This time last year, I was frantic with worry about Gatito’s anxiety.
One year later, he’s like a different person. I wish you guys could see him. He is amazing. He has come right out of his shell.
Last summer, when A took him to little soccer classes, he would cry and cling to A on the sidelines. They’d have pep talks in advance that helped, but that was our biggest concern for those classes. He just started in an indoor soccer league and is the youngest and least experienced on his team of 4-6 year-olds, and it is no problem. Once he cried when someone else took his ball during the drills, but no other anxiety. He runs with the pack (which is how 2-4 year-olds plays soccer) and what we’re working on now is getting him to kick the ball when it comes near him. He actually did kick it twice last weekend.
When he started his new school in September, they used to struggle to get him out on the playground. When I’d go to pick him up, he’d be on his own, with a teacher, on a bench. Now he’s right in the thick of things. I moved him from half days to two full days, to three full days/week, and then he asked to go full day every day. It was a little more money, but not easy to tell a 4-year-old they can’t go to school more!
They are studying instruments, and in string week, they asked Gatito to bring his viola in to show the class. He did and played for his class. That went well, so the teacher brought in the other pre-K class. And that went well, so she brought in the K-1-2 class. Not only was he not nervous, but apparently all the kids responded extremely well to him. His teacher said that every year she has one or two moments, and that was one of them. He’ll have his first recital this weekend and I haven’t seen a trace of anxiety, though obviously that could happen last-minute when he sees the audience.
After watching the Olympics, Gatito got really excited about speed skating. I’d have just taken him to the rink on a Saturday, but since I haven’t skated in a decade and probably only ten times my whole life, I didn’t feel like I could teach him. I signed him up for eight weeks of lessons and figure I can take him independently after that. I left work a little early to see how his first lesson went. The place is chaotic: a recipe for sensory overload and confusion even for me. On the ice, there were about eight kids in his little group, but about 100 on the rink all together. He had a lesson for 25 minutes and supervised practice for another 25. I brought him to the door, handed him off to a teacher, and off he went. It was amazing! No crying, no anxiety. He fell down, he got himself up again. He moved around, sometimes holding onto an orange cone, sometimes independently.
It is hard to say how much of it is simply growing up, but I do attribute a lot of the change to being in a supportive school environment and even to karate. Whatever it is, I am so grateful, and so proud. Go, Gatito, go!
What a fantastic update! It is so great to document the good times and the hard ones, so you can acknowledge how far things have come. Go Gatito!
That’s so wonderful! We’ve had similar issues with A, and she’s still not at a place where she could perform in public. Yay Gatito!
Yay Gatito-great job!
Thank you for sharing this (I have only commented here once or twice). For the past several weeks I have been stressed out about my son’s preschool. He goes to daycare (and has since he was 14 weeks old) three days a week and preschool two days a week. I have reached the point where I physically dread dropping him off-I hear about how he does not want to take place in circle time or story time, how he refuses to do anything with the other kids, and how he will not potty train (he just turned three). When I pick him up in the afternoon he is having a wonderful time playing with the other kids and listening to his afternoon teacher, much more like the little boy that lives with me.
I read this post and the post from a year ago and it really hit home for me. Thank you-it helps me sort out my own thoughts.