I'm incompetent, therefore your son has dyslexia

That about sums it up.

At fiston Premier's school it's an ongoing thing : his spelling is atrocious because he's got dyslexia. My son told me they tell every kid they are obviously not capable of making understand something he's got that then put pressure on parents for them to have him treated for it by an orthophoniste, at la sécu's expenses obviously. One of his mates got that 'diagnosis' the other day because he could not understand complex figures like 12.21. Duh !
Fiston Premier definitely has a problem with spelling. But all the mistakes he makes are with conjugating, des erreurs d'accord and he forgets like we all do that such and such a word requires two L and this other one only one, etc. What's that got to do with dyslexia you tell me ?!
The reason why he makes such mistake is no mystery : teachers don't teach any more the basics and reading books on a regular basis is not something that is mandatory at school any longer. I do make my son read. It's pretty easy. All you need to do is limit children's access to the telly, and other competition for books andof course provide for enough books they can read that their age. Forget about Camus, Zola, and the rest. Most of them will feel as connected to their stories as we might have gotten in our time to cavemen. Still my son does read. Not enough, by far, but he does. So I'mconfident things will get better. Just like they did with FIlle Deuxième whose spelling was just as atrocious for the very same reason as he and who writes pretty well now. It just takes them longer than it did for us because they simply don't get enough practice.

I'd already told his teacher last year I suggested she did her work before blaming it on my son's abilities and making the tax payer pay to compensate. This time she wrote it on his last term 'bulletin scolaire' for all his future schools and teachers to see, that she thinks my son has dyslexia and that she regrets deeply that we never got him treated.

So here is the letter I wrote back :
"Mesdames,


J’ai pris bonne note de la réitération de votre affirmation selon laquelle, de votre point de vue, mon fils Fiston Premier aurait besoin d’un bilan orthophonique.

Je vous rappelle ce que j’ai dit, par écrit, il y a un ou deux ans : un bilan orthophonique avait déjà été effectué voici plusieurs années. Il était très clair : Fiston Premiet n’avait PAS DE PROBLEME ORTHOPHONIQUE, ni au demeurant auditif (point également vérifié) ni ophtalmologique (également vérifié encore très récemment) ou autre. Mon fils, comme l’orthophoniste consulté me l’avait d’ailleurs affirmé de manière ferme, a en revanche bien un problème d’assimilation des règles orthographiques et plus encore de conjugaison. Incidemment, étant moi-même enseignante depuis 23 ans, je n’avais pu que concourir à ce diagnostic.

Aussi saurais-je gré à votre équipe pédagogique de ne pas mettre sur le compte de prétendus défauts intrinsèques chez mon enfant – ou au demeurant chez d’autres – ce qui est le fruit, pour une partie, d’insuffisances pédagogiques, qu’il serait à mon sens responsable et mature d’admettre. Comme je vous l’avais déjà dit, de mon côté, je veille à ce que Fiston Premier lise suffisamment de livres, lui fais faire régulièrement des dictées, tâche de lui inculquer encore et encore les règles de base de grammaire, veille au vocabulaire utilisé à la maison et limite au maximum l’exposition à la télévision (Internet ou d’autres jeux électroniques étant totalement interdit chez nous). Au demeurant la situation s’est sensiblement améliorée cette année, même si beaucoup reste à faire.
Je compte donc sur votre établissement pour faire également sa part de travail. Dans l’ensemble nous n’avons, pour le reste, que pu nous louer de ce qui est accompli à XXXX ainsi que de la bonne tenue de votre structure et des enfants. Mis à part le sentiment d’être stigmatisé en tant que malade mental (c’est ainsi, hélas, qu’un enfant de l’âge de Fiston Premier le traduit et croyez moi, c’est pour lui d’une grande violence), mon fils a été parfaitement heureux à XXX depuis deux ans.

Cependant et ceci est à mon sens essentiel, je vous demande de faire figurer le présent courrier en annexe des bulletins et du dossier de Fiston Premier afin d’éviter qu’au cours de sa scolarité future dans d’autres établissements ou avec d’autres enseignants, cela lui nuise durant de longues années.

Je vous prie de bien vouloir agréer, Mesdames, l’expression de ma sincère considération. "



For Pete's Bloody sake !

reading : regression and au pair

Jesus H Christ. I'm into one again.
Fiston Deuxième was reading close to perfect a fewweeks ago. But when children start reading, it really requires constant training else, as with languages, it can regress just as fast. I've been travelling quite a lot for work and Au Pair Number 7 was supposed to make him read in my absence. Guess what ? She hasn't. Not a single time. She made out she was taking over a few weeks ago and I stupidly trusted her.
When I took over I discovered he had regressed dramatically. He learnt in March with me and au pair 6 certain simplewords I distinctly remember like light, fight, or even work, worked, that he now finds difficult to read all over again. So basically we've wasted three months.
Not only that but whereas in March and April he was still enthusiastic with reading he now is bored and it's hard for me to catch him.
i'm bloody pissed off.

Of course this is not the only thing this au pair does not do any more. Whenever she goes out in the garden with the children, whereas before she would play with them, she now merely sit in a corner and read a book, turning her back on them.
This plus crazy security issues we've had with her (like she followed Fiston Troisième, who, remember, is only 2, inside the house with him carrying a bucket full of thick pieces of broken glass. When I asked her duh what the hell was she thinking her reply was : "well they"re inside the bucket!"

We also had a major allergic reaction with Fiston deuxième, who had had not one since 2007, because we are usually so careful. She let him eat galettes de riz he'd put in the grass in the garden :he's bloody allergic to grass !

Another time she waslooking at my two little ones playing in the...stairs ! Allthey toys were displayed there. How blooming dangerous is THAT?

Because I feared for my son's security I cancelled several trips to England to see Compagnon. I also continued taking Fiston Troisième with me to work, thus payinga baby sitter when I already have to pay for Au pair Septième.

As I was gradually getting more and more concerned with this I also made sure she would not take my sons to parks, places, etc.I had no such problemwith the other au pairs. I usually take themwith me around France when I travel for conferences. With her no way was I going to do that. Imagining her in the stress of Paris for instance, with my boys, forget it !

Ooh y a ballasch !

Yes y a ballasch !

And no I'm not speaking some mysterious language. Fiston troisième is though.
He's starting to speak. At long last - he's 27 months.
He does get "maman" right. He refuses to say Mummy. But then when I tell him "where's Mummy" he does point at me and says "Maman". So he does not really speak but can translate indeed.
Thing is you've got to have an inbred translater to realise that he indeed speaks. For instance he'll say "ya erk" pointing at a witch doll hanging in my bedroom (translation : "this witch is ugly as sin") and "ya beau" pointing at the other witch. Even though that translates as "this witch is beautiful" really she's just as môche as the other one.

So you need to train your ears.
Once you've crossed that bridge it's quite easy. He adds quite a lot of "sch" to his words. Must be the remote Portuguese blood on his Dad's side.
Thus he'llsay "y a ballasch". Well this, my dear friends means "there's a spider".
and there are quite a lot of spiders in mt house ladies and gents because I let them stay in providing they kill enough mosquitos. It worked wonders up till now but somehow yesterday we got eaten raw by a few of them. I'll have to have a word with the spîders. They're taking it too easy.
Meanwhile, naturally "y a bobosh"

You're silent now aren't you ?!

Another journey to work with Fiston Troisième.
On the way back he was even quieter than usual. Still when he said "oh bath !" (he's adamant rivers are baths and rejects any other denomination) a stupid woman who had been pulling a face the minute we got on the train said the usual French 'Chut!'
This time I was not in for a fight so I just said out loud : "Did you hear that son, another stupid idiot who never was a child ever and whose pension you'll be paying in the future"
Fiston Troisième and I spent an hour at the bar, 30minutes in the baby change closet where I fed him and put him to sleep and then back, for another hour where he slept. Like he was a major bother !
But where I got my revenge big time was when a group of teenagers got on board. 15 of them minimum. They put their silly music out loud, yelled at each other, giggled, walked past constantly, pushed a bag here a leg there. And that really made me laugh inwardly. Because guess what ? The stupid b... did not dare confront the 15 teenagers. It's so much easier to confront a 2 year old toddler isn't it ?
When we arrived I stared at her for about 30 seconds with a provocative grin on my face.
She knew exactly what it was about because she looked at her feet and left as fast as she could.

Cowards I'm telling you. These morons are nothing but cowards.

But of course they're African

Hi ladies and gents

I was in Pau a week ago for a soutenance d'habilitation à diriger des recherches.
The candidate's family was there. By family I mean his four children, aged 16, 12, around 10 and a one month old baby ! All present in the grande salle and none of them was any pb. The tiny little baby made a few little sounds, nothing more.

None of my colleagues found that odd that four children had been there, including a baby.
Of course the candidate and his family were of African heritage.
So it seems if you are African everyone has no problem with children been present for such a solemn event.
I was trying to imagine if the candidate and his family had been European, what the reaction would have been. I'm pretty sure it would have been radically different. But then I cannot imagine anyone even attempting to bring in a child let alone a baby.
It's sad really.

Still I felt triumphant. as I was telling one of my colleague : "I'm all for the colonization of the work place by babies and children"

Another Misery Guts

Here we are again folks
I'm really getting fed up with French people. Seriously. No offense to you all nice ladies and gents reading me yeah, but honestly and truly, what is it with these misery guts and children ? Why do people here think children should shut up and basically not be children in the first place ? Who the hell do they think they are ? Weren't they stupid little sods themselves years ago ?

As I promised here a few weeks ago I would not tolerate any more of that cr...without reacting in a seriously bad way.
Monday I go to work with my little one. Tuesday i'm back. We're inside these stupid double decker trains where nothing, absolutely nothing has been thought for children. I mean female toilets are on the first floor. Ground floor obviously is for blokes since their loo is down there. So imagine the scene if you've been attributed a ground seat and you have a baby or toddler, trying to escalate the stairs when the train is shaking like mad, which it is on the Paris-Nantes line. How bloomin' dangerous is THAT ? Besides there aren't platforms with strapontins for people to take phonecalls and parents to make their children spend energy like on ordinary trains. So you're basically trapped in your compartment.

But this time the ass... who started on us did it even before the train had left Paris! We'd been seated four about ten minutes. Fiston Troisième was indeed talking a little loud, exclaiming happily about trains. He gets very excited when he sees lots of trains around him. Of course there's plenty in a station. Suddenly from the back of the coach someone says "CHUTTTTTTTTTT!" loudly and rudely. Obviously it's aimed at my toddler.
Well my mouth shouts before my brain gets a chance to think I SHOUT very loudly and nastilly "OI! YOU SHUT UP YOURSELF YOU BITCH!" - in English because when I'm pissed off it comes out in English. Besides it's my way of insulting them even more, like I'm not going to speak your language you cows.
There are a few men closer to me and they all look at me with total surprise. They saw a very pale little blonde, with a crippled leg and a tiny toddler. And there she is a total monster ready to cut someone's throat.
Yeah well after that I get total silence from the whole compartment. No one dares utter a word.
Of course Fiston Troisième behaves beautifullly. Does not cry a single time, which you would expect from any normal toddler locked in for two hours inside a train. So what is wrong with people in this blooming country I'm sorry to have to ask again and again.
One thing is for sure, when they get targeted, yelled at, they back out like the pathetic cowards they are. It's actually funny. Still... I'm getting sick of them all.

Accents

Hi all!

Fiston Deuxième's accent is a hilarious subject.

He always had a mixed French and rather snob accent (my influence I'm afraid and also Thomas the tank engine's DVDs). The French intonation, his Dad and Grandma absolutely adore. The snobbish accent, Fiston I and Fille II get rather exasperated with and mimic him "bla dih blah" they go.

But over the last month and so we've had Fille au Pair number 7 who comes from Estonia. She has no French and her English is pretty good. Except for an atrocious Estonian accent. Guess what ? Fiston II has caught that accent. I suppose it's contagious. So now he's got a snobby-franco-estonian accent ! Not a great combination I can tell you that. I try and correct him as much as I can and I'm praying for it to go when she does... in three months.

The funny thing is when he speaks French he now has English intonations too.

I wonder what it's going to be like in the future.