Report card day. Alex (my fifth-grader) always does well and I'm never exactly sure how to respond. I don't want him to feel, on the one hand, that I take his efforts for granted; I worry, on the other, about making too much of a fuss. Will he start to feel like I prize the As more than all the other good things about him? I said something along those lines to him after we had talked it over. He said, "I wish you'd make a little more of a fuss."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. Emmett's dad told him if he got all As he'd get--
[wait for it]
[I can't even believe this is true but Alex swears it's so]
--an iPhone."
Next to which, I suppose, a pat on the back and a brisk "well done" might seem rather minimalist.
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