lego model than try to teach Mum the rules of Backgammon.

Being really pathetic at football, I also took the opportunity to sign him up for an hour of extra football coaching a day.

I have asked, and asked, I've lost count of the number of times, if he would like to do football lessons, like most of his classmates do.

The answer has been a consistent 'no'. Fine. I am not about to lose my lie-in on Saturday mornings to take him to football then. But he then comes home from school distraught that his mates have not picked him to play on their teams.

Any way, he was happy to go on Monday morning, probably quite excited about having to take a packed lunch. For children who get school meals, a packed lunch is a treat.

I had arranged for him to be picked up and dropped off, thinking that he would get a chance to travel in a mini-bus and get a chance to talk to other children. But he is the only one being picked up this week. Sigh.

After four week of having him with me 24/7, I started missing him badly by about 3pm. It was weird that the house was so quiet.

He looked happy enough when he was dropped off on in the late afternoon and said to his chauffeur that he would see her the next morning. He was also excited to tell us how a boy called 'Bradley' would keep shouting he was not out when he was out, etc.

He enjoyed his football and learned to make a straight pass. When too many children decided to play golf, he volunteered to give up his place and played tennis instead to keep the programme moving. When the others went swimming and Mum had not packed his trunks he played tennis with an instructor and did a very good back hand, surprising himself.

But would he go back on Tuesday morning? Tears. 'But I missed you!' (Lie.)

He would have to survive that week, I said. 'How am I to survive one week at camp?' he asked tearfully.

Somehow managed to get him dressed, packed his lunch, with a surprise, and he went off.

By the time he came home Camp was '10 out of 10'.

He had been go-carting (and 'Bradley broke the bumper of his cart!') and doing Archery, as well as managed to tackle a much older boy and gained possession of a ball. And on Friday they have to go dressed for the kind of work they want to do when they grow up.

'So I'll go in a checked shirt and glasses as all seismologists dress like that.'

OK, so he plans to be there on Friday.

'If Mum gave in this morning and said you could stay home, what would have happened?'

'Bored the whole day and missed doing all the fun activities.'

'Now you know why God gives us Mums and Dads to make children do things they don't like to do?'

So, at last, he's learned a little more of the wisdom of Mum's ways.

Today was another '10 out of 10'. There was swimming and golf (but the space was not large enough for his shots so he had to reign in his swings). AND he managed to stop a ball by Adam, his football instructor. He is pleased with himself.

Bedtime found him reading his 'Football Annual' to find out what position he is most suited to play.

I feel vindicated again. I am not a cruel mother after all.

He's writing

The aim this summer holiday is to get our son comfortable and confident in his writing: both to accept the style of his own handwriting (very scratchy) and the process of putting his thoughts on paper.

It hasn't been easy so far.

Early July he started out very well, writing down thoughts and reports on what he had done in the day, using the 'loopy' joined-up writing he was taught at school. But the legibility soon deteriorated to a point by about Day Six that we had to re-strategize.

Leaving a line was difficult for him, so was leaving clear spaces between words. He refused to contemplate these options because he did not do this at school. Clearly the influence of his teacher on him was far too strong.

In the end, tears. He said he started feeling bad about his handwriting when they began doing joined-up. But he tried and he tried. (I remember one weekend when he completely refused to do his writing homework. He was taken out of class to do his piano, thus missing the handwriting practice session, and missed learning how to write a certain letter.)

Let's start again: no joined-up writing then. And we'll leave a line.

It was okay doing this for the next few days. But again by about Day Six under this new 'regime', tears.

He just could not bear to write his thoughts down any more.

It is not like he has no ideas. He comes up with the most fabulous stories over what he's done with his Lego constructions, for example, or his computer game, but would he write it down? No.

There is such a disconnect between what he is able to say and what he is able to write that I got really stressed out.

Has he a phobia for putting pen to paper? Does he need a psychologist to de-sensitize him?

Is there something different in the way he perceives the written word or the way he processes the physical writing process that makes writing too painful or too distressing?

I also learned that there is a different kind of joined-up writing taught at school, one that cuts out all the elaborate loops and retracing of letters. I bought a book to help him do this.

He's working through this book.

He's still reluctant to write down his thoughts and feelings.

But he has not given up learning this style of writing with their 'four joins'.

Some days his handwriting is better than other days, and he enjoys a 'web chat' with me on paper.

Maybe he just thinks writing something like a diary is meaningless. He's happy to write answers to specific questions, but writing 'free thinking' is difficult for him.

He also copies out poetry very well. He likes poetry and his efforts at copying poems have been quite remarkable by his standards.

So I'm hoping that perhaps this is another way to develop his confidence in writing.

He's done it, again!

My husband and I now cherish the time we sit at the cafe of our local golf 'club' while our son has his lessons. It's often the only time we are not busy with stuff around the house or he's too tired to hold any intelligent conversation.

Then he goes to pick son up from the driving range, or wherever.

Yesterday son came back with him and waved a piece of paper in my face. It was his YMG Silver Award.

I was taken completely by surprise.

He has been working his way up the YMG ladder: Cadet (distinction), Bronze (merit) and Silver ... well, nobody in the class passed Silver the first time. Son completely forgot he had his theory test and spent about 10 minutes revising. He was lucky he got away with the theory with that.

They needed to be able to do various things in practice before they could pass. We had the impression they had to do the course about three times over before they could pass.

Last week husband told me that he was swinging the club much more comfortably. So obviously there had been some improvement and the certificate is proof that he had made the grade. (Just 'Passed' because he could not re-sit theory again.)

One more feather in his cap.

His handwriting is improving. Working on leaving spaces between words.

Good work, son!

He's done it!

The first thing we looked for when we came back from our short holiday (inland) was to check son's piano exam results.

We were looking for an email from his teacher.

It finally arrived and son passed "with Merit". Husband and I think he has done exceedingly well considering the fact that he only started learning the piano nine months ago.

When I showed son the email, there was the tiniest flicker of a smile on his face, and then it was, "OW, I missed a Distinction by a few marks."

That is good. Gives him something to work towards, my husband and I think.

His teacher has already started him on Grade 2 music which he is enjoying much more than his Grade 1.

Disappointment

2nd July Monday

School ends on Thurday this week, and I was still busy with the parents' work at school, this time with the cookbook that we desperately wanted to get out for Speech Day on Wednesday.

Walking past the lobby I saw excitement over a list of names posted and remembered that the Prize Winners List should be up and I went to take a look, expecting my son's name to feature.

Not the 'Attainment Prize', not the 'Progress Prize', not even the 'Effort Prize'. We knew he wouldn't have won the Handwriting Prize as he didn't complete it, so that's that.

No, that wasn't that. My heart sank. It fell into my soles and if it could have sunk further, would have done so.

How is son going to react? What will the emotional fallout be? Would I be able to cope with the tantrums and the tears?

He had been so confident of winning the 'Attainment Prize'. His aim was to win it three years in a row. As he saw himself as being clearly ahead of his peers at work in class, he thought the Prize was his. How will he cope with this 'failure'?

I had to work on damage limitation. I went home and quickly wrote a note to his Form teacher. Please make sure he gets a 'class prize' so that he does not feel overlooked.

Then I had time to think through the 'why did he not get the Attainment Prize' more thoroughly.

His teacher had told us that he would definitely get the prize. He is so far ahead of his peers in work. How did he not, eventually, get the prize?

The thoughts that ran through my mind were: was there some bias? I know he is not the teacher's favourite student. He was deemed too stiff in acting, too narrow in his views, too concerned with right and wrong, and hell bent on getting the one acceptable correct answer to anything. These were not characteristics endearing to his Form teacher.

Husband happened to be home due to illness. We conferred and decided that we must email the Headmaster and asked, "If son was made out to be so clever and intelligent by all those who had taught him, why then is his achievement not in line with his ability?"

(OK, he did not get the Attainment Prize, what about 'Progress'? He has progressed further than anyone else in the class. No, that prize went to another boy. OK, 'Effort' then? How could the School who kept telling him "Don't be too hard on yourself" because he tries so hard to be perfect now turn around to say he did not even deserve an 'Effort' Prize?)

I became more and more confused, and more and more distraught. Something is not right with the 'system', if there was one.

We hoped that the list was just a provisional list and that perhaps there was a typo.

3rd July. We've had no response from either Form Teacher or Headmaster. I had a quick word with the Form Teacher at drop-off time and clearly the matter of our email had been raised with her by the Headmaster.

Her brief, almost dismissive, comment was "He just did not perform at the test and someone else did better".

A test? I was gobsmacked. What test did she mean?

O yes! At some point my son mentioned they were doing 'tests'. At the parent-teacher consultation, the teacher also mentioned tests, and assured us that son was performing up to standards in his Maths and Science tests. At that point they had not conducted the English test because the papers were not available.

So, I concluded, on the basis of the English test, son had lost his prize.

It does not matter that he is better at spelling and dictation than all the boys, or that his Maths is way ahead of everyone else, or that he tackles the most complicated issues in Science with panache. He did not come in first on a timed test.

As the boy who won the Attainment Prize also won the Handwriting Prize I then concluded that my son lost his Prize on the basis of his bad handwriting.

When we talked to him about the test he let on that he did not manage to finish writing his story. In any case, he volunteered, there were not enough pages for him to write his very complicated story. This was his way of rationalizing his inability to complete his task.

The pieces were beginning to fall into place.

He was either trying too hard to get his handwriting perfect to complete his essay or he panicked too much about completing a written task within a certain time to manage to complete his test.

I searched the Internet on 'gifted children and handwriting' and all the results tell me that gifted children often have 'chicken scratches' rather than handwriting. Many are penalized as a result. Gifted children also learn to compensate. My son's way of compensating is to write the minimum, simply because he cannot bear to see his own handwriting which he feels is not up to the standard he demands of himself.

His teacher tells us that he speaks excellent grammatical, well-structured English using the most flowery and complex figurative language. His writing however is at par with, at best, the most average student.

Clearly this dis/ability in handwriting or aversion to written tasks had not been taken into account. When I reflected on how he froze at his handwriting competition, it only adds further evidence to how my son does not like writing down anything on paper.

Next question: why was no allowance given so that he could be tested verbally or in any form other than written tests? Was the test a test on ability, attainment or handwriting?

I chided myself for not doing this research a little earlier. I must confess I had been in a state of denial about son's abilities. We assumed (wrongly, we now know) that if he is so clever, then this cleverness will show through and there is no need for us to push or do anything different. Any emotional calamity he had been facing was put down to his need to be perfect and we assumed that he would grow out of it. Well, apparently they don't.

With no response still from the Headmaster, I then sent a long email to the Second Master (who had observed him at lessons), the first person who alerted us early in this academic year to 'seriously consider' that our son could be 'gifted'. (The Form teacher does not usually check her email so it was pointless trying to write to her.)

We are really worried that if son continues to 'under-perform' in written tests he is going to give up. He is clearly very bright and he manipulates numbers and scientific knowledge very expertly. But his frequent frustration at the lack of recognition for what he is capable of was also clear.

After more questioning, we realized that he had pretty much been teaching himself Maths at school. He was given his text-book and he just followed the instructions and had taught himself fractions and long division, etc. (Most of the rest of the class are still adding and subtracting.)

At home I found him demonstrating and explaining kinetic energy and how it is transferred using his sky-rail (a sophisticated marble run).

But learning by rote is very difficult for him.

Instead of memorizing the sequence of 7 times table, for example, he adds 1 to the 'ten' column and takes away 3 in the units column. So while he is able to do mental arithmetic very quickly while 'reciting' the tables in order, he gets stumped by 'random tables' when he is thrown numbers like 3x7, 9x7, etc at random.

Spelling: he had been complaining about being bored with spelling the same simple words over and over again. We don't even drill him, but he has a 100% record.

Looking at the literature available it has become clear to me that his intelligence has to be managed and nurtured in a very different way from other children and we have now requested a conference with the staff who'd teach him next year to sort this out.

For example, he manipulates facts in a very different way from me. This was clearly the case when we had 12 fairy cakes. After three were eaten I asked him what fraction had been eaten. The answer came back almost instantly, "a quarter".

When asked to explain how he worked that out, he mumbled something about "4x3 equals 12, and I know if 4 is at the bottom than it is a quarter".

Neither my husband nor I quite understood how he got to the correct answer, but we did not argue with him.

OK, what if another fairy cake was eaten, what fraction now has been eaten? "O! That's easy, one-third." There was no hesitation at all.

What if Mummy eats another two (ie six out of twelve)?

"That's a half."

Another plea from the experts in dealing with children like him is: do not make them "show their working". Their "working" might be completely nonsensical to a teacher.

Interestingly while he is so good at retaining certain facts (thermodynamics, kinetic energy, poetry, lines from films and plays, etc), he is hopeless at remembering a sequence IF it is not first made clear to him that it is a sequence he has to remember.

So if I casually mentioned that we are going to the Post Office to post parcels, then to the shop to buy some food, then to a book shop to buy him a treat, he would be asking 50 yards down the road, "Where are we going? Why are we going there?"

If I prefaced this with, "Remember this sequence: ...." he would remember the sequence without a problem. This suggests that 'trivial' information does not register at all with him, but when he's presented with a 'whole unit' (eg a sequence of events) somehow he makes them into a sensible, memorizable and therefore recollectable body of facts.

Is that why he is often unable to tell us what lunch he was given at school, or who were the boys in his team at play or games? These facts are of no importance to him. Trivia do not register at all.

But on the last Wednesday of school when Science lesson was replaced by Art, there was no end of complaining, "We didn't have our Science lesson today. Instead we had to complete making a stupid shield."

I've also learned not to tell him he is too much of a perfectionist in his work. It appears that he cannot help it. That's the way he functions. That's the way he makes sense of the world. That is the way he approaches life. Just as one cannot tell a child his hair is too brown, please make it less brown, a gifted child cannot be told that he is too perfectionistic.

At the first opportunity I said to my son I had to apologise to him.

"For what?" he asked.

"For all those times I've been telling you to 'not be such a perfectionist'. I now realize that's the way you are special and you cannot help being like that. I shall try to stop myself from saying you are being too hard on yourself."

A wide cheeky grin spread across his face and he put his hands together, '"Yippee!"

At last, it must have seemed to him, there is a grown-up who understands that he cannot help doing things the way he does, and feeling the frustration when things do not go his way.

When I read about how children like him could be very sensitive to noise and touch, they add up further. When playing his first football match in a cavernous indoor pitch he became distressed by all the shouting and echoes in the hall. I saw the teacher leading him out of the hall.

When I got down to the bottom of the stairs I heard her telling him he just had to cope with it. I did not intervene because I thought the same: this is part and parcel of life, he just has to learn to cope with it.

He is ultra-sensitive to clothes labels, another symptom of his 'condition'. I cannot recall the number of times he has complained that the labels are bothering him and we have had to cut away so many labels. Now he has taken to wearing his socks inside out so that the seam at the toes do not bother him so much.

On Speech Day itself he coped well with not winning a prize because we primed him for it. But he got very upset that a classmate -- for what he felt was a silly reason -- pushed past him. He just went into a strop for the next half hour.

The solution is to avoid taking him to places where he has trouble coping with these stimuli.

We have a long way to go in understanding his needs and how he learns, but building on his confidence in handwriting is the project for this summer holiday.

As usual, I would appreciate any advice.