Almost fired at age 7

This afternoon, TT almost got fired by his reading tutor. Seriously. I’m not kidding. His refusal to sound out words that he was writing and to cooperate with instructions landed him as recipient of an honest to goodness lecture and ultimatum.

When the tutor first paused and then said, “Do you want to be here, TT?” I thought, “Oh this should be good…” I thought maybe the teacher was doing some sort of Jedi-reading-tutor-mind- game and knew what he was doing. As the words and discussion continued, I began to wonder and to worry that TT was going to be fired. Fired at 7 years old. What a resume.

The tutor led up to the ultimatum, “Either work with me or let’s be done with this. You’re not doing the homework, you’re not cooperating with my instructions. Let’s just be honest,” he said. “You need to do what I ask and you need to want to be here or otherwise, why bother?” I began to think, “This is really not good.” And inside, I was screaming, “NO! Don’t give him an ultimatum. He’ll only answer back with threats! We’ve tried this at home – it doesn’t work! STOP!!!"

Then the teacher asked TT why he didn’t like reading and wouldn’t accept “because” as an answer. The tutor began to answer the question himself in a creative way, “I’ll bet that sometime when you were first learning to read, somebody, maybe even a teacher, made fun of your reading and you decided you weren’t going to do it anymore…I’ll bet some other student giggled at the way you said a word or made fun of your reading so you made your mind up that ;you just didn’t need to learn to read. But the truth is, almost any job you want to do when you grow up will need you to be a good reader. And when you work with me, you can be a good reader. I know how to help you and I want to help you, but only if you work with me.” In those moments of truth, something happened. Somewhere between the litany of truisms about TT’s lack of work ethic and the tutor’s other words about how lucky TT really is because he actually understands the work and comprehends the assignments very quickly when he applies himself, something clicked.

The teacher reiterated that TT was very, very smart – smarter than most kids his age – and that his vision problem, which is getting so much better, is what caused the problem. Even if someone ever called him stupid or even if TT himself thought he was stupid, we all knew it wasn’t true. TT is a very intelligent, smart kid with eyes that don’t work the way they should. Suddenly, TT sat a little taller.

A few minutes later, he was actually smiling and laughing as he read Owl at Home. He was smiling even as his feet were wrapping all over the chair legs as a sign of his great anxiety. He was reading, truly, better than we had ever heard him read before. And he was enjoying it!

I can only pray that a permanent effect continues to be shown. Even so, he glimpsed the truth – the good, the bad, and the painful honest truth. For a turnaround moment in time, TT understood that he is a brilliant boy full of potential if only he trusts those who care about him.

As we got in the van, after the end of reading therapy, an hour plus break at Burger King playland and then a stint with the vision therapist (that went great, thank God!), I said, "I'm really glad you are in such a good mood and had such a good session with Laura (the vision therapist)." TT answered, "Yeah, me too. You know, Mom, when Mr. E got so frustrated with me, at first I thought, 'I don't want to work with him anymore.' but then I did. I don't know how it changed, but it did."