Today, D came home with the following note from his teacher:
D. is constantly spitting and noncompliant. He spit on my face once yesterday and once today. I know he did not do it maliciously, but he needs to be explained to and rehearsed repeatedly, "No spitting." He is now spending most of his time giggling, laughing, and making raspberries to distract the whole classroom. It took me 10 minutes to get him to count. Please sit down with him every day and go over "No spitting. D. will do his activity. No laughing. No silly." D. has NO interest in school activities. I am sorry to be so honest.
OK, so I already called the school and asked how I request an official meeting, and they will call me back to schedule one tomorrow. But I'd like to go in with some practical ideas for helping my child succeed, and how to effectively communicate them. I don't see my kid as having no interest in school activities. He resists things that are difficult, but he needs to be pushed. I am all about the pushing. And when pushed, he will usually deliver. His therapists have been impressed with his progress. His geneticist called his delays mild. But a discussion of the teacher's effectiveness won't help me here -- I need really practical solutions.
Anyone?
7 comments:
My practical solution is to pull him out of his crap school and find a school that actually deals with kids with special needs.
He should ahve a formalized behavior plan with concrete goals and steps to achieve them
Is this woman a special ed teacher? She's certainly not professional at all.
No, I'm not holding back. :)
My child with special needs isn't in the school system, yet, so I don't really understand your situation exactly. I do know that the parent always knows the child best. Once in the meeting, I think you can model the behaviour that gets D. to comply. The aide will probably be grateful for your help.
Beth
You need to request (in writing) that a functional behavior assessment be conducted, and out of that a functional behavior plan be developed. We (parents, teachers, etc) should NEVER expect to change or extinquish a negative behavior without understanding it.
And just for the record, I'm very unimpressed with the teacher and her comments. She chose special education as a career and needs to put on her big girl panties and act like a professional.
From a friend whose sons have a totally different sort of special need (an attachment disorder which causes sensory issues, among other things) --- don't know if any of this is useful or relevant for you, but I hope so:
My older son is in second grade now and his sensory needs (an OT deals with this) that were a problem in kindergarten and 1st grade are now more similar to his peers in school (thank goodness). His school was highly touted as great for special needs, and even had a "sensory" room. This was why we moved into this school district when I relocated for a job. Unfortunately, the principal changed and the school has become very uncooperative. When my son began to have trouble with writing and coming home with 1.5 to 2 hours of homework every night because he couldn't keep up in school, we had discussions with his teacher which always led to her idea of more homework. (Yep. Since lots of homework didn't fix it, the best solution the teacher had was to assign more homework for a 2nd grader. The teacher herself stated that a second grader should be able to do .5 to 1 hours of homework at night. I don't understand the math.). We tried documentation. On his next report card (which was all very good grades) we sent it back with a comment about our concern and the number of hours he was spending on homework every night. With this in the paper file (as opposed to e-mail and phone calls), the teacher has become more responsive. I believe that this teacher actually cares, but is held back by the principal. Apparantly the note on the report card was a strong enough trigger for her to get the clout she needed.
My younger son entered kindergarten this year in the same school. Long story short, that experience became so difficult we moved him to a nearby private school. The private school is not known for working with special needs, but it does pay attention to the parents. We've found that his teacher in private school is far more willing and able to work with us than the public school was. We hope to be able to move him back into the public school in a year or so.
For your friends, if there is a local support group for their child's condition or similar conditions, the parents in the group may have some practical ideas for dealing with the local school system.
I don't have any good advice as we aren't there yet, just hope that the meeting goes well.
First, I agree with Ashley's Mom.
Second, I wonder if he's doing this at a specific time of the day. During a specific center, during math, reading, after lunch, etc, etc. That would be really great to know because maybe it's that he needs an outlet, a break, help, something. My son tends to "act out" when he needs a break. They quickly utilized his ability to ask for a break by taking a walk to clear his head and get his sensory balance back in order.
Good luck in the meeting. Let us know how it turns out. Oh, and is this the special ed teacher or main teacher? Seems that it should have been conveyed a little differently?
I was wondering what comment I could possibly come up with and I see DESJ has nailed it already.
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