Behavior Boot camp for five year old?
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Anonymous
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Hi,
I have been informed that my five year old child is disruptive in class. It appears he does not want to move around from center to center. He would prefer to do as he did at his old preschool, engaging in activities he chooses from a set of options. This unbelievable behavior distracts the other kids so much that his teacher of 20 years just doesnt know what to do. He has been brought to the principals office and yelled at. Good I say. I have been told this is not how MCPS does things and that I have failed to teach my child consequences. He never has these problems at home, and not at his other schools in the past, but clearly I missed a really big something somewhere. So I clearly need help in teaching a 6 year old that there is no such thing as anything other than full and total compliance with every teacher instruction at all times. This business of wanting to do other things is clearly foolishness and wrong. Im not sure where he gets these completely inappropriate ideas of wanting to maintain focus on something he is interested in. Are there any behavioral bootcamps I can send my kid to? So he can learn what proper and reasonable expectations are for a five year old? And clearly I need some real parenting classes or something. |
Anonymous
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Your black and white rigid thinking will likely make most programs ineffective! You really didn't like the feedback you got in your thread!
The part I do agree with is you taking parenting classes. If you can be open minded to learning you will find those helpful in helping you teach your child age appropriate behavior. |
Anonymous
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http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/261553.page
OPs original thread. |
Anonymous
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Hmm. Apparently you didn't like the responses you got to your other post, so you changed your child's gender and age (is he/she 5 or 6?), and posted this rant here.
If your preschool didn't teach your child about following class rules, maybe you should complain to them and ask for your tuition money back. |
Anonymous
| IF DD got sent to the principal's office for not following class rules and disrupting the class, I would be all over her case, not all over the teacher and principal. I guarantee you have already established yourself as the PITA parent. |
Anonymous
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OP, traditional education in this country doesn't really allow children to engage in activities chosen from a set of options. Classroom time is typically structured with clear learning objectives. Some teachers may build in some "free choice" time, but part of the initial weeks of school in a traditional classroom are about learning how to operate within a pretty rigidly structured school day. You're saying MCPS is doing something wrong here. That's definitely an opinion you are entitled to have. But I would suggest that MCPS resembles almost every other public school system in the country in this regard.
It really sounds to me like you would prefer a Montessori or progressive education model for your child (who was a girl in the last thread but now seems to be a boy). It's hard to tell from your posts which would be a better fit, but it sounds like elements of both might appeal to you. There are many, many private schools in this area that are designed in those frameworks. You might find that those are a better fit for your family if this incident and the responses you got on the other thread are serving to entrench you in your belief that a child should have free choice of learning activities in a classroom and should be allowed to continue an activity until his focus wanes. That's possible in certain classrooms. It's not going to be found in MCPS because that is simply not the educational philosophy that the schools operate under. I'm not passing judgment either way here, families have to decide what works best for them, but if this incident is upsetting you this much, there are other options. |
Anonymous
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I think both you and your child would benefit from reading this book together:
http://www.amazon.com/Follow-Rules-Cheri-Meiners-M-Ed/dp/1575421305 It's about the value of following rules. I know you can argue that mindless compliance with rules turns children into automatons, but that's not the norm, and there are clearly benefits to following rules. For everyone involved, not just your child. Things go more smoothly. Everyone gets to participate. People learn and practice patience and share. They learn gratitude and self-discipline. They learn to delay gratification and work together well. You can teach her your family values about when it's OK to bend or break rules as she gets older, in an age-appropriate manner. But kindergarten isn't the time to do that. |
Anonymous
| Your child has bigger problems than a time out at school, OP, regardless of whether you are the OP of the other thread. |
Anonymous
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OP:
I assume that you are the OP in the other thread as well. Real talk here. You and your family need to sit down and decide whether MCPS (or any public school) is the place for your DD. Honestly, I believe that your DD will adjust given time and guidance. I am not sure that you will. In MCPS, she will not get that free range experience that she had in her prior school and that you seem to want for her. In K especially, kids are being taught to function in a structured classroom - which will be her experience from now on. Teacher and administrators will try to accomondate individual personality quirks as much as possible...but not to the detriment of the rest of the students. I was the PP in the other thread who advised you to gather information about the discipline process so that you understand it. But you and your DD also need to understand that she is not going to be able to do whatever she wants in a public school classroom. We all want our kids to have great experiences in school, but I am puzzled as to what you expected. |
Anonymous
| Is this the same OP as the thread on the preschooler who won't sit at circle time? Is it Chipotle mom? |
Anonymous
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You are not doing your daughter/son any favors by reacting to this situation in this way!
Being sent to the principal at his/her age for what happened is not that big a deal. I understand why you are mortified and concerned but it is not as big a deal as you are making it. In my DD's classroom (K classroom in MCPS school) there is a thinking chair. Several of the children in her class have been sent there this year (she is too scared of her teacher to get sent there, even though she can be a holy terror at home). One little boy actually did something very similar to your child: went to the center they wanted, it was full, and then didn't want to do the other center choice. He became upset and refused to choose and then was sent to the principal's office. But no one has vilified him. He is five! He is just learning and some children need to really assert themselves and bump up against that authority before they tow the line. So, this is what happened to your DD and it doesn't make her a bad kid or you a bad parent. She is just learning and it's taking her some time. She has to learn to do as she's told in this situation even if she finds it frustrating (and it's okay to validate that emotion in my opinion) because otherwise the classroom just dissolves into an exercise in discipline, and think of all the things we expect these teachers to teach these little guys! They can't teach her to read and write if she won't sit down and work quietly when told. But you do have to calm down because I think you are blowing this all out of proportion! It isn't as if they told her never to bring your horrible child back because you failed as a parent, but you are kind of acting like that is what happened. |
Anonymous
| Whats an OP? |
Anonymous
I totally agree. |
Anonymous
| If you are serious, a book that I found helpful was The Well Behaved Child by Dr John Rosemond. |
Anonymous
Original Poster PP = Previous Poster |