I have thought long and hard about this post….I have read some of the other bloggers posts and feel bad about what I am about to say………we did not have a lot of struggles when we got home. Maybe because our kids were 4 and 8 when we got home. Don’t get me wrong, there were/are obstacles just nothing that we were not expecting.
~Of course the language barrier was the biggest, but I believe that the kids wanted to impress us so much that they worked really hard on understanding what we were asking of them.
~We did have some hitting of ourselves. We believe that was their way to get one on one attention. This went away rather quickly.
~We had difficulty getting the kids to apologize and/or admit if they did something they were not suppose to. We think that they were worried that if they admitted they did something they would get into more trouble. This is something that we are still dealing with to this day.
~Kristina’s medical stated she had a convergent squint – well we got her glasses within two weeks of being home and now you could never tell there was a problem. She really wants to get contacts and the next trip to the eye doctor we will talk to them about it. (Mom and big brother both wear contacts)
~She also was labeled a “bed wetter” at the Children’s Home. I think we went thru maybe a two week time period that this happened. She learned very quickly that it was okay to get up during the night if she needed to. She has told us numerous times that once she was in bed at the Children’s Home she was not allowed to get out no matter what.
~John’s medical stated that he had flat feet and a little bow leggedness (sp?) but it does not hinder him whatsoever.
Our struggles have been more lately, then when the kids first got home. School has been a struggle for the kids.
~Kristina has a tough time with math. Her reading is coming along very well. As far as the math is going, one day she does great, the next she doesn’t remember any of it. Is it because she has missed so much or is it that she doesn’t care? Not really sure – but we are plugging along. It gets very frustrating but we are hoping that it gets better.
~John was having troubles opening up to his teachers. Kenny & I thought he was doing great – learning so many new things until we got a call from his teacher…..”you may want to think of holding him back and having him do kindergarten over again next year.” (The school where the kids go, kindergarten is only a half day but next year it will be a full day.) John would not do things for the teachers. He would say all the letters, the sounds, the sight words, the numbers and even read to us but he WOULD NOT do it for his teachers. It took him about six months to actually open up to them. We are not sure what happened but all of a sudden we got a note from the teacher that John read to her that day and did an excellent job. So he is moving on to the first grade for the next school year. We had other issues with the school too. His music, art, and gym teachers were worried about him because he did not want to get involved with the activities. I just told them to let him observe for a while and then he would get involved when he was ready, not when they wanted him to be ready. He still won’t sing and dance but that’s okay – maybe that will be something he will never want to do. He loves sports but maybe doesn’t want to play them.
~Both kids are seeing a tutor over the summer, Kristina two days a week and John once a week. We are hoping this helps both of them to get better acquainted with the new things that will be presented in school next year.
~We have been told that John will get to the correct reading grade level before Kristina does and we believe that to be true. He is getting all the ground work since he started school in kindergarten, whereas Kristina has only had half of first grade and all of second grade, but we are sure she can do it. She enjoys reading and we just have to remind her that practice makes perfect!
