I have to say just how incredibly proud of the Bear I am. He’s just turned six, and except for bad days, he is so exceptionally mature for his age. I was born an “old soul,” but he’s a kid’s kid, so it’s easy for me, from my perspective, to forget sometimes just what a great kid he is. So this post is a huge brag-fest.

-He almost never meets anyone he can’t get along with. He negotiates, mediates, goes along, persuades, cajoles, and otherwise makes things work.

-I don’t have to worry about him when he plays with others. In a four-hour period, I might tell him once to be more gentle or calm or to share something in a different way. Max. When the kids are playing in another room and one screams and five other parents leap to their feet to make sure their kid wasn’t the one who did something to cause it, I don’t have to stand up anymore because he’s never the guilty party. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t hit. He doesn’t even cheat his turn or pick stupid, pointless “kid” arguments. He goal is harmony among the people he’s playing with, and he makes it happen. In fact, there are rarely problems in the area where he’s playing because he diffuses situations between other kids.

-I can take him almost anywhere. The opera, the theater, a nice restaurant, a long car trip–he almost always behaves. Now, he might be singing at the top of his lungs in the car :-), but he’s appropriate to the situation. (He loves operas. I take him to all kinds of things to see what “sticks,” and opera is his #1 hit. His very favorite is The Magic Flute. Next is Hansel und Gretel. Then is Amahl and the Night Visitors.)

-He’s generally polite and respectful. He forgets in impatience and excitement, but he really wants to be as polite as he can, and it shows. Every time we go to an event or have someone over or have some kind of lesson, people tell me what a great kid he is. I agree.

-He works his tail end off to the extent of his abilities. The autism/ADD/sensory processing disorder/dyslexia/CAPD complex of conditions runs in my family. He dodged any hint of autism or SPD, but he got a medium dose of CAPD and ADD and a heavy one of dyslexia, and yet this kid works hard to overcome it. He sets his own timer in math to keep himself on task. He’s stretched his memory to phenomenal limits to compensate for his CAPD. (I had him formally evaluated this summer, and there was a 5-standard deviation difference between his normal performance on most tasks and his performance in his weakest areas. Seriously, FIVE standard deviations!) When he’s doing well, I can simply give him his written assignments, and he comes to me when they’re done. Yep, in Kindergarten, and he’s ADD enough that he could not learn in a normal classroom setting with medication. (No way am I medicating a 6-year-old at home, though!) He’s also caught the love of reading after an awful lot of hard work to get him fluent. Because of the nature of his dyslexia, he could test at a 5th grade level and read 6th grade level books before he could read 2nd-grade texts at an appropriate speed and fluency. Now, he’s reading 4th grade books independently. He read 20 books in January alone! He’s not at the maturity level I’m hoping for him here. I’d like to see him working with more speed and diligence. But he’s pretty amazing for any 6-year-old, never mind one with issues that make it harder.

-When you take his ADD and CAPD into account, his behavior is even more impressive. Behavior, because of lack of impulsiveness control, tends to be a big problem with kids with ADD. It’s been a long, hard row to hoe from where we started. A few years ago, I was complaining bitterly about parents who don’t hold their kids to high standards since the Bear consistently was the third worst kid (wiggly and spacey instead of listening) in any group because the bad behavior of the very worst distracted him so. It is one thing to ask a kid with ADD to not misbehave. It’s another to ask him to behave *better* than other kids. But now, that’s exactly what he does–most of the time, at least! He’s still never the worst kid, but now he’s often one of the best at any given moment. Totally awesome, and the result on lots of hard work on his part.

-The strides he’s made this year in swimming really impress me, as well. He took his first swim lesson this summer, when he was afraid to put his head underwater. But gamely, he persevered. He passed Red Cross Level I in one go, II in one go, and now III after two goes. He’s in IV, the old Advanced Beginner, and is actually almost ready for V, Intermediate. I know that because of a blooper on my part. We’d been doing Tues/Thurs lessons all along, except that now he’s in a level that has so few kids in it for his age group that it only has three times total instead of 17 for Level II and 14 for Level III. All of these are Mon/Wed. (UGH!) I had a brain fart and took him on Tues, accidentally missing the Mon class. By now, most of the swim teachers know us, so I asked if one of the other classes didn’t have a hole he could slip into. The Level V class, which only meets Tues/Thurs, only had one child enrolled, and the teacher asked if he could swim a 25-yard lap. “Sure!” I said. That’s the most he’d swum at a go before, but he’s done it and wasn’t tired at the end. So she got him in the water and and had him doing laps–alternately with a kickboard practicing rotary breathing and with freestyle. And the kid swam for 30 minutes straight! He gave it every ounce he had, even when his freestyle devolved into a pathetic semi-dog paddle because he didn’t have the strength to get his elbow out of the water any more. All heart, that kid. The instructor said he was right on the edge of Level V already, so one session of level IV, and he’s there. This thrills me to no end because after he graduates from Level V (by summer????), he’ll be swim team level, which means that the cost will drop to a bit more than a third of what it is for lessons. Wooohooo!

-He makes his own cereal and hot dogs. He hangs his own clothes. He cleans his room and the playroom. Sometimes, he even cleans them without my asking. We’re working on combing hair and brushing teeth without being asked, though, and I’ll do bed-making at some point….

-And finally, he’s the best big brother I’ve ever heard of. I’m rather ashamed at my and my brother’s relationship in comparison, and we actually bump along pretty well. He adores his sister–absolutely dotes on her and spoils her rotten. He declares to anyone who will listen that she’s the prettiest and sweetest and smartest and strongest baby int he world. (The very last one might actually be right! 8-0 ) He had NEVER shown the least bit of jealousy, not even when her eating has prevented me from doing something he needed–like feed him, too! He reads to her, sings to her, holds her, plays with her, gets more excited than we do over her new abilities. He doesn’t find her boring in the least, not even when she’s asleep, because she’s HIS little sister. I would simply not have believed such a relationship among siblings of such ages in a book, but it’s happening before my eyes. It makes me miss my little sea monkeys that much more–how happy he would have been to have at least one more, in between him and Stinky! It’s not just me who missed holding them in my arms. He would be thrilled to be in the middle of a huge passel of children.

He does things that drive me crazy, of course. (”What is there to eat?” is a favorite.) But more and more, I’ve been impressed with how much I can depend on him to apply himself to being good and working hard and getting along. I can say that some of it’s parenting, sure. But some of it is just plain him and his sweet-yet-stubborn disposition. Stinky? I’m not so sure that’s she’s going to be quite so sweet.