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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]I didn't detect anything in the teacher's comment that implied any criticism of the parenting.  [/b]

But even if there had been, so what?  If the daughter's organizational skills need to be worked on, the only useful response is a game plan for those skills to be worked on.

Don't take a straightforward statement about a child's skill need and turn it into a discussion about the parent.  [/quote]

I think things look different on paper.  We don't see body language or hear tone.  As parents of SN children, we do have to develop a thicker skin, but sometimes that is pierced by strong body language and tone.

For example, I learn in my college intro to theatre class that the sentence "I did not sleep with your husband." can have several different meanings depending which word the speaker emphasizes.

[i]I[/i] did not sleep with your husband.
I did not sleep with [i]your[/i] husband.
I did not sleep with your [i]husband[/i].

:)[/quote]

Funny stuff, and so true.  Though I'm not sure the applicability here:  Here's the quote from the OP:

"I reached out to DD's teacher yesterday to see how things are going and she responded a little better but that my daughter needs to work on her organizational skills."

It's difficult to imagine any tone or inflection applied to that statement that could turn it into an accusation of bad parenting.  This seems more a case of "Person A said X but Person B heard Y because Person B was already thinking about Y."  By OP's own admission she has been worrying (necessarily or not) about whether her own lack of organization is contributing to her daughter's, and that seems to have been projected onto the teacher's comment.

It's tough sometimes because so much emotion is invested in parenting, but it's important to keep one's eye on the ball.  In this case the ball is the necessary development of the daughter's organizational skills.  Assurances that one is a good parent can be sought in another time and place.  It's nice that some other PPs on DCUM have stepped up with some.[/quote]

I absolutely disagree that this is projection on the part of the parent.

The sentence is structured as "better.... BUT .... needs to work on"  This sentence structure clearly implies that the student needs help in this area and the subject of the second clause "my daughter" indicates that the TEACHER is not taking responsibility for helping the daughter develop organizational skills, but rather thinks this is the responsibility of the child.  This is a very passive, responsibility-avoidant phrasing.  If the child is young, then it is not plausible that she will develop "organizational skills" on her own.  (It's really not plausible even for adults to develop this on their own, if they have ADHD or executive dysfunction.  Even adults frequently need help from an executive or organizational coach or therapist.)  There are really only 2 people who could plausibly be capable of helping the child develop organizational skills -- the teacher or the parent.  And, by her phrasing, the teacher has indicated that she doesn't view herself as responsible for this, so, by implication, the parent is.

[/quote]

This is OP - thanks for this comment.  While I do agree that the teacher is not blaming me (after reading all these comments and thinking about it more) - I do think the teacher is not exactly helping.  Without posting the whole email - she tells me all the things DD forgets to do - but there was no information given on how the school is working with her on this.   They may, in fact, be working with her on it - but so far that hasn't been communicated to me.   So I did sort of take the statement as "we (the parent and child) need to fix this".  End of story.[/quote]

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