A Terrible Parent

At Andy's school, all the Pre-Kers were tested for Kindergarten readiness. They sent home a parent evaluation of your child, which I dutifully filled out. Questions ranged from "Does your child use the toilet?" to "Does your child have temper tantrums?" to "Can your child button a shirt?" And lots in between. Your scoring choices were "Always", "Most of the time", "Sometimes", and "Never".

So I sent back the evaluation and about a week later, the school evaluation came in the mail. I'm happy to report that Andy is "OK" according to the standardized evaluations. But for the life of me I couldn't understand what the report was saying. Does "OK" mean "just okay" or does it mean "pretty darn good" or does it mean "your kid needs work"? There was no map legend for the evaluation. So I turned it over to Kevin.

Who promptly figured it out and showed me that Andy scored a 99% on language and 96% on concepts, according to the school evaluation. BUT based on my home evaluation, my kid scored a 44%.

"What?!?" I exclaimed.

"It looks like you totally slammed him at home." Kevin replies with a smirk.

Here's the kicker. I DIDN'T slam him. I was honest, however. Yes, he still throws temper tantrums. So I marked "sometimes". Can he button shirts? "Most of the time". Does he do what he's told? "Most of the time." But I never circled any of the "Nevers" because that's an absolute and my kid is NOT an absolute. AND there were lots of "always", such as using the toilet.

So either 66% of Pre-K kids are absolute perfection at home or their parents are flat out lying. So who is the worse parent? Me, because I don't see my kid as perfect or them because they do? Sheesh. You just can't win.