'Well-behaved' girls 'socialising' 'challenging' boys at primary school

nothing

Exactky.

What ever they do when they run out if quiet kids can't they just do to start? Problem solved

That child isn't quiet then is it!

Bloody Barry

Why should they have to do that though?

You shouldn't have to speak up to stop shit happening. What do teachers do then? When kids speak up? Can't they just do that anyway?

Giles If the 'quiet' child is constantly shouting (or stating assertively) 'Barry stop kicking me!' the teacher hasn't got a leg to stand on if they then get told off for it or pretend it isn't happening.

I am not in any way condoning the other child’s behaviour I am simply suggesting that the teacher, parents and child should be coming up with effective and preferably transferable strategies that can help her

Or Instead of children having to change their personality completeky the teacher could just act as if the child is assertive?

What would the teachers actually do then cos I can imagine "miss X is kicking me again" would get equally as disruptive as the behaviour itself?

I was a quiet type. It took a lot for me to speak up. When I did I was villianised and then bullied by other kids. I learnt that speaking up didn't do you a lot of good, if the teacher didn't want to listen and you were ruining their easy life.

It's balancing the fact no one should have to be putting up with crap, versus the fact that kids need to be sat somewhere. I used to change seating arrangements between lessons, alternate between "you can pick where you sit" and allocated seats, rearrange tables and everything to try to minimise it when I taught - so no one got sat next to the classroom "character" for an extended period of time because that's not fair on anyone.

Even less fair is the fucking year I had to spend sat round the corner hidden behind a filing cabinet on my own because the class teacher didn't like me (I was chatty but not by any stretch of the imagination "challenging" at primary) and had been told to be harsh on me by the head (who disliked me because my mother was a divorced working mother back when it still had a bit of a stigma attached to it). I still bear a grudge against that filing cabinet now - although I was a bit of a pain in the arse about it... "Now if you see this page I've got in my hand.... can't see it Miss, cupboard's in the way, am I allowed round the corner?!"

Nothing I think these diligent kids are often very "rules based". Mine are!

I hope that three stage approach works to help her cope better and know how to handle it herself

BitOutOfPractice -

She is very "rules based" (another family trait!) so I think stepping it out for her like that might help.

Before I've just said if it happens tell the teacher, in a break if you don't want to in front of the class, or if not tell me and I will go and talk to them.

It's not the end of the world - she is generally happy at school - this just pisses her off and she feels it's unfair (fairness is another family trait!) which then upsets and confuses her. (Not following the rules = hard to compute!). And, I am checking in on it and going in when it's really pissing her off. She was next to him at end of last term >> I have said to wait and see if she is next to him at start of this term and if so I will raise it again.

Good god arranfan that's horrific. You poor thing

I'm hoping that teachers that do this and don't see a problem are thinking again as so many of us have told how harmful it has been to us or our DC

For the teachers who do this and wonder where's the harm?

Leaving out a mass of stuff, it developed an adversarial relationship with a number of naughty boys and their friends to the point where a number of them ganged up to 'teach me a lesson'. Concussion, fractured skull, fractured ribs as they use metal toe-caps, bricks etc.

No school involvement or responsibility because they did it (just) off school grounds.

So, yes - lifelong consequences in a very real sense.

This was commonplace in my primary school, I was one of the "well behaved girls". I guess teachers think "shut up and do your work" comes better from a fellow student than a teacher?

If I remember correctly, we were told to give DD this three step strategy:

1. Ignore (then if it continues)
2. Ask them to stop, loudly (then if it continues)
3. tell teacher

This helped DD a lot as she knew what to do in advance, rather than worrying what to do next.

But I agree OP, it shouldn't be happening and I'm sad to see that it still is

Children who follow your strategy are the exact ones that will not get the diffcult children put next to them.

This is a really classic object lesson in victim blaming, it's fascinating.

Still not a single word about the disruptive boy.It's ALL about the behaviour of the victim (Yr 3) and what she is doing wrong, from her actions, to her words, to her very core personality.

Genuinely, fascinating.

As with most victim blamers, I am sure that zzzz feels that she is 100% right >> but of course children who are able to speak up are not the ones who get this.

And of course one child learning a strategy just means the diffuclt child gets put with another quieter child again >>> all it does is make sure your child isn't the victim (using the terminology) but does not address the actual cause.

So many parallels with how men / women / boys / girls are treated and expectations around behaviour.

Erm

The whole reason the teacher has put the boy next to her is because it means quiet. Is she "speaks up" then she is not doing her job.

She is not stupid, she knows and understands exactly why he is there. I have told her that it's not fair and have spoken to the teacher.

I do not want to make this all about DD as it's upsetting me >> however, this has been an excellent example of the type of bind that adult women are all too familiar with.

Very clear expectation >> woman / girl should put up with / deal with by herself bad behaviour from male/s
Girl / woman attempts to do this (not make a fuss / deal with it herself)
Something really bad happens / or she finally tells someone
Answer >> you have handled this incorrectly. You should have told someone. Even though, you were fully aware, that you were not actually supposed to tell someone...

That said, she absolutely does need to learn to speak out.

Can I laugh there? Because the reality is that it’s not enough to say to a child ‘they need to speak up and tell the teacher’
When you have a child who will not speak to the teacher at all ever, what do you think it will acheive?
How do you think it will improve things for that child if said child only speak to a few handful of her peers, let alone adults?

I actually agree with Nothing. It’s not good enough to just rely on the child (boy or girl) to speak up and then put the responsibility into their shoulders ‘because they didn’t speak up’.
If a child who is struggling to move around was getting hit by the wide arm movements of the disruptive child you wouldn't tell them it’s their responsibility to get out of the way. That’s not different.

Fwiw, ime, said children do learn to speak up. But not in a week or month or a year. My own dc didn’t speak up until he was in Y9 when he was ‘bothered’ by other disruptive behaviours
(The first time he spoke up was to ask to move tak le after a child has purposely pour a glass of water on his drawing in Art. The teacher hasn’t moved either him or the disruptive child)

Until then they have the right to be protected from such behaviours.

Even when they were little, if they fell over and hurt themselves they barely shed a tear and were up and at it again in no time.

Being resilient / stoic used to be seen as positive character traits. Maybe moreso in boys?

I try Maisy!

But, it's just how they are - they're both like that and so am I

We even did some role play

zzzz if being shy or stoci is a problem (sersiouly? it's a perfectly normal way to be not a "problem") then the teachers should surely have identified this problem and have sat DD with someone in class who is best placed to help her with this "problem". The best placed one to help would probably be a girl who is confident and encouraging and so on, a role model, not her current partner.

Or are you in the "sink or swim" school of thought, as well as diagnosing problem personalitieis in Yr 3 children?

You cabt use kid with those qualities to your advantage then simultaneously say it's their fault for not saying anythung

Seriously

NothingOnTellyAgain
That's awful.
It is not your child's job to 'rub off on a child.
That said, she absolutely does need to learn to speak out. It's no good saying 'oh our whole family are like that and put up'

As an aside, I think what people need to realise on this thread is that a seating strategy is just one part of classroom management. It isn't a substitute for praise and positive reinforcement. It isn't a substitute for high expextations of students. It isn't a substitute for sanctions.

I could give my classes the option to sit where they like every lesson and whilst it wouldn't be the best for their learning overall, they wouldn't be rude, they wouldn't be kicking each other etc.

I have talked to her teacher. I said why is she always sat next to this boy who is known to be difficult and kicks her all the time.

They said that it was working as his behaviour had improved (from their perspective).

Your idea is.. what exactly. She's 7. She being phycially hurt in class. Youur entire focus is on what she is "doing wrong" and not one mention of the person who is hurting her.

Your attitude stinks. Telling girls that bad behaviour from boys is theirs to "handle" is appalling and leads to girls not disclosing much worse.

This is a microcosm of society that we are seeing in your posts. A male is aggressive to a female. What did she do wrong? How can she learn to better control him in future? Is it her responsibiltiy to do so? Yes. Anything to say about the aggressive male? No, aggressive males are a fact of life and women / girls need to learn "stategies" to deal with it.