Yesterday when I went to pick Lucas, his teacher called me into the class and asked for a meeting with both parents. Oh my Gawwwdddddddd!!!! Here we go again!!!!! My heart dropped to my Campers and I felt like crying immediately. She said she wanted to discuss some important matters about Lucas - mainly his eating (or non-eating) habits, his french language and he hit one of his pals in school today.
When I got home I immediately picked up the phone and told Fred and all night we were stressing about the meeting.
That night I was so stressed, my gastric started - the pain was so bad, I could not sleep and got up at midnight, looking for something to relief the pain. But I had no meds on hand, so I made do with pieces of toast and warm honey. Thank God, by 2.30 am, the pain subsided and I managed to get some sleep until Lucas woke me up at 5 am.
By noon, I'd broken out in hives.
At 4.30 pm, I was nauseous and a killer headache started.
I walked slowly to the school, like a prisoner walking the green mile to his execution.
On the upside , it was a wonderfully sunny day, almost like summer - it was 30 degrees and the sun was shining brightly.
Maybe its because of such a beautiful day that the teacher was surprisingly gentle with us. She did tell me, "please - don't cry ok?"
No, I wasn't about to cry - I was ready to talk out all the issues and see what I could do to improve with Lucas.
The teacher surprised me by telling me that she is extremely worried that Lucas is not eating in the canteen - apparently he has stopped eating, and refuses to even try the food. He acts up in the canteen, throwing cutleries, stamping feet witha resounding "no" when he is given food. Noelle (the teacher) said that his diet is totally not healthy and that he is existing the whole day on bread, water and crackers and he gets tired because he is not eating well.
I tell her we have that same problem at home - Lucas now only eats chicken nuggets, steak hache, meatballs or fish fingers. He rejects even rice and pasta now. No fruits or veges. He does drink a lot of water to fill his tummy. And he drinks a lot of milk.
For the past week, I have substituted his chocolate biscuits with high fibre crackers. And he doesn't get anymore ice cream. Noelle asked me to take out all things chocolate from Lucas' diet from now on.
We have also started serving Lucas the same food as Fred & I, and he sits at the table even though he doesn't want to eat the food. We all have dessert together after we finish (Lucas' meal is untouched for the past 2 nights). Dessert = vanilla yoghurt.
The past 2 nights Lucas has been going to bed on an empty tummy - this was advised by the paedy. Give him his dinner, if he doesn't eat it, tant pis. Don't give him anything else. So that's what we've been doing.
Noelle also insists that Fred speaks French to Lucas all the time now - which is fair. Fred does tend to revert back to English. But for her to say that my Lucas is not speaking french is not fair. Just this morning, he touched the lamp post outside the school and surprised me by saying "c'est froid!"
What she doesn't realize is that Lucas has only been exposed to french the past 7 months he's been in school. At home, we speak english. So in actual fact, I think he has been doing tremendously well in the recent months. He fully understands what is being said to him in french (Noelle confirms this) but for him to speak it, he sometimes has problems finding the words to express himself and make himself understood, which makes him utterly frustrated and, not knowing how to handle his own frustrations, he takes it out on his friend by hitting. Am I making excuses for Lucas' behavior? No, this is what we observed. When he is frustrated he gets upset. Especially when he is trying to say something and I don't understand him, he gets upset and raises his hand.
Anyway I am just happy that the meeting is over and done with. I am pleased that Lucas has a teacher who cares so much. He is truly blessed. Now, if only we can get him to start eating and trying new food...
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As parents , we spoke vietnamese with our 2 boys when they were young ( now they are more than 25 ) and I am advicing you not to give up speaking english with him if you don't want him to forget this language. Besides, he has way too much time left to speak french now and later at school or with his friends . My boys speak very bad vietnamese now and they regret it a lot . fortunately , i' ve taught them how to read so I think they will managed with what little they had if one day they travel in Viêtnam .
ReplyDeleteDon't let the teacher scare you as she does . I'd rather say She was anxious for her performance . but be confident to your son . Take my word for granted . I have had the same experience as you years ago .I am living in France and my boys are doing very well for their living .
NL
Allo Roni,
ReplyDeleteI am glad you share this post, I am a Malaysian married to a Frenchman and i face the same situation with my girl aged 3.5 years old. She communicates in her jibberish language with us and this particularly worries my parents who are chinese+malay , and my inlaws, who live in Nancy, France...my husband and i speak mostly in English and uptil now we are confused whether we should start speaking with our toddler in french language. I have been trying to purchase this book called The Multilingual Mind, unfortunately none is available in Malaysia. I will soon order it via amazon.com.If you have any good references on how to raise children from mixed-parentage i hope you will be kind to share with me. Merci beaucoup. My email is coquelicot@niftycooking.com
i'm sure all you have to do is keep at it. i guess it could be helpful to have one staple person speaking only french to him (so either mom or dad) but speak english in a general setting... d'you understand what i mean?
ReplyDeletefor instance: if mommy is speaking only to lucas, then she should speak purely french but out in public or when mom, dad & lucas are all sitting together; speak english.
well, that's how i became fluent in my mothertongue dialect at least. because my grandparents only communicated using that, i had to become as fluent as possible with the dialect. and because i lived with my grandparents, the proficiency in fluency improved leaps and bounds (as they made it a point to hold conversation with me as often as possible).
if the one parent speaking the language thing doesn't help then maybe you should have "speak french day" in your household where you guys speak purely french on specific days from morning till night.
just suggestions i'm throwing in here.
good luck (: