So since Kindergarden I've always had problems with Katherine at school. Katherine's birthday is in August so she started out emotionally younger than the other kids which meant lots of crying and screaming the hope was she'd move out of this. Well she moved out of that phase by the 2nd Grade (yes it took awhile) and we found prizes helped. Well now that we are into the 3rd grade we've had a bad year already this year and last year. Prizes no longer seem to help and we've had to move on to this odd combo with prizes and punishment. It works for a day or two and then it's like she forgets.
Sadly Katherine is disorganized like everyone in this family and on top of it she's so happy to be at school and enjoys learning so much that she gets excited and blurts things out on top of this she's so smart she catches on to things quickly and then ignores the teacher and starts reading a book or she'll skip the directions on the paper see what is apparently needing to be done and zoom through it so she can go back to reading. Normally a parent would be overjoyed that their child enjoys reading but it's become very problematic for us.
I tried a little reminder bracelet that I made for her but she said she forgot it was even on her. I've tried putting her in the corner every day she did not get enough behavior points and we still continue that but the teachers caught on and started grading her behavior less harsh because I guess they thought it might be abusive (I gave her water, dinner, bathroom breaks and sit down time a lot more than my parents gave me when I went to a corner... actually did I go to the corner? I think I just got the belt). So now we've moved on to a little candle lighting ceremony where we repeat every morning what she should do at school that worked for a few days.
Today Katherine came home with a note saying she disrespected the teacher by making a face when told to move to the back of the line. *sighs*
The school keeps pushing the ADHD paper but that's not the problem here nor do I agree with young children being diagnosed with this. Children have energy, some more than others and with how large classroom sizes are and how limited PE and recess are I can relate. I never did well in Elementary School. It's learning to have goals and obtaining the drive to try and reach those goals that will help her the most but those are concepts learned at a much later age.
I love my little girl but with how the school system is these days if we don't nip these problems before 5th grade then she's going to have some major issues. I'll keep trying things tonight I wrote out a list of sentances that I had her rewrite and then by memory tell me back. Sadly her memory is like mine aka not so great so it took a few more times to write things out and I had her write the teacher a 'sorry' letter in her own words I only helped spell check it.
Tomorrow we go in for a meeting with the school to discuss Katherine and I really hope I can keep my temper in check. Peter will be there too so hopefully he will be my rock. She's a sweet girl she just needs to learn that at school they don't put up with being bouncy happy which at home we always have thought of as a plus because we like to see the children happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment