Behavior in DD's school/grade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Catholic school. Kids that mouth off are sent to the principal for insubordination. This can only happen so many times before they are asked to leave.

This. My kid took the wrong tone with a teacher once and got a few days of detention and had to write an apology letter to the teacher.

Get your kid out of that school. Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems. Don’t be around for the big problems.

[Anonymous]

You really need to pull her out of that school. Either homeschool or send her to a religious school. We aren’t religious at all but my final straw was when my third grader at recess was hit in the head with a rock an less inch from his eye on his temple. A kid was mad and so he threw a rock and my kid who wasn’t involved at all was walking by and got cut with the rock. That happened in December and I pulled him out the next t day without even having a plan. His classroom was so chaotic there was no point in going.

I never thought I would send him to a Christian school but I thought about it and I wanted him to chose to be whatever religion he wanted to be. However, by not exposing him to any religion I really was making it hard for him to later have that option. That’s how I rationalized it. So he enrolled in January at the Christian school and he was so amazed. He said he didn’t have to worry all day someone was going to explode and take it out on classmates, the teacher could talk without being interrupted, there was no back talk, etc. He stopped being so guarded and became a much friendlier kid something I didn’t really realize was going on. In a chaotic school where kids constantly insult each other it makes sense he would learn to be guarded. He wasn’t as irritable and he started to love going go school. As an added bonus he learned much better study skills because if you didn’t do or finish all your there was an immediate consequence like stay after school so the teacher could help you.

[Anonymous]

I’ll say that I have been a teacher a long time and I am now drowning. The level of dysregulation, aggression, impatience, and argumentativeness is greater than I’ve seen before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You really need to pull her out of that school. Either homeschool or send her to a religious school. We aren’t religious at all but my final straw was when my third grader at recess was hit in the head with a rock an less inch from his eye on his temple. A kid was mad and so he threw a rock and my kid who wasn’t involved at all was walking by and got cut with the rock. That happened in December and I pulled him out the next t day without even having a plan. His classroom was so chaotic there was no point in going.

I never thought I would send him to a Christian school but I thought about it and I wanted him to chose to be whatever religion he wanted to be. However, by not exposing him to any religion I really was making it hard for him to later have that option. That’s how I rationalized it. So he enrolled in January at the Christian school and he was so amazed. He said he didn’t have to worry all day someone was going to explode and take it out on classmates, the teacher could talk without being interrupted, there was no back talk, etc. He stopped being so guarded and became a much friendlier kid something I didn’t really realize was going on. In a chaotic school where kids constantly insult each other it makes sense he would learn to be guarded. He wasn’t as irritable and he started to love going go school. As an added bonus he learned much better study skills because if you didn’t do or finish all your there was an immediate consequence like stay after school so the teacher could help you.

Dam

[Anonymous]

My oldest was diagnosed with anxiety and PTSD from her 3rd grade classroom. She had a violently disruptive classmate who caused the kids to evacuate several times a week.

We pulled her from school the rest of that year and then sent her to private the following school year. I was much happier with the student behavior in private school. She didn't have any classroom evacuations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is happening all around the country. Junk food, poor parenting.. so the kids who were “those kids” when we grew up are now considered normal kids, and the good kids (“regular kids” when we grew up) really stand out as being calm and well behaved.

My kid's school is not as bad as what OP describes but this rings true to me. The way I parent now would have been considered super chill where I grew up back in the 80s. Because we don't hit our kids, we have some flexibility on stuff like picky eating and letting kids choose their own activities, and we aren't militant about stuff like family dinners and screen time. My parents were much stricter.

But among the families we know through school, I think we are considered very strict because we we insist on good manners and will do things like leave a playground or party if one of our kids is being rude or not playing well with others. Most of the families we know just watch their kids being jerks and will kind of casually say "Don't forget to share, Mason" while Mason is shoving kids off the slide so he can spider climb up it 40x in a row, and then turn back to their phone or conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest was diagnosed with anxiety and PTSD from her 3rd grade classroom. She had a violently disruptive classmate who caused the kids to evacuate several times a week.

We pulled her from school the rest of that year and then sent her to private the following school year. I was much happier with the student behavior in private school. She didn't have any classroom evacuations.

My best friend used to be a public school teacher in our city. She experienced the same (and worse). Her daughter is a year older than ours and she sent her to private. We did the same and have been very happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is happening all around the country. Junk food, poor parenting.. so the kids who were “those kids” when we grew up are now considered normal kids, and the good kids (“regular kids” when we grew up) really stand out as being calm and well behaved.

My kid's school is not as bad as what OP describes but this rings true to me. The way I parent now would have been considered super chill where I grew up back in the 80s. Because we don't hit our kids, we have some flexibility on stuff like picky eating and letting kids choose their own activities, and we aren't militant about stuff like family dinners and screen time. My parents were much stricter.

But among the families we know through school, I think we are considered very strict because we we insist on good manners and will do things like leave a playground or party if one of our kids is being rude or not playing well with others. Most of the families we know just watch their kids being jerks and will kind of casually say "Don't forget to share, Mason" while Mason is shoving kids off the slide so he can spider climb up it 40x in a row, and then turn back to their phone or conversation.

Yeah I think screens (phones and tablets especially) are a big part of it. Kids and parents both.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like either a kid/parenting issue or a teacher issue and part of this sounds like the teacher doesn't have good control or structure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest was diagnosed with anxiety and PTSD from her 3rd grade classroom. She had a violently disruptive classmate who caused the kids to evacuate several times a week.

We pulled her from school the rest of that year and then sent her to private the following school year. I was much happier with the student behavior in private school. She didn't have any classroom evacuations.

This isn't normal and really unfortunate. I would have pulled my kid too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest was diagnosed with anxiety and PTSD from her 3rd grade classroom. She had a violently disruptive classmate who caused the kids to evacuate several times a week.

We pulled her from school the rest of that year and then sent her to private the following school year. I was much happier with the student behavior in private school. She didn't have any classroom evacuations.

My best friend used to be a public school teacher in our city. She experienced the same (and worse). Her daughter is a year older than ours and she sent her to private. We did the same and have been very happy.

My now-3rd grader had a safety plan in 1st grade because she had a friend who would target her during extreme behavioral situations and throw/hurl things her way. She would have to self-evacuate to the classroom across the hall. This was at a private school, so the only difference from public is that they could counsel the girl out- but it took 6 months because there wasn’t a strong framework for escalating intervention as there might be in a public school. She ended up in a special behavioral support classroom in our zoned public.

I don’t think private or public is a magic solution; many kids everywhere are in a bad place.

[Anonymous]

I would do whatever you can to get her into a different school. I’m so sorry this is happening. It’s not okay at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is in 3rd grade at a private religious school across the going from DC. While not every moment is quite as you describe it, u found myself nodding along at so many things you wrote. Many of my DD’s schoolmates (not her classmates) are rude, spoiled little sh-ts.

Her grade itself was extremely disregulated in 1st and 2nd grade and she suffered from both the chaos and the group punishments. She regularly lost an extra recess or a special Friday activity because the same kids would blow off consequences over and over and they wouldn’t earn their points for the week.

When I am at her school, I notice several things:

1) no individual punishment. Individual “consequences” are usually things like having to talk things through with a teacher or counselor. When we were kids, individual consequences started with sitting in the hallway and escalated to detention, the principles office, and calls home. Calls home for discipline are no longer a thing.

2) extreme lack of fine motor skills for age. The grade is divided into kids who would be considered competent when I was little who other kids now considered “artistic”, and kids who need a ton of OT. I think this is a Covid thing; they were hybrid that year in pre-k and then K.

3) kids don’t sit still. When we were little, there might be only one kid constantly hopping in and out of his seat and trying to go to the hallway, and he would be punished. Accomodation of different learning styles means that kids are allowed to wriggle and move and just walk away. I can’t volunteer in the classroom because the kids standing at their desks, leaning, wandering around, and just leaving makes me crazy. It’s visually exhausting and distracting.

Op here. YES to all of this. Especially the not sitting still. A small minority could sit there and do a simple craft. Most gave up the second they struggled and just walked off. Few sat at their desk to finish their snack as they were told.

The lack of individual consequences is so crazy. They are letting the behavior kids ruin the day to day or the well behaved kids. Alllllll I hear about is their scores at lunch and specials. And it’s the same kids acting up to get them bad scores. My DD even tried reasoning with these kids to get them to behave at least so others don’t get in trouble and of course she got nowhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So 1, I wouldn’t necessarily judge the behavior based on the class holiday party. Thats not a usual experience for them so they might be all over the place. But 2, I have heard that 3rd grade is crazy. Remember those are the kids who never got to go to K because of the Covid school closures, and their 1st grade was likely all masked and under restrictions. I’ve heard that 4th graders (shortened K, no 1st) are similar, maybe behavior not as bad but they had a lot of school catching up to do. And 3, some classes just have all the wild kids in them and if the teacher doesn’t have great classroom management the kids will go crazy. Luckily it’s lower stakes in elementary vs. in middle or HS where kids are larger and rowdier. Hopefully next year will be better. Hang in there!

4th grade at our private school is not at all like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is happening all around the country. Junk food, poor parenting.. so the kids who were “those kids” when we grew up are now considered normal kids, and the good kids (“regular kids” when we grew up) really stand out as being calm and well behaved.

My kid's school is not as bad as what OP describes but this rings true to me. The way I parent now would have been considered super chill where I grew up back in the 80s. Because we don't hit our kids, we have some flexibility on stuff like picky eating and letting kids choose their own activities, and we aren't militant about stuff like family dinners and screen time. My parents were much stricter.

But among the families we know through school, I think we are considered very strict because we we insist on good manners and will do things like leave a playground or party if one of our kids is being rude or not playing well with others. Most of the families we know just watch their kids being jerks and will kind of casually say "Don't forget to share, Mason" while Mason is shoving kids off the slide so he can spider climb up it 40x in a row, and then turn back to their phone or conversation.

Op here. This totally resonates. My boomer parents even tell me I’m too lax and but they just have no idea. I’m incredibly strict compared to what I’ve seen of most of her classmates’ parents. Now the parents at her activity are more on my wavelength and not surprisingly, their kids are much better behaved.