School stuff

Liam had a minor incident at school this week, however it turned into a huge emotional incident with him not speaking, eating or talking until the next day. He refused dinner, and breakfast, and wouldnt speak to me. We had an intervention with our dear friend Ling. After a phone call to her, he was able to explain himself, which he was unable to do with me. He was very frustrated.

One of the things we are very mindful of, having adopted an older child, is that some behaviors can follow him from the orphanage. We dont know what his life there was like, except that he went to a school room, and he had 25 kids in his dorm room.

Liam had an incident (very minor) and I was trying to find out what happened but Liam saw through my line of questioning. Apparently it had been straightened out at school, and he feared that he'd be getting into trouble at home for something that was already taken care of. There was no amount of discussion I could have had to assure him that he was not in trouble, but as a parent, I want to make sure that any negative behavior is not repeated and gets discussed quickly and fully.

He understood what he did wrong, after he spoke to Ling, I understood that he was bored, frustrated and impulsive because of the language barrier.

On a funny note, when I asked him why he didnt mind that his other teachers didnt speak chinese, but cares that this particular teacher did not, he told me he LOVES his other teachers. In time,I think he will love this particular teacher too. He understands, after discussing, that it's hard for his teachers too. They would love to be able to speak with him in Chinese, just as he would like to speak to them in English and he needs to have some patience. Before he hung up, Ling asked if there were any issues or feelings against this particular teacher, and he proudly said "no, he's my ponyo"!

Hoping that he pays attention in his new ponyo's class.

I have known my son for a little over two months now. I happen to think he's an awesome kid. We are working hard to keep it that way. I just hope these shutdowns when he thinks he might be in trouble end soon. Poor Ling is my "on call" ayi for Liam whenever this happens. He's very hard on himself.

During our standoff this week, he was writing me notes that were heartbreaking. I was having Brit read them, but then he started writing notes that started with "older sister, do not read this" which left me unable to know what his notes said. I made the mistake of responding to his notes with a note to him written in english which is when he went to his room and shut the door. I know that he could not read what I wrote, but I think the whole language barrier became very evident to him and he just got frustrated.