Eight is great!

Gabriel is a little below average with his verbal skills but is doing great in reading. Since second grade, Gabriel has been able to sound out almost any word, and now only occasionally gets stuck when reading aloud. His scores from the psychologist’s report were in the average to above average range in word reading, reading fluency, phonological awareness and spelling. Gabriel's scores on the Verbal portion of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were: Information (8), Vocabulary (8), Similarities (7), and Comprehension (7). So we definitely still have some progress to make! Gabriel is doing reasonably well in 3rd grade math from what I can see, but he doesn't seem to like math all that much. He seems to like the hands on science experiments most of all. I think his disinterest is the reason for his low scores. Gabriel's scores on the math concepts and math application problems were below average, and the math computation score was slightly below average. Gabriel really enjoys drawing and designing things like houses and cars and he loves to work with his hands building models or things out of clay or paper mache. Gabriel's scores in spatial skills were above average. Gabriel’s affinity towards music has surprised us! He is improving in his musical skills every day. Gabriel has been taking piano lessons for two years and reads and plays well by ear. He also sings in a choir. We are so proud! Now he wants to take part in the instrumental music program at the school and we recently got him a saxophone. Gabriel has enjoyed soccer and baseball over the past two seasons, and wants to continue in both. He has always been a very active child and since he started playing organized sports we have even seen a decrease in the amount of time that Gabriel is sick.

When Gabriel was six he began to classify activities as “boy” and “girl” things. He would often play with boys only during recesses at school. While a popular child in his class, he didn’t interact with girls his age very much. He loved his little sister and spending time with her but she was still too young to actively play with him. This was pretty common at his age. He loved to imitate his father and spend time with him as much as he could, which we greatly supported, while also encouraging him to try out many different kinds of activities, not just “boy” things. At age 8, Gabriel still plays mainly with other boys but he is much more tolerant of girls than his friends. I think that this is because of our encouragement to follow his interest wherever it goes. We believe that whatever his interests are, we will support him. He is a great big brother to his little sister but still prefers “boy” activities. This is well in line with typical American attitudes and we believe that this is a result of his innate personality as well as his environment. We let Gabriel choose whatever interests suit him as well as activities that we believe will be beneficial to him in the future. He is a very active child so sports were an obvious conclusion and when he started to show an interest in music we encouraged him to follow his passion. We tend to site with the typical attitude that males should be more masculine but if that is not the case with him we let him know that we will love him regardless of his choices. This is because of our own background. My husband and I both have very liberal and supportive families that allowed us to follow whatever interested us as children.

If Gabriel has been raised by someone with a different socioeconomic or cultural background he may have much lower scores in reading, musical ability, and possible behavior problems. When Gabriel was younger his reading scores were way below average and if he had been raised by a family that didn’t place so much emphasis on reading or that didn’t have the money to supply Gabriel will lots of diverse reading materials he may not be doing as well as he is doing now. He really enjoys reading now and we attribute that to our influence. He also shows great skill in music and if he had been raised by a family that didn’t believe that music was an important skill or that didn’t have the extra income to buy Gabriel an instrument, his musical talents may never have been developed. Also, Gabriel is a very active child with a tendency toward physical activity and had he not been raised by a family with very structured rules that gave him an outlet for his energy, he may have been diagnosed with ADD or at least developed a problem with his impulsivity. If he had been raised by a family in poverty he may not have received the nutrition required to sustain such an active child. If Gabriel wasn’t exercising so regularly, he may have become sick more often and possibly obese as time went on.