I am the single mum of an 8 nearly 9 yo girl.
She is in the process of possibly being diagnosed with add. She is extremely wiggly, very easily distracted and never finishes anything she starts. She takes 2 hours to get to sleep and while she is in her room she totally destroys it. She is creative and loving and friendly and all the good things too.
While she has been at school she has had teachers that have found a way to deal with her but this year in grade 3 she seems to have a teacher who picks constantly on her. While her teacher was away the deputy head took her class she gave my girl a special cushion to sit on which helps with children who have issues sitting still. Next day her home room teacher came back and took it away. My girl told her she was going to see a doctor about whether she was add and her teacher told her she didn't believe in that. We have had 1 meeting with a child psych and he agreed that pulling her out of that class won't help her as further in her schooling and working career she will come across people who she doesn't like and will need to learn to work with these people. We are going back next week to the doc again. This teacher has told other children to go through my girls bag to make it clean and has taken her desk tray away she told her to sit in the corner facing the wall and when my girl turned around the teacher told her she didn't want to see her face! Who says that to a little girl?
Today while cleaning up the lounge I found her lunch box from Thursday (today is sat) because yesterday she had an excursion and used a smaller lunch box. In it was her whole lunch. Nothing had been eaten but a carrot. How can she not notice a child sitting there not eating! For the whole time my girl has been at school she has loved it but this year nearly everyday she tells me of something this teacher has said to make her feel bad. I have talked about this to the deputy head just before we went to the psych about how my daughter is feeling but I don't know what to do. My daughter was a failure to thrive baby and while she is quite tall she is very underweight. I find her teacher very intimidating. I'm at a loss. I didn't have a good time at school and o don't want this to happen to my daughter but I feel this teacher is slowly killing her spirit.
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3 Replies
I would talk to the principal of the school about the situation. Teachers need to be diverse in their approaches to different learning needs, personalities etc. Your little girl should not be made to feel this way under any circumstances. Take it to the principal and discuss it.
To be honest if it were me I would try to get her out of that class and I hate hearing that there are still teachers like this around! I know kids need to learn resilience etc but if the teacher is outright targeting your child it sounds a bit like a personality clash for whatever reason and the teacher is the adult in this situation and should not be outwardly treating your daughter any differently even if she has taken a bit of a disliking to her for whatever reason. Yes in life we have to work with people etc who we clash with and don't understand any condition etc that we may have but realistically as an adult you do have choices and can chose to change workplaces and eventually work towards a way out of such a negative toxic situation. It seems unfair that your daughter cannot escape this situation and just has to 'deal' with it day in and day out, without any foreseeable out.
It's tricky, and I know there's so much out there about not mollycoddling our children etc but a year is a longtime for a child and she has hung in there for 6 months already.,
I don't know, that's just my opinion. I haven't had to deal with school years yet so in not sure of school politics etc. But ideally that's just what I would do if it were my son in years to come as I am also a big believer in being the advocate for your child when they are still too weak to assert themselves and from the sounds of things this teacher is v intimidating (if she is intimidating even to you as an adult).
It's a hard call and I know we can't always rush in and rescue our children but she's still quite young and really in this day and age the teacher saying she doesn't believe in ADD! That's a worry!
Best of luck with it!
I agree! We do in life have to adapt to working and dealing with people we don't necessarily like, however in this situation the teacher is in a position of authority and your daughter is not old enough to recognise that this teacher is creating the problem.
If you are keen to follow the psych's advice, I'd be arranging a meeting with the teacher and the principal to get this sorted. Whether this teacher believes in ADD or not, it's not her decision to make! She is not paid to push her personal views on to her students, she is paid to educate them and nurture them. She is clearly not fulfilling her duty to your daughter!!