to think this is a strange thing for a teacher to say to a five year old?

[hellymelly]

quite long,sorry,but need to give the background-DD had a horrible Summer hol worrying about going back to school,as on the induction day for her new year one class,she took a dislike to the teacher and spent the whole holiday upset and scared about going back to school.Thanks to the (lovely) head we had a meeting between DD and the new teacher the day before school started,the teacher was lovely to DD and all seemed resolved, certainly DD from then on has been very happy with her teacher,but otherwise generally upset in the class and crying in the mornings,crying at bedtimes and weekends etc.We had another meeting with the head,and her form teacher,and they have helped with some of the things that DD was getting most stressed about (lunchtimes etc).However,we have held off mentioning to the head that DD doesn't like the assistant teacher,who she says is very "grumpy"and is quite scared of.(I did mention it briefly to her teacher)We hoped that as they got to know each other better DD would not mind her so much,but on several occasions she seems quite bullying and unkind towards DD,and to some of the other children,(many of whom seem to feel the same as DD about her).Anyway we were in with the head yesterday at end of day,talking over the progress and planning how to continue,the meeting ran slightly over picking up time,and when I realised I went straight to DD's class.She was sitting on the floor on her own looking very upset,(the AT and a helper in the room)I assumed it was because she had been waiting for us to pick her up, but when we got home she said "Mrs X told me that I shouldn't be crying (she wanted to come to me)she said I am lucky to have a Mummy and a Daddy,and that she hasn't got a Mummy and Daddy.I asked her why not,and she said that they had died a long time ago".DD took this to mean that they had died when Mrs X was a little girl,(I have no idea when they died.Mrs X is in her 30's I would say)and she was very upset.She said that maybe that was why Mrs X is so grumpy,and she also seemed worried that someones Mummy and Daddy could die.Is this not a really strange thing to say to a five year old? We have had a few better days with DD recently and her teacher and the head have been really trying to help her settle into full time school,but now this!What do you think,and what would you do?

If that was what the AT said it sounds like something someone might say when they are exasperated with an exceptionally over sensitive child. Sorry.

Sorry, I've just seen your last message, and perhaps my response wasn't helpful at all. It sounds like something changed between reception and year one that was worth resolving. I still don't think the comment is worth saying something about but that's just me, and I do think it's worth keeping your powder dry for other things you want to tackle.

And yes,she was part time in reception,(some full days,some mornings)but she is full time now as she is in year 1.

there is no way anyone I know in school would say that to a child, if you work with children you don't tend to react that way
agree it's probably not a massive issue but def is weird

I don't understand really...if she's in yr 1 surely she's had 3 terms or being fulltime?
And no of course you should see the school if there are problems...but there aren't really are there?
she doesn't like yr 1 as much as reception! ....and?
the school sound very kind to me, leave it there..

that is avery strange thing for he to say in such a random manner...however if it was within a longer conversation that DD was unable to rlay not neccesarily so strange.

my mother died when i was young and if asked by a child about my parents specificaly i would say the are not alive anymore but I would not just randomly say my parents are dead!!! children some times forget large chunks of dialogue

however your gut instinct about a person tends to ring true somewhere along the way, I would raise in a non conserned way but just out of interest could the teacher possibly find out what was said there was a witness in the room who hopefully would admit if anything out of line was said.

i would be worried if my daughter was settling into a class, my DD has started reception and there were tow kids crying first week and R teacher took it in hand strait away and none of the children cry and you just sence an extra little bit going into those children who were not settling well.

sounds similar to story i know.
Friend of friend had similar issue with her 5 year old last year. Her daughter cried and told loads stories to her parents, after many talks the parents insisted moving her another class, then she carried on having problems. She told teachers all picking on her etc.. She stopped eating and crying and lying under her bed. As parent it must be hard. At the end this mum had personal arguement with Head, then they excluded from school. I heard her daughter went different local school and happy about it. I dont know what to make out of it. But whole family suffered.

Although,i agree its odd thing to say to 5 yr old. Totally unprofessional.

My DH is very tolerant,calm and the voice of reason at all times, and is more bothered by the comment than me ,which is why I thought I should post.All the other comments by the AT have been just things which sound innocent enough in print but rather threatening with the right intonation,her saying "WHY are you crying? " to DD at the start of the school day.rather than just distracting her or gently ignoring it.And unkind things said to several other children which parents have commented on but which are not to do with my child so I can't post about.Perhaps she, as suggested,is at the end of her tether with my "sensitive "child,I don't know,but surely working with five year olds means dealing with them being upset some of the time?

Maybe it's a combination of things for your dd, reception is very different to year 1, especially as she is spending more time there. Could it be that she is generally finding the whole adjustment difficult, but her dislike for the TA is the only thing that her 4yo mind is able to make sense of and therefore, verbalise? If it is that, she could be making her dislike of the TA sound worse then it is, because she is actually trying to express how hard she is finding the change to Y1.

IMO, we do expect small children to be very mature when they start full time school, and the little comforts that were available to them in reception make a huge difference to a child feeling secure.

In answer to your question though, I do think it's strange that a TA would tell a child that they are lucky to have their Mummy and Daddy. But I can see that she could possibly have said that out of frustration. Not an excuse though. However I don't think it's wrong that she told your dd that her parents had died, I feel that we should be open with children about things like this. It very much depends on the context and tone of the conversation as to whether it was inappropriate or not, but it is going to be very hard for you to work out what really happened.

Your daugther has years of school ahead of her, and without a doubt she will come into contact with more teachers that she doesn't like. It may be best for you to concentrate on helping your daughter to trust her own opinions, and realise that she will not like everyone she meets in the world, but that she does have to tolerate them. From the fact that she has told you anything, it seems like she is able to talk to you about her worries, which is a really good thing. Keep encouraging that and let her know that she can always ask you for help to understand things better, and to help her decide if she thinks that someone else did or said something they shouldn't have.

She hasn't been telling me loads of stories,that is a miscomprehension due to my trying to give the whole picture.She had a bad day the day she met her new teacher,this was resolved,and although she has been miserable about certain things in school the only thing she's said about the AT is that she is grumpy and that she doesn't like her being grumpy,until this stuff came out yesterday.I have told her that there are grumpy people everywhere and we have made light of it with her,but I have seen the way that the AT talks to DD and to other children and have been unhappy about it but had decided it was best to try and ignore it.There is no way that her reception teacher or the TAs last year would have said anything like this to her.
she has only just started full time because there was a mix-up about when she legally had to be full time, she did have some full time weeks last term but because she wasn't well she didn't do more than two or three.

I think it seems very odd. I am a secondary teacher and would be horrified if I heard a teacher say something like that to one of our kids, never mind a 5yo. Perhaps the 'you're lucky to have a mummy and daddy' is not so bad, but to tell a young child about your own bereavement (from 'a long time ago') is just weird imo.

Even if your dd hasn't been telling lots of stories, I still think what I said could apply. Maybe she wouldn't be so bothered about the grumpy AT if she wasn't finding thae change difficult and she was feeling more settled.

Do you know how long this AT has been with the school? And have you heard of any of the other parents having serious concerns?

She may just be very tired then! She sounds very little to be in Yr 1. My eldest had a rocky first year (she was about 5.5 too when the trouble hit) at school, she loved the first half-term, then realised it was going to be 'for ever' in her words, that it was quite hard work and tiring, it didn't have good toys like preschool ('only dinosaurs' which they used for counting) and decided she didn't like it. She cried on Sun nights, cried on going in for a couple of weeks and once ran away. It was very stressful. But we just kept with the 'the school is lovely, you are going, and that's that' even though I did shed a few tears on my own, and it passed by the end of the first term/a few weeks into the second. I told the head teacher about it, and she said it was very common for children to find school a novelty to start with, especially with lots of playing, then start to hit a sticky patch where they realise how much they will have to do work-wise/socially and so on and don't like it, but that that passes. My daughter is in Y2 now and really loves school, so she was right.

Oh and thanks curlymama,yes she is finding the adjustment difficult,and it has been a shock for all of us as she was happy as a sandboy in reception,but she is verbally very articulate and astute.She came home one day last week when she TA had been grouchy with her and some of the boys,she was really angry and stroppy with me,but then cried and said "I'm not really angry with you Mummy,I'm angry with Mrs X for being so grumpy with me today,but I can't show her that I'm angry,and so I'm getting angry with you".I think that is pretty emotionally mature for five.She is good at relaying information fairly accurately,or I would be much less bothered by the comment in fact. She hadn't cried all that day,(her teacher was with us and had told us that)she was just upset because all the others had been picked up,she wanted to see me and knew I was round the corner in the Head's office,so it was only for roughly ten minutes or less that she was in tears,not so long that I would expect a teacher to say to her that she is "lucky to have a Mummy and Daddy".

She is actually liking the extra work,that is one positive thing she has to say,and her teacher says that her work is excellent,which is good as the school is in another language to the one we speak at home.I think I must be really unclear in my postings,but the TA was not very kind to DD last year on occasion,and I thought then that she seemed not to like DD but it wasn't an issue as she had very little to do with her.Other parents have seen her reduce children to tears for not having the right PE kit/wrong snacks etc,that sort of thing.

The TA should not have said that to your daughter.

hellymelly my dauhter found it really hard to get aong with a nursery teacher i knew this woman did not treat my daughter as she did others and also seen her disfavour other children. i found this hard to deal with but just reasured my child the woman was kind and that if she felt more comfertable wither nursery teachers this was fine also, as i wanted her to know that she should turn to someone she can trust if needed, ie a different nursery teacher. its difficult to accept that proffessionals can and will treat children differnetly. in my OP its wrong

also from you say the school has taken your consernrnes seruously or they would not have arranged meeting with you so no you are not over reacting i would revisist this with school if you continue to be uncomfertasble and see how your daughter responds through out the year with out any mention of this infront of her...if you are not happy it is your porogitive to chage schools but give this seriouse consideration.

a worker should never display any form of exsaperation towards any child regardless of how sensitive the child is being is that a normal trait of a 5 yr old, surely they are trained in managing difficult behaviour.

YA definitely NBU

It's so totally inappropriate to say that to a child, if I was you I'd complain to the school.

FWIW I used to work as a TA.

apologies for typos its late and im genearly terrible speller. x

Your dd sounds lovely!

It sounds like it was completely understandable for your dd to have been upset. It's horrible when your dc's are so little and they are unhappy about something like this.

From what you have said, the AT doesn't appear to be the right person to be working with such small children. Is there a chance she could be going through a major personal difficulty and that is making her very grumpy? That's why I asked if she had been at the school for a long time, because if she has you would (hopefully) expect any problems to have come up by now if she's just not very good at her job. But if she is having difficulties the head may be willing to let it go for a while.

If you are genuinely concerned, then I would speak to the head teacher. But the thing with doing that is that if you are even vaguely unjustified in your complaint then it will quickly spread round the staff room that you are one of those 'difficult parents'. Rightly or wrongly. Which is why it would be good to chat to lots of other parents to make sure they feel the same before you do anything.

hellymelly - some people have been really unfair to you! I'm a teacher and would be shocked if another member of staff said this!
Of course, bear in mind that your daughter is 5 (as mine is) and that she may not be giving you a clear account of the context but I do think you should mention it to the headteacher. I've worked with a T Assistant who made inappropriate comments and I had to report it. It is unprofessional. Your daughter may not have even known that people die (mine didn't until she was 5 and I realised we'd better explain it before she heard it at school).

Try not to worry. I would advise you to meet with the head or teacher without telling your daughter though - she will almost certainly be getting attention through all of this and children do tend to hang onto that when mum is always going into school to sort out their problems. Keep encouraging her and brush the issues aside (but as I said, sort them out without involving your daughter - it's important that she isn't piggy in the middle). Good luck.

just another thought...i would imagine that yours won't be the first complaint that the head has had about this T Assistant so don't worry. Your daughter sounds very bright and the head is sure to know her character from her Reception teachers that she liked so much. If those are really the words she used, she should definately not be working with primary aged children (or probably with any children!)

Well,that is what my DD had suggested last week after the anger had subsided,she said that maybe Mrs X wasn't very happy about something and that was why she was getting so "grumpy" with the children.I wonder that too.DD took her flowers in last week,along with her teacher and the head,she got up in her pyjamas to pick them,all off her own bat,and the TA looked almost horrified and sort of tossed them onto a table, another mother saw it and commented on it a few days later.In fact I found it quite funny,thinking she was just a moody so and so.But now I think she is a bit peculiar and that is bothering me more than grouchy.

I would separate out this particular conversation and your general concerns that this TA isn't very good with this year group (which is how it sounds, probably an older more settled group wouldn't be so sensitive).

Your dd may be very articulate, but that doesn't mean she is reporting the full context of the conversation. I don't for example think that telling a child that asks about your own parents that they are now dead is bad - perhaps your dd told the TA that she might cry about not being with her parents? I can imagine my dd upset saying that sort of thing to an adult she disliked at that sort of age. To me that the TA is generally harsher than required is more of a concern.

But then not all teachers are sweet as pie, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. My ds and I had a conversation the other day about the relative "shoutiness" of teachers, and concluded that a bit of "shoutiness" was sometimes required.

i would def dicourage the type of picking flowers appraoch it does not lay natural for me allow my DD to do that for a teacher especialy after such a contact with the school.

forget about school for tomorrow and see how the rest of the next couple of weeks go..its nearly half term. xx