aibu to not give a crap about my dd message book

[spookshowangellovesit]

my dd is at a AS unit they are fab, mostly. except for this one teacher i just dont seem to gel with. i have to admit that i am a pretty horribly disorganised person off the bat the type that will run round first thing in the morning with a half made pack lunch in one hand whilst trying to put on one childs jumper, comb anothers hair and get dressed all at the same time. (this was this morning)
my dd has a message book her teachers write in ever day it is mostly dd had a good day, was star of the week, dd was late today etc occasionally it will have instructions like need pack lunch or has school trip. i read it about once a week some times more when i remember too.i think that other parents perhaps write back in it or what ever but as it is mostly just what the child did that day i dont see it as all that necessary. the one teacher in particular takes real offence to this and went so far as to call me up over it and demand to know if i ever read my dd message book. i replied yes and she then said that she didnt think i did. and that it had important information in it and i needed to pay attention to it.
after this i tried to pay more attention to it, there were a couple of incidences of her shouting at me over my daughters shoes and trousers which actually made me lose my temper with her and since then she has been better, but today i open the bloody message book and there it is again... can you please read the information in here as it is important and may contain forms and things.
????? aibu am i over reacting, reading it back i think i might be actually.

When I had young children I used to be disorganised. The home/school note book haunted me.

Just do your best.

Don't dwell on it too much.

Before you know it she will be grown up and you will never have to read that book ever again!

I still have the occasional nightmare about forgetting to read the thing.

Hi SE13 Mummy - BTW I grew up in your neck of the woods !
I think it would be better if the kids in your class did get their story at the end of their day rather than the rather minimal communication you're having with two parents via the contact books. Couldn't someone else do the backwards and forwards initialling in the books, or maybe you could fit it in at lunch-time rather than the end of the day ? I do sympathise - there's just too much paperwork in schools these days. If it serves a useful function then fair enough, but it doesn't always !

YABU. It's contact between home and school. You should be reading it and also writing stuff in it yourself.

Amberleaf & jugglingwiththreeshoes, the contact books at my school were set up because parents of children with ASD asked for them. What that means is that the relevant teachers all do their absolute best to write in them because the parents have said it will help them/their children. Perhaps it's because of this that I feel that the parents should find a second or two to initial what we've written.

There is no-one else who can write in it for me, unless I ask one of the 8-year-olds in the class to do it (which I wouldn't, obviously!). Lunchtimes and afternoons are flashpoints for lots of children, especially these two, so although I try to write the morning's comments at lunchtime (whilst also running various clubs, getting some marking done and setting up for the afternoon's lessons) they always need to be written in at the end of the day.

Thing is, the parents of the children with contact books really appreciate that it is being used in the way they'd hoped. They don't mind if I don't write in it when they've not managed to as the overall impact of having daily contact is a positive one and is helping their children feel more settled about school. I try to fit story time in at other times of the day but it doesn't always happen.

I disagree with posters who are saying that the parent having a SN themselves which includes disorganisation are abdicated of their responsibilities.

I have 3 children under the age of 6. DD1 goes to special school, so has a home-school diary. DD2 goes to mainstream, in Yr R, so has reading books, phonics cards, 'tricky words' to learn, etc., and has a 'reading diary'. I manage. It is hard, and I do get support twice per week to help me with the girls, because DD1 has challenging behaviour if my time is too stretched.

Frankly, if a parent can be organised enough to post on an internet forum, they can initial a book that a teacher has taken the time to write in.

DD1's book is invaluable. Only today, I wrote in it that DD1 was saying she was always 'silly & naughty' at school because the teacher told her. I was quite worried, but the teacher was able to reassure me that DD1 may have heard the word 'silly' at school, but that she was not misbehaving in any way.

I was ranting [sorry!] more about the reading journals etc. I would welcome a contact book actually, instead of my DS teacher telling him stuff and expecting him to be able to relay it to me [which he rarely manages understandably]

When I taught sn children they each had a message book. There was one who clearly never read it and had to be rung especially to be reminded: to send in trip money, treat her dd for severe nits, send in dinner money or a lunch as she hadn't got round to filling in the forms for free school meals, send her dd with 2 hearing aids. It was abandoned. I can't see why you'd be nagged about it unless you'd missed important information several times. The staff have several books to do and you can't be arsed to do 1!

Sounds like you had plenty of sympathy for your SN children corriefan but not much for your one struggling parent !