..." The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades "

Lotte is doing very well at school. She enjoys going there, staying there. Dropping her off does not require any more crying from her side. She happily goes in by herself.... "Bye-bye mummy.!" to indicate that she goes into the classroom. Progress!

Something that was clear from the beginning is that she is treating school as a totally new phase. She is taking liberties that she wouldn't have 2 months ago.. all because " .. she's a big girl now.. ".
For us it's sometimes a problem drawing the line. We want to let her take more control, but she didn't "grow" as much as she thinks.
So, we are steering that new feeling of self-confidence carefully, making sure it is not bruised.
But we see that she uses it herself in order to cope with situations.
Like when the children were called to the stage on the first day. (See earlier post.) With all the children up there without parents, she took that feeling of self confidence and went up the stage to be with the other children. Something she would not have done before, but that day, SHE made it happen! WOW!.

She loves her teachers (yes... multiple.. life is good in Norway.), getting to know the children, playing with them.... just as it should be.

Obviously there are indications that there is still much to do.
Copying the other children is a very obvious one. It's inevitable, but also a good indicator that she does not understand everything. Important for us and the teachers to realize that, and take action when needed.

We also warned the teachers that answering correctly to a question does not mean Lotte understood the question. Let's be realistic... guess what the correct answer is to a question that ends with "... don't you think so..?" or "... you shouldn't do that, should you.?".
Lotte - and I'm sure many other children - will sometime just answer the question in the way that is expected, just to be done with it.
"No need to understand, just give the right answer." is sometimes the motto... ;-)

She is getting better with the songs that are sung at the start of the day. Repetition is the key word of course, and it is obvious that Lotte needs to hear it more often that the other kids. But fortunately, the same songs are still being sung at the beginning of the day. Changing to another song would mean Lotte would have to start again from scratch. But actually, that's part of life. We cannot expect that the children sing the same song for 6 weeks until Lotte can do it as well. That's up to us, to sing that song at home.

In a way, being Dutch at home and Norwegian outside reduces the amount of Norwegian children-songs sung by us. Many we don't know - we used the Dutch ones, but we realize that we need to speak more Norwegian with Lotte at home. When she's doing homework, it's better at times to use Norwegian. It's good to have Lotte connect Norwegian with school and Dutch with home.

But it's very important that people around her that look at her with the right focus, report the positive AND the negative, and act accordingly. That's one of the most important things to ensure the best possible outcome.
And the school is totally committed to that. Having that support is very, very important and we feel blessed with this.