The diary of Dad

It’s commonly accepted that kids go to school to learn. It’s a gradual process where children get brighter every day and come out years later as semi functioning human beings. Simple right?

Robbie is obviously doing things differently. Every day we pick him up from his reception class and ask what he has been up to at school and each day the reply is the same, “don’t know.”

So we then ask what he has had for lunch, “don’t know.” He then spends the rest of the journey home asking if he can play video games when he gets in and telling us everything he has ever achieved in the worlds of Super Mario kart and Rocket League. These are surely not the actions of a kid getting smarter every day.

Joking aside, due to the lack of information that Robbie is willing to give us regarding his school it really is tough for us as parents to know how well he is developing and whether he is with the learning pace of other kids. As the youngest member of the year group, I both expected and feared that he may spend some of his early school years a little bit behind.

Being the amazing parents that we are, we always ensure that Robbie does at least a few minutes of reading before spending the rest of his existence staring at a screen playing video games. He is always a little reluctant to get started but actually flies through the school books he is given. We know that the capability is there but have serious doubts over how he applies this at school. Does he just use the “don’t know’ line to his teachers or is it just his parents that Robbie loves to infuriate?

We still remember a time at nursery where his key teacher had told us of how he had managed to get every single question asked wrong in a session, even though we all knew that he had the answers. It turned out he was just playing a little opposites game in his head of course and deliberately making everyone’s life difficult. No idea where he gets that from.

With that in mind, it was no surprise yesterday when Sarah had the dreaded tap on the shoulder for a word with Robbie’s teacher when collecting him from school yesterday.

The teacher informed her that Robbie had been selected to go on a special assessment course for his reading at which point Robbie came flying through the school doors and caused the usual level of chaos and distraction that he does to ensure the details of the course were completely lost in the carnage.

So his Mum and I spent yesterday evening discussing how to improve his reading and whether we need to look at changing our homework routine up a little to ensure that he does not fall behind. We know the brains are there but something must be going wrong to be sent on a special learning course.

This morning Sarah done things the right way round. She sent Robbie into the school and then spoke to the teacher outside to seek a bit of clarity on the lost details of yesterday. It turns out that Robbie is on an reading excellence assessment as he appears to be ahead of the usual level at his age. Though we know little about it so far, the teacher has told us that it is very rare for kids of Robbie’s age to be on this course but he really is an exceptional reader! Sorry for doubting you kiddo.

To sum it up, I have an incredibly bright Son who has no idea what he did five minutes ago and no wish in life to do anything but play computer games. Great.

Seriously though, I am jus so proud of Robbie and how he has taken school life in his stride. I’m not one to boast and I know that he is far from the perfect child but my Son is without doubt the smartest moron I know!