Hey all!!
Hoping I could get an opinion or two.

My son is 5 yrs old. We have lost my wife (car accident) and my step-son has been taken by the biological fathers family. (whole other story)

My problem:
He is in Kindergarten. He rarely misbehaves around me. I have him seeing a child psych.$120 a pop
I keep him level headed and structured.
I spend a lot of time with him.
He has come home every day for 5 weeks straight with negative marks on his behaviour. (only one phone call home and only one trip to the principals office the entire year)
I went into a parent teacher conference.
(sept. the school and school transport srv. lost him for 2 hours). The teacher blamed my 5 yr old for not knowing his brand new address.
She said that he is last in his class and is the most horribly behaved.
He went to pre-K last year without any incedent.
He also goes to sunday school, listens very well.
The teacher said he was one of the most respectful students, but has bad behaviour.
I have a meeting and am requesting the Vice principal or principal to be present because the last meeting after the teacher rasing her voice at me and stating that she was the teacher and I had no place to comment, i do not want to be alone with her. She also in the same meeting tried to "compare" her husbands loss of a mother to my 5 yr olds.

I'm having troubles...my wife woulda flipped her top if she was alive, but I am clueless in this stuff. I do not want to make his school life harder by me making waves. So not sure what to do.

Thanks ahead of time for any thoughts.

SCdawg,

I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

I think it's rare to find children who are well behaved at home to misbehave at school unless there is some underlying reason.

My first thought is, how young is the teacher? Does she seem manage the students well?

Secondly, have you had your son's eyes checked recently?? Most doctors forget to check chidren's eyesight until about 1st or 2nd grade and many children have learning difficulties that can be the reason for his misbehavior... he doesn't get it when others do and it is fustrating.

My youngest son has amblyopia (lazy eye) and he is very auditory. He had trouble with memorizing his letters and numbers because he couldn't see them. He fustrated his very young kindergarten teacher who thought he was a behavior problem on top of having ADHD. (by law she cannot even diagnosis him so it shows her lack of expertise.)

Check with your pediatrician, optomitrist, or trained school nurse to see if this may be the problem.

Good luck,

Tess

I am more concerned with the teachers attitude myself. I must ask the same question, is shw young, because her behavior was very unprofessional.

No matter how a child acts in class there is no reason for the teacher to attack the parent. The teachers PRIMARY goal is to get their children on track. If a student fails a teacher's class, they fail as a teacher.

The teacher should have listened to what was going on in her students life and tried to see if she could use that information to figure out why he is struggling. This teacher has the wrong idea of what a teacher is suppose to be and may be in the wrong field (Osama Bin Ladin as a guidence councelor seem right to you).

Wow that teacher sounds way harsh I don't even know where to begin. I am not a teacher but a daycare provider and would never speak about one of my kids in that manner if the parents told me he was well behaved outside of being here I'd try to figure out what it is about being here that makes him act out. What types of behavior issues is he having? Maybe he is having trouble keeping up with the curiculim and getting frustrated. Maybe he feels badly when he hears the other kids talk about their moms and that makes him act up. I dont know how long ago he lost his mom but I would think the teacher would be more sensitive to the issues. My daughters grades started to slip alittle last year when she lost her dad and her teachers were very understanding even to the point of tossing out a few of her tests because they knew it wasn't her normal work and didn't want to see her grade get affected because of what she was going through. For the teacher to say "hes last in his class and the worst behaved." That is very unprofessional she shouldn't be making her students into numbers like"ok now joe is my #1 student and Matt is # 25) I would be extreamly offended by that. I think that having the principal at the meeting is a great idea. I would also try to talk to his pre-school teacher again and ask her one more time if there were ever any of these types of behaviors in her class room. Perhaps she just handled it better. Then if not you can feel confident mentioning it in the meeting. He is just a five year old little boy dealing with an awful lot of emotions Geez I am a grown woman and still having many bad days dealing with my loss. Someone at that school needs to have alittle compassion.

oh it just occured to me my daughter is having seperation issues with me if I go anywhere she freaks out i think shes afraid I won't come back. Maybe he is afraid something bad may happen to you while he's in school? This making him agitated.

It sounds like your child's teacher is trying to describe some challenges your child is having at school.

Two comments rub me the wrong way:

• "he is last in his class and is the most horribly behaved."
  
• "she was the teacher and I had no place to comment."
  

Sounds like she may not be highly skilled in communicating her concerns to families. I actually had the opposite guess as to her age, and pictured her as an older woman.

My three pieces of advice to you:

• Be completely open with her, telling her that you would like to get the vice principal's input to the situation before going straight to the vice principal. (We teachers don't like it when we feel parents go behind our back about a situation we haven't had a chance to address/fix).
  
• Ask for specific behaviors and frequency of occurrences. Set up a daily/weekly communication to keep you informed of what things your son is working to improve and how often they are impacting his learning.
  
• Try as hard as you can to keep your upset feelings between you and the staff who are involved. Avoid sharing your true feelings with your son, as that could sabotage his chance at making an effort towards success.
  

awesome advise capt. straight from a teacher.

Quote:We teachers don't like it when we feel parents go behind our back about a situation we haven't had a chance to address/fix).

After my first meeting with her alone, I will not be alone with that woman again. I have absolutely no trust in her. I gave her a heads up in a note prior to calling the VP so its not "behind" her back. I get an odd feeling that the princpal doesn't have a clue about 5 straight weeks of - remarks. She is an extremely confrontational OLDER woman.

His eyes and ears are fine. but his self esteem is falling. He comes home and says he's a loser and he let me down....I really want to know where this is coming from.

He hates going to school and he's only 5.

Quote:Try as hard as you can to keep your upset feelings between you and the staff who are involved. Avoid sharing your true feelings with your son, as that could sabotage his chance at making an effort towards success.

There is never "adult" talk around my child. Little ears hear and repeat everything. ;-)

I think a majority of the problem is the fact that maybe the teacher got into trouble for putting my child on the wrong bus and is retaliating. That seemed to be a huge issue with her even after a month passed and I let it go.

I talked with another parent that had this teacher last year and she said she had major problems with the teacher. It was aurgument after aurgument.

I did notice when I had a meeting with his speech teacher/VP/ and teacher. The teachers demeanor was drastically different than with just one on one with her. Which threw a flag for me. Not having the VP or principal is NOT an option.

quote:

Originally posted by SCdawg:
She is an extremely confrontational OLDER woman.

Ah, ha!
I was right!

SCdawg, when is your appointment?

quote:

Originally posted by captmatrix:
SCdawg, when is your appointment?

Called it in they are going to call me back.

quote:

Originally posted by captmatrix:
Ask for specific behaviors and frequency of occurrences. Set up a daily/weekly communication to keep you informed of what things your son is working to improve and how often they are impacting his learning.

I get a folder back each day and it is very confusing. smily's crossed out. notes without the situation, just basically saying how bad he is. She said he is regressing back to an earlier age. but he was advancing, and his therapist said he is an average 5 yr old boy. Something is not right and I don't think my boy is the only one to blame....but blame is being thrown really hard towards my boy. I read the discipline handguide and what i get back from the teacher does not match. I'm lost and confused.

Hmmm...
Well, I'm very sorry that things are so frustrating right now. That's got to be a very hard position for you to be in as the parent. It sounds like you are taking all the right steps to have things resolved. Please let me know how things progress, and feel free to PM me if you would like to talk with me further.

I'm really hopeful that the meeting with the VP will improve the situation for you, the teacher, and your son.

I hate to hear about a kid hating Kindergarten.

Thanks for all your advice captmatrix.
My step-son had a 1st grade teacher same way.
bad behaviour and low grades. 2nd grade he was placed in the advanced class....i guess sometimes teacher/student just don't click right. Way I'm sorta looking at it. If I am not comfortable around her for 10 minutes how is my boy all day every day?

Thanks again...you all have been very helpful.

Sorry I am late on this post, we had a teacher like this once, let me tell you I am a bit aggressive when it comes to schools and teachers, there are a lot of bad ones out there, and your son maybe acting out to her bad behavior. I usually am in the pricipals office right on top of this type of garbage. Don't go to the teacher, in her mind she will allways think she is right. If you get no satisfaction and the school I suggest the school board. Lets be serious, how much accountabiliy can you put on a 5 year old.

Problem I have with schools is instead of looking at the whole picture of whats going on is they close ranks and go on the defence. If this is what they call education its not very enlightening.