My 5 year old, Logan started all day kindergarten this year. Although the first day brought tears to this mama's eyes to see her little guy go trotting off to school with his older siblings this was quickly replaced the following day with a surprise at pick up time.
On only the second day of school Logan was waiting with the teacher at pick up time which is apparently a tell-tale sign that she needs to speak to that particular student's parent. Not good. The teacher then informed me that Logan got into trouble that day for punching a third grader at recess. This particular third graders is a classmate and friend of Palmer's so I was sure there was more to this story than what I was initially told. Logan got a talking to that night and we found out the kid was messing with his little hand so Logan punched him.
The next day at pick up Logan was waiting with the principle. Logan once again got into a fight at recess that day with another kid and was sent to the principle's office for fighting. To say that kindergarten was starting off rough was an understatement. The principle found out from talking to Logan that another student had pulled on his little hand and particularly was pulling on his little nubbin which is rather painful. Logan said he asked the kid to stop and the kid wouldn't let go so he pushed the kid off which of course was all that the one teacher (for 60 kids) on recess duty saw.
To make a long story short Logan got into trouble almost every day for the first two weeks of school and was sent to the principle's office twice.
Bret and I spent a lot of time talking to Logan, taking away privileges, and making him write "I will not hit" a million times.
The thing is we are not delusional parents. Logan should not hit, push, shove, fight, etc at school. On the other hand he should not be bullied, made fun of, mocked, or hurt by other kids either. It is a fine line for me as his mother between trying to teach him to not do these things and knowing that he is defending himself. Some kids with differences take the teasing, looks, questions, etc and draw into themselves. Others fight back.
We offered to bring education into the classroom which the teacher refused feeling it was unnecessary. The problems were at recess not in the classroom. The teacher felt that she had heard kids ask questions and Logan field questions about his hand with no problems. It hurt my heart a little because I wanted to yell at the teacher "do you know what it feels like to be asked over and over again why he is different and have to explain it over and over again?"
So here we are week three and things have improved significantly. We get a daily report of how Logan does during each of the three recesses and he has had perfect behavior...knock on wood. I think part of it is the other kids are figuring it out and leaving him alone and the other part is Logan is figuring out how to keep his cool.
I have been having to bite my tongue and keep myself from running into the school to beat up a bunch of kids for picking on my kid. Three kids in and you would think we have this parenting thing all figured out yet we are so far from it. When Bret asked Logan what happened at school Logan responded "I was making poor choices, dad". We both had to work pretty hard to keep from laughing. We love this kid and know that once he gets things figured out it will be fine.
No comments:
Post a Comment