Normalization

Today, Matthew's teacher told me in private that he was not particularly focused this morning and that she had asked him multiple times to choose a work.  After about the fourth time, he responded with a gruff, "I KNOW, that's WHAT I'm DOING!"  This is okay -- he is in a Montessori classroom, it's his first year, it's understood.

I didn't discuss it with him. 

Later in the day, I heard this conversation between David and Matthew:

David: What work did you do at school today, Matthew?
Matthew: Eh, I mostly just wandered around and didn't do any work.
David: You . . . wandered around?
Matthew: Yeah. Well, most of the time. Most of the time I just wandered around and stuff. But I did do one work!
David: What work did you do?
Matthew: It is something called "challenging work."