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Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...



 
 
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  #11  
Old August 20th 03, 02:44 AM
just me
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Default Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...


"Banty" wrote in message
...
Ah, yes - the breezy, cheerily offered suggestions to "volunteer

regularly", the
school secretary who called HOME with all questions or problems then

complained
about my inaccessibility until I took to circling my WORK number twice in

red
ink and pointing two red arrows to it on the information forms, the "we'd

like
your son to show his science fair project at class this morning, but

please come
by at 3:15 dismissal to pick it up" - I know the elementary educational
establishments utter denseness about working mothers well.


My favorite is when you give them your current location phone number because
they say they are going to call you back shortly, but then they go and look
up your home phone number and can't understand why they only get the
answering machine. Doctors, schools, and others are all guilty.

-Aula

  #12  
Old August 20th 03, 11:48 AM
Iowacookiemom
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Default Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...

In article ,
Kimberly wrote:
I've tried everything. I've tried being very firm with him (very),
closing the classroom door, etc. I've tried "talking" to him - nothing
works. I've tried dropping him off at the curb (they have a car
system where a teacher will walk the k'gartners to their class) and
its even worse.


Poor guy -- and poor you! We've been through this a few times for various
reasons and it is absolutely heart-wrenching. Once, it was a new school.
Another time, it was a teacher who was just absolutely not the right fit for
Henry, and after sticking it out for a while (she was not abusive, although the
particular mix of her personality with his, along with the mix of his inability
to pick up nonverbal signals (a part of his ADD) and her temporary hearing
loss, was darned-near emotionally abusive for him -- and probably her too!). I
do think that each time we've handled it a little better than the time before,
and he's developed a resilience over time.

There has been some excellent advice here that I won't repeat in detail.
Absolutely ask the school for help, and absolutely find a way to verify that
there is no hidden, horrific reason for his outbursts (I'm not sure I'd have a
parent volunteer -- that would exacerbate the separation anxiety -- do you
trust a fellow parent to do this surveilance?)

I have a few additional thoughts:

-Be absolutely sure you are instilling confidence in him. Hard as it is, don't
make the mistake of joining his pity party. This is tricky. When our kids are
that upset we naturally want to just scoop them up and love them to death. But
that sends a message that we, too, are worried they can't succeed in the
situation. An excellent counselor and a patient, loving spouse had to
practically hit me over the head to get this one through to me -- I was either
furiously stern or weepily nurturing, with very little in-between. Let him
know you get the message without being gushy. Phrases like, "I can see how
upset you are. It's hard for you do do this, but I know you can do it. You're
a great kid and a strong person, and you're going to be successful in school."
(rinse, repeat, as needed) Another way to help him do this is through giving
him a vision: "It's hard for you now, but I know by Halloween you will have
some good friends and it will be exciting for you to come to school to see them
every day." Or, share your own experience. "I remember when I started
Kindergarten I was afraid I would not be able to remember all the rules the
teacher had for us. But in a few weeks, I didn't even have to think about the
rules because they came naturally. You're a good kid and I know you'll get
very used to following the rules in a short time." Keep telling yourself,
"what am I doing to help him feel confident and capable?"

-In a calm moment later in the day, review what happened and ask your *child*
what you can do to help prevent it in the future. What would make it easier
for him? And then (this is the hard part for me) -- *be quiet* and *really
listen* to the answer. You might get nonsense at first "Don't send me to
school," or you might get things you aren't willing/able to do, like "Billy's
mom home-schools him, you should do that too," but you can review your reasons
why those solutions won't work and redirect him back to "You're going to need
to go to school every day and right now it's so hard. How can we make it
easier?" Take him up on any reasonable suggestion, even if it's that he is
convinced that strawberry poptarts for breakfast would make him feel better.
The reason for this is that he probably feels so out of control in this and you
can hand him back some control.

-When he has successes, praise him, but don't make such a huge deal of it that
it sends the unconscious message that you're completely surprised that he was
able to do it. I think it was Tom Landry who said that he didn't like end-zone
celebrations because he wanted his players to "act like they've been there
before" when they made a touchdown. Same here -- help him feel good but let
him know, too, that you knew he could do it all along.

On this last vein, my husband and I have two new neat little communication
tricks that we picked up on various reading/news program listening. The one I
heard was that while adults shy away from telling fellow *adults* how to feel,
it's actually quite helpful to coach your children on this. "You did well this
morning! You should be proud!" Kids need help learning appropriate reactions
and we're allowed to help. The one my husband learned was to not just gush to
kids individually, but let them know how their actions help others. Instead of
"good for you for being ready to leave the house on time this morning!" try
"thanks for being ready on time. It helps me get to work on time, and when I
do that I can come home earlier so that everyone in our family can enjoy more
time together."

FWIW we find all of this has been very helpful. And, I'm happy to report,
Henry has had an incredibly positive first two days in a new school, new
community 1500 miles from his old school. I'd like to think some of these
lessons learned -- both through experience over the years and through experts
over the media -- have played a role, but I know it really came down to his
choice to try to make it work. In the end, you need to find a way to help your
son make that same choice. Good luck to you in the meantime. It's such a
bummer.

-Dawn
Mom to Henry, 10

  #13  
Old August 20th 03, 12:25 PM
Penny Gaines
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Default Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...

dragonlady wrote in
:
[snip]
It gets worse in some ways: there have been several times when the
school needed to reach me, tried me at home and at a work number -- then
left my kid in the nurses office for the rest of the day when they
couldn't reach me, instead of calling their Dad! (I was told that they
hate to bother men at work; this was less than 10 years ago, and I was,
frankly, too stunned to even respond.)



Do the school just have the parents' numbers? Over here, the schools my
kids go to have always asked for numbers for other people, in case the
parents are unavailable. So, in the situation described, they would have
tried me, and then tried the other alternative numbers.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

  #14  
Old August 20th 03, 02:27 PM
iowacookiemom
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Default Classroom Volunteering and WOH parents (was: Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...)

(Bev Brandt) wrote in message . com...
Of course, my husband and I WOH, so that very likely skews my
perception of what it means to be asked to "volunteer regularly." It's
not that my child isn't worth my vacation and sick time. But that *is*
all some of us have - limited vacation and sick time. We *can't*
"volunteer regularly" or we'll get fired.


I agree completely that many schools/teachers are insensitive to this.
I've found that fellow parents can be even more insensitive.

That said, when Henry started school I asked my sister, a teacher,
what I could do as a working parent who had limited vacation time,
etc. (I did have a good boss who was flexible with me, but I
preferred to use that good will for after-school needs.)

My sister had a great suggestion, and I've done it every year since:
volunteer to grade the spelling tests. It's time-consuming and
tedious for the teacher, and usually has to be done over a weekend.
Henry brings the tests home on Friday and I grade them over the
weekend -- takes about a half hour of my time. Henry has always
seemed very proud that I do this, and even willingly toted the
25-or-so *spiral notebooks* the last two years that contained the
spelling tests. I involve him in picking out stickers to put on each
test and teachers have told me the kids are great about saying, "your
mom got cool stickers this week, Henry!"

I started out doing this for the teacher, and all have been very
grateful, but I keep doing it for my kid. It connects me to the
school and he seems proud of it. I'm planning on asking his new
teacher if I can continue this year.

One caveat: by doing this you do have access to the academic progress
of the students, and when I have mentioned this casually some parents
have looked a little surprised and slightly bothered by the fact that
I see their child's test each week. Truthfully, beyond learning who
you can rely on to get all or most words right (this is helpful in
weeks when the words are confusing like "there/their/they're" and
you're unsure what order the teacher read them in), you really don't
pay attention to individual kids' scores. I never share the scores
with Henry, and also get teacher approval in advance to share Henry's
own score with him (all have allowed me to do so).

Henry struggles with spelling and having this connection to spelling
at school has also been helpful.

All of this is just to provide an idea -- not to suggest that anyone
out there frustrated about school expectations regarding volunteering
is somehow off-base.

-Dawn
Mom to Henry, 10

  #15  
Old August 20th 03, 04:42 PM
dragonlady
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Default Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...

In article ,
Penny Gaines wrote:

dragonlady wrote in
:
[snip]
It gets worse in some ways: there have been several times when the
school needed to reach me, tried me at home and at a work number -- then
left my kid in the nurses office for the rest of the day when they
couldn't reach me, instead of calling their Dad! (I was told that they
hate to bother men at work; this was less than 10 years ago, and I was,
frankly, too stunned to even respond.)



Do the school just have the parents' numbers? Over here, the schools my
kids go to have always asked for numbers for other people, in case the
parents are unavailable. So, in the situation described, they would have
tried me, and then tried the other alternative numbers.



At the time, I was too new in town to have had any other numbers to give
them -- but since they didn't even go far enough down the list to call
the kids' Dad, I can't imagine that they'd have called someone else!

meh
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

  #17  
Old August 20th 03, 05:59 PM
Cathy Kearns
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Default Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...


"Penny Gaines" wrote in message
...
dragonlady wrote in
:
[snip]
It gets worse in some ways: there have been several times when the
school needed to reach me, tried me at home and at a work number -- then
left my kid in the nurses office for the rest of the day when they
couldn't reach me, instead of calling their Dad! (I was told that they
hate to bother men at work; this was less than 10 years ago, and I was,
frankly, too stunned to even respond.)



Do the school just have the parents' numbers? Over here, the schools my
kids go to have always asked for numbers for other people, in case the
parents are unavailable. So, in the situation described, they would have
tried me, and then tried the other alternative numbers.


So in the UK they would call the emergency numbers before calling
their father?



  #18  
Old August 20th 03, 08:01 PM
MarjiG
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Default Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...

In article , Banty
writes:

I know the elementary educational
establishments utter denseness about working mothers well.


Try them on a stay at home father sometime.

School nurse: DD#2 must be picked up from school.

Me, at work 30 miles away: Did you call her Dad, at home?

Nurse: No, I think Moms are better at this.

This was for a kid with a cold sore.
-Marjorie

  #19  
Old August 20th 03, 08:03 PM
Iowacookiemom
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Default New town/emergency contact (was: Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...)

At the time, I was too new in town to have had any other numbers to give
them --


Does anyone have suggestions regarding this? We are brand, spanking new in our
new community -- been here 5 whole weeks. My husband is reluctant to ask work
friends to be our emergency contact since most of the folks he's gotten to know
work *for* him and it seems like an unfair request from a supervisor to a
subordinate. We haven't yet found a church, and we barely know neighbors. Has
anyone out there solved this creatively?

  #20  
Old August 20th 03, 09:25 PM
Beeswing
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Default Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...


"Bev Brandt" wrote in message
m...

I'm thinking of suggesting to the PTO that we have some sort of
working parent educational committee. The mission of which will be to
help the school staff communicate with the working parent. Problem is,
they'll want me to head up the committee...


Naah, tell them your husband can head up the committee. He's closer and
more mobile.

beeswing



 




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