Thursday, October 1, 2009

Coping with the kids

Things haven't been the best with Little Miss at school lately. She's been going to 1st grade for five weeks now and it's been quite a struggle. She is my social butterfly, when she's in a comfortable setting, and it's been her biggest downfall at school. None of my discipline tricks have been working on her and I'm getting to my wits end.
I'll briefly explain how it works in her teacher's class. They have a daily behavior chart where each student starts on green each day. One warning you go to yellow, 2 warnings you go to red and 3 warnings you go to blue and mommy/daddy get a phone call. I would say that on average, she's on green 40% of the time. In addition to staying on green, each student gets a sticker on their chart that are used for a party at the end of each month. Students that don't get enough stickers will not participate in the party.
Everyday I ask Little Miss what color she was on for the day. You can pretty much tell from her demeanor when I pick her up from school, what color she had. The bad thing is that you only get a weekly report from the teacher on Friday. So I have to find out from her daily why she got a warning and discipline accordingly. What makes the Friday report the worst, is that a few times Little Miss was wrong on her daily color and she was reprimanded for nothing.
Yesterday was the icing on the cake. I pick her up from after school care and she says to me "mom, I got was yellow again today."
"Oh really, what did you do today?" I ask.
"I don't know."she nonchalantly answers me.
"Yes you do. Your teacher has you move your color so you know why. Was it talking again?" I press her.
"Noooooooooo. I don't remember why. Ms. K moved it this time" she whines.
"You have to know what you did. Has it gotten to the point that when you're doing wrong you don't even know it anymore? I guess that were going to have to take more stuff away. When you remember what it is you did, you can have your toys back." I say.
"noooooo. " (she starts weeping and crying)
I really don't like doing this to her. I don't know what else to do anymore. I'm losing hope on this battle. Honestly, I don't think it bothers her that I keep taking her belongings away. She's not phased by it. So I checked out another blog that I follow and I'm hoping I can seek guidance and support on this issue.

Little Miss is a smart kid and she's missing out when she's talking. The socializing with her friends is fine, but she needs to know when she should be doing it.

It's got to get better.

2 comments:

We 2 Bees said...

Oh man - have I been there! K was the worse, 1st grade better and this year only one time have we had a problem. I have a very social child also! It effected her learning, our relationship, etc... So. I'll tell you how we handled it. We did rewards instead of punishment, because like you punishment just didn't work. We worked with her teacher to send home daily reports instead of on Friday or not at all. We started with candy or a little dollar toys that I could use for multiple days... bracelets, rings, you know whatever she is into too. Then we would have big prizes if she made it the for the week. Going out for ice cream, painting her nails with a brand new nail polish, her picking where to go for dinner - something that would make her work for it! It was hard at first, because they forget but it got easier and easier and now I rarely have to remind her that she has to watch her talking at school. We also talked to her a lot about respect for her teacher and how it hurts her teacher's feeling when she gets in trouble, she didn't like hurting her feelings.

Anyway - hope this helps a little. Let me know if I can offer more clarification on anything.
Hang in there! And try to have patiences and understanding! It's hard I know.

Tiffany said...

I think that the rewards will definitely work better. Mom thought the same thing. Last year was different with after school because she was picked up earlier and came here to work. Then if she got a smiley for the day, Grandma gave her a small chocolate candy bar. This year my hours at work are shorter so I pick her up on the way home. She doesn't get to see Grandma after school for the "treat" if she's good. I will have to get some "treats" for Miss Sunshine. I never thought of bracelets, rings or nail polish. She LOVES that kind of stuff. I am waiting to set up a parent/teacher conference so I can suggest daily reports to her. I'll let you know how it goes. Love you and thank you for the tips!
And patience, I'm working on it.