At our last parent/teacher meeting, Addison’s teacher had lots of good things to say (I could gush here but I won’t b/c it makes me a little crazy when I hear other parents go on and on about how their child is the next Bill Gates when all I can think is “are we talking about the same kid?”  Blegh, I won’t do that to you).  Then Ms. 2nd Grade got that concerned look in her eyes.  None of her concerns were surprising to us but his teacher is concerned that next year (the “state testing year”) may be a struggle when he has to finish timed tests that result in a reflection in our school’s performance on a state level.  State regulations have to be met, and children who don’t test well are at a disadvantage.  Thanks a lot “no child left behind” for boxing our teachers into teaching to the test.

Anyhoo – we talked about Sensory Processing Disorder and agreed that we would talk to our Pediatrician and Occupational Therapist.  A visit to the Pediatrician was interesting…a healthy check up but still the concerned look on her face.  While we don’t think he as ADD or ADHD the Pediatrician would like to explore that avenue (okay, I’ll go with the “rule it out” school of thought) so we came home with a lengthy questionnaire to fill out.  A couple of the questions left us scratching our heads.  The rating scale was 0=Not true at all, 1= Just a little true, 2= Pretty much true, 3= Very much true

Is your child perfect in every way?

Does your child behave like an angel?

We honestly didn’t know how to answer these two questions.  Is there a child anywhere in the world that is perfect in every way?  What child acts like an angle all the time?  If I answer “not true at all” then it makes it seem like my child is a brat but if I answer anything other than “not true” it makes me seem a little delusional regarding my child’s behavior.  Just a little perfect?  That doesn’t seem to make much sense either.  I mean, seriously, if any parent thinks that their child acts like an angel or is perfect in every way then the parents have a problem, not the kid.  Parents who think their child can do no wrong are the parents who have no idea that their kid is the one running around the playground bonking all the smaller kids on the head, pulling the cat’s tail and acting like a maniac but can cry at the drop of a hat when their mom comes around the corner.  Oh, please.  I can not think of one single kid that is a perfect angel.  Can you?  Sure, Harry is pretty dern cute and a sweetie but he’s still a 3 year old and can act like one when he wants to.

Are there parents out there who would answer “yes” to either of these questions?  Are there kids out there who are perfect or angels?  Am I missing something?  Dear Husband and I came to the conclusion that the questions were put there to test the parents to see how in touch or out of touch they were with their child.  It must be a trick question so we left it blank.  However, I must admit that I included a separate sheet with an explanation as to why we left 4 (there were two other questions that didn’t make any sense to us) of the questions blank.  Something in my personality won’t let me turn this in without an explanation of my answers.  Which is interesting because I can remember taking standardized tests in high school and filling in ACDC as the answers for the heck of it.  Funny how parenthood can alter your sense of responsibility.  Something about this questionnaire made me feel like we as parents were being graded just as much as our child.  I also must admit that part of my written explanation to the Dr. was “this is a strange question“.

Is it presumptuous of me to question the questions?  Probably, but seriously, perfect in every way?!  Only Mary Poppins get’s that character trait.  Come on people, work with me here.