Teacher's mean comments to 6 year old child

[flumpybear]

Hi
WWYD: my little boy is in year 2, he is bright, articulate, caring, thoughtful, creative, happy and a real little maelstrom at times, full in boyish boy so sometimes doesn't appear outwardly sensitive.
He actually is quite sensitive and understands a lot.

He's writing isn't brilliant, his reading is a little behind but not massively, DD was similar and she's just developed a little later. Everything else he's good at and is quite popular, plenty of friends and no problems except being a bit full on at times

So this last week or two he's been disruptive st home and throwing meltdowns over silly things, 'I can't do this I'm stupid' type of comments - after some care and cuddles and asking what's wrong, turns out his teacher (she's temporary as his actual teacher is off sick, albeit works there as a floating teacher so he does have her every week for short bursts ) said to him ' mini-Flumpy your writing just keeps getting worse and worse'

I was pretty shocked so we had a talk about it and I said his writing needs to get better but with practice and time it will, and he's not to worry or listen to her mean comments and she was wrong to have said that - I've bought him a dinosaur writing book which comes today so we're going to practice together and get things moving. But over a week later he's still acting up and anxious - I spoke to my DD as she has this teacher 4 years ago one day a week and she said 'oh yes, she's quite mean at times'

So do I just work with my child and try to build his crumbling confidence with the fear she'll dig at him some more? Do I risk talking to her and telling her what he's said about her and risk her being worse or just being horrible ... speak to the head?! I don't know, all the teachers in this school have always been so lovely and positive all the time and any negative things have been dealt with via us as parents with solutions and working forwards without the child being made to feel rubbish
Thanks

Bump

Mean? She didn't call him names, she commented that his writing was deteriorating.

If he's struggling, why haven't you helped him before now? Instead of pandering to him and attacking his teacher?

As for the "full on" "maelstrom" "boyish" I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, it sounds like minimising being boisterous and is irrelevant to anything the teacher said.

You’re doing the right things with him but I don’t think the teacher saying that was very professional, his writing might be worse towards the end of the day when tired or if he’s upset or stressed so pointing this out to him has done nothing for his confidence and he’s still upset by it, I’m not sure what she was hoping to achieve by the comment - surely in year 2 at 6 years old teachers have resources to help him and can verbally encourage him when she sees him trying to improve, and of course talking to you if she felt that would help?....a throw away comment she’s probably forgotten (or your son has possibly not remembered correctly?) has caused a lot of upset so speak to her to sort this out.

Thanks @Kaykay06

@10IAR - people / kids do not need, or respond well to put downs or people in authority being negative - point in hand. I'm hoping you're not a teacher !

No thankfully not, I couldn't be arsed dealing with the parents!

Telling him his mean teacher is bad isn't exactly helpful is it? But then, what she said did inspire you to try and support him with his writing so it's worked eh?

Just go and talk to her

I think it’s a terribly unnecessary thing to say to a child. It will give nothing but negative repercussions for him. I’d definitely have a word- she may not realise the damage she’s causing. A study on innate number ability found that 6 year olds performed far better on arithmetic tests when asked to answer on behalf of a puppet (I can’t remebe the name of the study). Children at this age are extremely sensitive to criticism and performance pressure errors

@Kaykay06 - oh re the comment, my son often repeats stuff verbatim, even after the event, and if he can't recall exactly what was said he'll say 'oh it was something like .....' so I'm errring on the fact that he probably did get the message correctly but yes it could be incorrectly perceived

Maelstrom? Behaviour is seen a little differently in schools to the way you are describing it here.

It sounds like a throwaway comment rather than a full on dig and it may have been said with a smile and nudge for all you know.

Even if it was said sharply whilst it might not be ideal it’s hardly crime of the century anyway.

My 9 year old is like that too (remembers comments etc accurately) but I know my other kids sometimes mix things up, it’s just sad he’s been so upset by this when his teacher could’ve helped him and boosted him instead hope you get things sorted and he improves his writing - my ds as above is very bright and way ahead in reading and spelling but had awful handwriting until recently it’s improved incredibly due to everyone helping and encouraging him, it’s taken a while though, hope your sons original teacher is back soon

I'm quite shocked by the others comments. Of course she was out of order saying that to him, you definitely need to say something. First to her, then to the head teacher. Maybe even the parent's committee? I think other parents should know. No teacher should undermine a child's confidence like that, she obviously has her own issues that she needs councilling for and at the very least she needs a training course on constructive feedback.

It was hardly a mean comment
It has worked, you are now going to work with him to help improve his handwriting.

Perhaps he'd done a particularly messy piece of work and it was the end of a long day. I don't think that one comment can account for his behaviour. It's be more unfunded to do into school and day his behaviour at home is declining and you're worried about him. He's also losing confidence. I wouldn't pick up on this particular phrase as its not great but not hugely mean or awful, probably just a bit impatient and fraught after a long day.

I'd be very upset if a teacher said that to one of my DCs.

Could it be that your DS has misunderstood? I would ask for an appointment with the teacher.

That should say : I'd be more unclined to go into school

Regardless of your personal option of what the teacher has said you have completely undermined her to your child by calling her mean and telling him he shouldn't listen to her and she was wrong. Is it any wonder we have a teacher recruitment crisis? You have no idea if the context and so if you weren't happy could have simply asked the teacher to clarify.

Can't quite believe some of the comments here!

She said his writing was getting worse and worse, and rather than accept that observation you have agreed that 'she is mean', ( undermining her?). - rather than acknowledging any validity of her comment ( Was your writing worse ? why do you think that was ? What can you do to improve it? )

Your comments on boisterous behaviour suggest that your ds could be a bit of a nightmare in the classroom? If he is not taught some resilience this is likely to get worse. I hate the culture of perpetual praise, I don't believe it helps children learning to deal with setbacks etc in life.

I suspect it was a throw away comment by the teacher, but it hit home because it was valid!

It was hardly a mean comment hmm
It has worked, you are now going to work with him to help improve his handwriting.

If that was her aim, she should have spoken to the parent, or taken the child to one side and had a gentle conversation about this. Not make a throwaway remark like this.

I feel like I have wandered into an alternative universe. The teacher was not being mean she was being truthful, and at 6 he should be well able to understand if he needs to improve. Perhaps you should look at your own parenting skills rather than tell your 6 year old child that his teacher is mean and to ignore her.

Is it any wonder teachers are finding it harder to work with such undisciplined children. You are aware, I assume that children are able to be criticised, disciplined or even told no without the world around crumbling. I would work on his reading skills as well as his resilient skills otherwise you will find that most of his teachers may well be "mean" in his eyes.

My DS of the same age had a very similar remark made to him by a teacher - in his case it was by the PPA cover which annoyed me even more because "that's not very neat, is it?" is an even more fucking stupid and unconstructive thing to say if you don't know how his writing is generally (left-handed DS has really struggled with writing and tbh his confidence with it was actually lower than his ability, and we'd spent the past six months or so really working on it at home with real improvement, so a real kick in the teeth).

I did speak to his teacher about it (tbf it was part of a wider struggle with school at the time - I've since moved him) - she "knew the teacher wouldn't have meant it to be discouraging".

When DS made the same remark a month or so later about a classmate's writing he was rightly pulled up for it! Quite hard not to compare the two incidents... DS apologised for his own unkind words, but of course received no apology from the teacher for literally the same insult. I would not want to undermine the school but sometimes they can make that difficult!

I think it's inexcusably shit really and whilst I am sympathetic to the hard job of teachers (having many in my family/social circle) I think this one could use a reminder of the power her words can have. It's not 'just' about hurt feelings, it's also about a child's future motivation to persevere with something they find challenging and their wider confidence, enthusiasm and engagement with school.

I also think that - far from being horrible to your child in retaliation for your challenging her - the most likely outcome is that if she still is mean on occasion, she may think twice about being mean to your child.

Mean?
Where?
Go to school, communicate with school, and help your "maelstrom" to improve in areas that need improving.
Like his writing.

Ooh - I do agree though that 'she was mean, don't listen to her' is a problematic response though. I guess with the benefit of time to sit and think about it, rather than respond immediately, my preferred response would be to reflect his feelings back at him a bit ("it sounds like you didn't feel good when X said that") and get any further info that way, and go privately into the school about it. Maybe at a push id acknowledge that sometimes people hurt our feelings without meaning to.

I don't think its perfect parenting to minimise hurt feelings and casual criticism tbh. Building resilience doesn't mean pretending these things don't matter. When I give feedback at work to a colleague, I phrase it more kindly and more constructively than this. There are lots of reasons handwriting at 6 can be a bit crap. The teacher will have more insight into how to address this than the child does. I am surprised if 'grumbling at him about it' is really in her top five strategies...

You are massively over reacting.
But I would ask the question : his writing is getting worse and worse.
Is the teacher supposed to not tell him? What would have had her do?
I really don't see your problem, but perhaps this is massive drip feed and there is a context that you have not mentioned. In itself, why do you object to the teacher's comment?

Sorry - I keep thinking of more, I wish you could go back and edit on mumsnet.

I once tried asking my DS what was so hard about writing - because his usual resilience and willingness to try is really noticeably absent from anything involving writing. He couldn't answer. It's just hard. I tried suggesting - is it to do with holding a pencil, knowing how to spell what he wants to write, keeping the thoughts in his head and getting them on paper at the same time - he still just didn't really know.

For him it's very much the mechanics (as his Y1 teacher noted, without major concern), and the two things which have really helped him is using a better pencil (Yoropen 👍🏼) and also spending a lot of time doing other (fun) stuff to build up his strength - clay, plasticine, threading, sewing. Obviously these were my ideas because he is 6 and cannot solve that problem. No amount of telling him it's not good enough was likely to have the same effect. That's the same reason I don't just tell my staff their first draft was rubbish and they need to do better, even if I know they can because they have done previously. It's not helpful and it is bloody dispiriting if someone has tried hard. Kindness costs nothing.

Thabks for the comments. The maelstrom comment and boyish part was me trying to explain that perhaps he seems tough enough on the face of it, he is happy to race around the playground, he's quite huggy and happy and just a resilient type in the outside - he's not badly behaved and doesn't like being told off so as previous teachers have said he'll respond well if he gets a bit noisy or behaviour is not what the teacher wants he slips back behind the boundaries easily when asked /told.
I'm hoping his teacher returns soon, parents evening soon so may bring it up then with main teacher.
We do loads of crafting with him /by himself, he makes all sorts of stuff with craft type materials, drawing, making books, painting etc plus Lego and all sorts really, so dexterity and fine handling skills are flexed regularly. As I mentioned I've had a book delivered now by amazon to help with writing so we will try thst tonight
I'll look into that pen/pencil someone mentioned too.
I'm trying to recall my conversation with my DS and I hear people who say about saying the teacher is mean - I can't recall if I said it like that or if I said what she had said was unkind or mean ... I can't recall (was a bit caught off guard when discussing it with him).
Parenting wise, well I guess we're learning to be parents, we're not perfect, but he's genuinely a nice little boy, not a perfect little angel, but not a terror either.
Think I'll chat to the main teacher when she returns and in the meantime start working through this book we have and see how we get on
Thanks all - will read comments more thoroughly later as at work now, but appreciate the responses