A lesson learned

Greg and I have been trying to make a concerted effort to give David more moments of undivided attention.  So today after preschool, I asked him how it was, if he played inside or outside, and if they talked about the letter C.  He was his usual happy self, and the school day seemed to have gone well.  Thinking my duty was done, I immediately turned on the radio.  But then I thought better of it, switched it off, and again began talking to him about school.  I tried to be more thoughtful in my questions and responses.  Lo and behold, this is what I learned, or at least what I was able to piece together:

They played with castles today.  David wanted to play with the pink and white castle, and a conflict ensued.  David was "really mad" and hit a boy.  He had to sit on the time out chair, and he had a hard time staying on the time out chair.  The time out chair is orange.  

Had I not taken the time to have a real conversation I never would have known what happened.  The teacher has told me that the adjustment to preschool can be tough for these little three-year-olds (i.e. there is a lot of "misbehaving" as the children learn how things work), so his teachers probably didn't think a whole lot of the incident.  It wasn't an unusual behavior for a three-year-old.  But for David it was!  He may not sit still or follow directions, but he very, very rarely hits.  I'm so glad he told me what happened so we could talk about it!  And I'm so glad I took the time to dig beneath his superficial responses to my cursory questions.

I think I will need to remember this in the future.