My daughters school

[enchanted]

At the moment im having problems with my daugher at school.
Shes finding it hard to socialize with the other children as she has always been mainly with adults apart from her younger sister.
Shes 5 by the way, so not that old.
Her problem is with hitting out at the other kids.
When i first started taking her to school i made them fully aware of what she was like hoping it would be a good start and that we could deal with it.
Now it seems that her teacher is singling her out.
Now im not saying she is a angel but she isnt always entirely to blame.
Sometimes she is bullied and fights back but doesnt always tell the teachers whats going on so they automatically think that its her acting up.
Anyway now they are telling me in not so many words that she is "thick".
I know that most people big up their kids but i think she is quite intelligent for her age.
If you could hear some of the things she comes out with you would understand.

The teacher made up a "Indiviual behaviour and education plan"
which reads:

****** is impulsive and at times too physically active for the classroom.(shes a normal healthy active 5yr old)
She does hurt other children occasionally although this seems infrequent.(this isnot what they have been telling me)
The main problem within the year one class is her inappropriate over-activity which at times makes her appear frenetic and hysterical.(sometimes she is quite exciteble but i wouldnt say hysterical)
***** often enters the classroom in this manner.
She will not settle and interupts tas and teachers lessons with incidental conversation mainly about herself.

Behaviour we wish to change:
**** lack of calm sensible receptiveness
Her tendancy to hit or hurt others (i agree with this, i hate the fact she bullies sometimes)
Not accepting silly actions and behaviour and calmly discussing what is acceptable.(not too sure about this im half half with this, shes young not a adult arent all kids abit silly, its not wrong)
**** should desist from speaking about herself.(what because as a individual shes not inportant?)


Identification of special needs:
**** does not seem to attach importance to learning. (when at home she is always learning and asks alot of questions about things and takes everything in)
She is often distracted and concerned with other issues.
She is not beginning to make the usual expected progress of acquiring knowledge of numbers, phonemes and vocabulary. (At home she is always practicing numbers and letters, she has started to read and write individual words)
**** needs to practice to hold a pen correctly.(This is ridiculous the way she holds her pen well enough to write shes five and only has small hands)

I dont know maybe im over reacting about this but i feel that they are trying to squash her personality and make her feel bad about herself.
My feeling are shes an individual with her own unique personalitiy and they are stamping all over that and trying to turn her into a "robot" who only reacts if "they" say its ok.
What do people here think am i just being a over reactive parent?

I also want to say what a great site this is!

[helloperator]

Schools are places of conformity generally. The way they want to control your daughter sounds pretty typical to me. They have classes to run, clients to process, they exist on routine. Life in school focuses attention on all things mechanical demonic repetitions, regurgitation and memorization...things that young people could arguably do without. Plus, school's are artificial environments...they are not real, they are a system, a process, an organisation, a tool of the state.

I wouldn't expect a school to do anything much beyond train young people how to accept and exist in this phoney, bogus, fucked in the head world.

[rossus]

hello, forgive me if you don't find my reply very useful.

- if necessary you could try to make your daughter go to another school
- if possible you should perhaps opt for one of those alternative schools where the teaching system is more openminded.
if it's not possible, no problem... we grew up in a normal school, and we survived.
- if by all this mess your daughter would not be able to move on to the year-two class next year, don't worry... nothing is lost.
not everyone takes the same way in life or goes on the same way at the same speed. it's not about how fast or how far she'll get,
but how happy she is :)

and most importantly,
maybe you could try to help your daughter feel good in herself,
so that when others tease her or when other things happen that are not in her favor..
she doesn't get upset by it. perhaps you could try to do some kind of meditation together with her.

and healthy food,
not a lot of sugar/chocolate/meat/animal products and not a lot of television...
and doing some sport might benefit her as well.

[enchanted]

Actually i like the sound of meditation but would have to look more into it.
As for changing schools i have thought about it, though now that she has a behaviour and learning plan it will follow her and so to the attitudes of her present teachers.
I do try so give her as good a diet as possible and try to limit the clats, shes getting on better with her veggies:) but do give in at times.

As i said before she is no angel and can be abit of a handfull but for gods sake shes five. Kids have to grow up so quickly nowadays and have far more pressures on them than i can ever remember.
No wonder all our teenagers are going mad.
Whatever happened to just being a kid and enjoying being responsiblity free?

[rossus]

there many sorts of meditation,
but the easiest and best (i think) is the kind you find in my signature... :p

when she bullies on others it's not because "that's the kind of girl she is".
maybe because she feels others don't like her very much or bully her..
she feels insecure... so she decides to bully others herself... that kind of thing :)

goodluck whatever you do

[enchanted]

Sorry but your link doesnt work for me, i can link to the page with the psychedelic pics on and the vid about the universe but not the meditation one.

[amercury]

Hi Enchanted

It sounds like you are saying your daughter just started school, is that right?

If so, she is probably going through a crisis period which often happens when kids start school. They are used to learning in a spontaneous way at home, picking up knowledge around them by experience and observation. At school they begin to teach them to learn in a different way, not so fun. It is hard to adjust.

Talking about herself is quite normal, all kids do it. It is called egocentric talk and it is how they work things out...sort of like thinking out loud, later on they verbalize this kind of talk/thought less and less.

Also, if she is very active and impulsive, meditation does sound like a good idea, but hard for kids. Being on a very structured schedule, including quiet time every day might help. Kids like routine, makes them feel secure.

You could also try to get her into a new class with a new teacher. Or new school, like mentioned in another post.
Good luck, if they suggest you take her to a psych tell them to f*$k off! :p
They just want every kid to become a robot. Easier for them to deal with.