Update on "should my daughter change schools?"

[StillWorkingOnACleverNN]

Summary of previous thread (I don't know how to link!). DD (year 4) is in a classroom with a difficult teacher and started pulling out her hair. We discovered the depth of the problem 4 weeks ago and have been trying to understand if it's just the classroom (it is) and if she has some other mental issues (she doesn't). On the previous thread, I was trying to decide whether to take her out of the school or not. There were many helpful suggestions about how to think about the issue.

DD's therapist met with DD several times and recommended that she NOT go back into the classroom, but rather change classrooms. The school was shocked and I think really didn’t expect this recommendation. (They have worked with the therapist around other children in the past and trust her)

The school is taking the problem seriously and is trying to keep DD in the school rather than moving. There is some huge self-imposed constraint about moving to the other class so that may not be possible. They haven't had a child change classrooms in the last 30 years. We are are exploring things they can put into place to keep her in the current class. They are willing to think outside of the box. Another teacher I trust will be in the class all the time this week so we are OK with sending DD to class while they look into these options or think about how to make it possible for her to switch classes.

It’s still possible they won’t be able to offer something we are OK with, not because they don’t want to but because the fallout from the solution would be worse than having her leave, and we may end up sending her to another school, but we’re all working collaboratively to try to avoid that.

They’ve asked for us to send as wide a list of options as we can for keeping her in the class for the rest of the year. I’ve come up with a few, but if you have other ideas please tell me! We’re sending them this list tomorrow morning so they have some time to think it through. Assume the teacher is toxic (without knowing it), open to change, but the change is going to happen slowly and the solution has to be through June.

My current ideas are:
Full time other adult in the class who has a relationship with the teacher where she intervenes on-the-spot when needed as well as giving continual feedback after class hours (I don’t want to say coach or co-teacher or whatever because it would be a unique role).

Send the teacher on sabbatical to do some special project for the rest of the year. Or offer early retirement.

Open another Year 4 class and ask for volunteer parents to move their children to the new class. This is not as crazy as it sounds. They have an empty classroom, the school is current expanding from 2 forms per year to 3 forms per year, and the expansion year is currently Year 2. There would be several parents who would volunteer.

Can you think of anything else?

still working
That email is perfectly appropriate, and signals to me the sorts of suggestions I made in my earlier post about what would help dd is, focusing on DD.

Surely you see it is wholly inappropriate for you as a parent to make suggestions that focus on the career, the livelihood, of a person? It is hugely overstepping your position.

I am so mortified on your behalf at the thought that you will send a message suggesting they put a full time coteacher in to coach the teacher or send her on sabbatical, when they are expecting you to say "let DD have a timeout card and meetings with a learning mentor". It's making my toes curl.

I read that email from HT as "give us a warning about all the over analysis you plan to bring to the meeting so we can plan how to shut you down and end the meeting as we need to conclude this quickly."

I do not in any way read it as they want your opinions on the teachers employment status!

Thanks for the apology. On the question of teacher vs child centred suggestions, I give up. I do mean this kindly, but you might find more of what you're looking for on an american forum.

dontforgetbilly My understanding of hair pulling is that it first arises in high stress, then becomes habit, then happens during stress but also boredom. I think DD was doing it for about 6 weeks at the point where we realized. It was transitioning from a stress response to a habit/boredom response. When we pointed out to her what she was doing, put her hair in cornrow braids (which she likes and thinks is pretty and also then she never has to brush her hair), and gave her a habit replacement (chipping nail varnish), she stopped almost right away. Every few days we ask her whether she has the urge to pull her hair. She hasn't had it at all during the break. She may return to it in the future, but for now it seem to be gone. And of course I don't care about the hair pulling per se but rather what caused it.

... And frankly, if they really do mean your original type of suggestion, then shame on them for exposing a staff member to that.

I really think they don't, btw. They state "stay in teacher's class" which suggests they aren't expecting to retire her or send her off, as then it would say "stay in Xxx School".

I too think you are stepping way over the boundary with deciding this teachers future- unless you are part of the leadership team, and have decided to leave that bit of info out.

It really sounds like your child needs to work more with coping strategies. I said this in the last thread- you are teaching her to run when the going gets tuff. How many other children in the classroom are currently seeing a psychologist? How many other children are displaying self-harm behaviour?

You have to ask yourself, why is it only your daughter that has this much difficulty? If the teacher is as bad as you say (and I am not doubting that- I have seen some in my time), then surely other children would be having extreme difficulties.

I am sorry that your dd is going through this, and I appreciate that it must be a very worrying time for you as a family. However, I think concentrating on the 'teacher' and having her moved, retired etc, is not the best way to go about it.

I think your time would be better spent on strategies that your daughter can use in difficult situations, building up resilience, increasing her self-worth, esteem and empowering her as a young lady.

Ideally the best move would be to a new classroom. If a school will not do this because 'it hasn't been done in 30 years', so thinking more about their 'reputation' than the emotional and psychological needs of one of their pupils, do you really want your dd there?

As someone who works in a school it amuses me when parents threaten to remove their child from school. It really isn't a threat! I have a colleague in another school who whips out a list of local schools when a parent threatens to leave to help them select a new school!

Why don't you just get her one of those chewable pencil toppers? They seem to work wonders for the hundreds of other junior aged kids who chew clothes, ship nail varnish and fiddle with their hair.

I think youarenotkiddingme has hit the nail on the head.

You sound anxious and over analysing of everything yourself, perhaps your dd has picked up on this and amplified a much smaller issue. Kids take in a lot more from adults than they let on. your love for your dd shines through and you're obviously doing your best but I think you need a step back.
Are you American yourself if you don't mind me asking? perhaps your attitude towards education, quick to use therapists etc, especially with it being a paid education, might reflect your current culture more than the average English experience. Perhaps an American forum could help?

I wonder if there's a little kid in the middle of this who is sick with anxiety about the big deal this has turned into...
Why not tell her that you're sure she can be a happy successful learner this term and then just stop overdramatising?

give us a warning about all the over analysis you plan to bring to the meeting so we can plan how to shut you down and end the meeting as we need to conclude this quickly.

That's how I read it too.

Could you have a break in the school fees. Home school for 2 terms then have her re enter at the start of the next year?

Perfectionism doesn't have to manifest in every area to be an appropriate description. I have a messy house and fail to send birthday cards, I'm an under-achiever in most areas of my life, but for whatever reason, being an over-achiever academically has caused me a lot of anxiety. This is not unusual, especially in girls who are used to external praise and being quite compliant in relation to it- they want to please and then start to fear not pleasing or getting into trouble- this sounds highly likely actually given the style of the teacher you have described.

I do think there's a message in there about trusting your dd's coping mechanisms- she's stopped hair pulling and is going back into the classroom. Perhaps she'll do fine. One of mine was very anxious starting a new secondary school and cried most evenings for about two weeks about homework, the new school rules which are very strict, getting into trouble with the teachers who seemed unapproachable to her- it really did make me wonder if I'd put her in the right school and whether she should transfer. But we've worked on calming her down, helping her strategize for homework, do things early so she has enough time to approach the teachers or email them if she is stuck and so on. She's now coping really well with the school and the homework and has joined clubs, got friends and so on. She also has learned that she can cope with a new and difficult situation quite well when she puts her mind to it.

I'm not suggesting you should stick it out. For one thing, you are paying and have choices! I would definitely ask to move class. But there could still be value in your dd learning to interact with this teacher and her different style in the meantime- if she's stopped the hair pulling and the teacher is making an effort to bond with all the children, why is this not enough? Is her anxiety so great it is simply intolerable or could it be a challenge to be overcome?

Either way- your dd sounds like she's actually doing quite well if she's able to adapt her coping style so quickly, I was not at all flexible at that age and learned all my coping strategies as an adult (and have even added a few more on as I go through life).

Ok, your example has actually reinforced to me that you have a DD problem, not a teacher problem. Your DD has an external locus of control. It's that simple. In other words, her sense of her worth, her ability, how 'good' she is, isn't coming from herself, but from other people. What her friends think, and what her teachers think, matters more than what she thinks.

In the past, that's been fine, because her teachers have all been tip-top with praise and she's top of the class -what's not to be happy about? Now, in year 4, she's finding a teacher who isn't all singing, all dancing, all praising. That's causing her difficulties, because instead of being able to compare the teacher's comment with her own view of her ability/performance/effort, she hears it and takes it as a judgement of fact.

Your DD needs some Emotional Literacy sessions. She needs to be able to weigh and balance comments, to understand how strongly they are intended. She also needs to be able to learn some resilience, for times when she doesn't receive complete praise for her work. She needs to learn that sometimes a teacher will ask her to do work at a different level than she prefers (e.g. reading) and that's ok.

She doesn't need to be protected from every difficult word this teacher may say. My DD3, also Year 4, got accused of splashing water on the head of a friend by a teacher who can be a bit sharp. She would never do that. She cried, and said it wasn't her. When another girl confessed, the teacher admitted that she got confused between their arms, as their coats were similar. Dd3 told me about it that afternoon, but I said that as the teacher admitted she was wrong, I wouldn't go and discuss it, and DD3 must just let it go, even though she got really told off.

I'm sure this teacher is being disciplined internally. You need to focus on what support they can give your DD for her emerging needs.

Asking her every few days if she has had urges to pull hair is only going to make her anxious about it. You run the risk of her either finding something else to do, or doing it secretly.
Better if you se her do it, distract her and find something else to do with her hands.

After skimming your posts op, my gut feeling is that the school are humouring you.

They've set you the project of 'fixing' the problem you have approached them with, knowing your suggestions will be crazy and they can then kindly and understandingly empathise with you whilst telling you that they're unworkable, so that you bugger off.

Blimey. This thread is crackers.

I’m also a hair puller. It’s just a habit. I’ve never sought treatment. I find it quite comforting. It doesn’t stem from stress.

Get the lass a fidget spinner and teach her that life is a series of ups and downs. We can’t get along with everyone we meet and it’s much better to see the good in people than the bad.

I’d also probably ditch the psychologist and get a hold of yourself. I certainly would aim to stop micro-managing your child’s learning and her relationships with her peers. My son comes home every day and tells me who he’s fallen out with and who is not in his gang anymore and I just nod and tell him to be kind.

Lashings is absolutely spot on IMO. I think consulting another therapist who could unpick the issues more thoroughly is an excellent idea. Working on coping strategies and resilience can only help your DD.

I truly haven't seen anything egregious in the teacher's reported behaviour. Her style is clearly not to your liking but nothing you have written so far seems outside the norms of teacher/pupil interaction. She may not be a good match for your DD and moving classes or schools may be the best option. However, the teacher sounds creative, committed, and open to suggestions. That last trait is actually a sign of a good teacher IME: someone who knows there are always different pedagogical approaches and is eager to implement new methods. But it is quite clear that you have no objectivity where this teacher is concerned.

I really hope the school authorities haven't been discussing other parents' complaints with you. That would be massively unprofessional.

I’ve just read your original thread and your comments on this one and I feel that the “problems” with the teacher may be cultural rather than her being horrible deliberately. I understand the teacher is Chinese-American so I understand she will have been born in the US, however she was probably bought up with Chinese parents? Her phrases sound typically Chinese, particularly asking the boy to do filing because he wasn’t doing his work. The problem is they sound wrong because they are said in English not Chinese and therefore the meaning is different

Your daughter has clearly been distressed but the answer to this is NOT to suggest the teacher goes on a sabbatical but to work with your daughter on distress tolerance and resilience. She cannot avoid every stressful situation in life after all. Oh, and i think monitoring her nail polish chipping is a bit excessive.

Is there such a thing as constructive dismissal in the States? Because if so, the school should be bracing itself for the law suit to come.........

I said on the other thread that this poor child is now under a microscope. She appears to have gone from perfectly happy, no problems, having a lovely time at school to being focused on by parents, grandparents, teachers, head teacher, psychologist, therapist.....all in the space of a couple of months. It must be positively overwhelming. And now I bet she is being asked for her input into her dhould happen next to her and to the teacher in these family meetings that are going on.. No 8 year old should have that sort of responsibility put on their shoulders-that’s what they have grown ups for!

Absolutely. There is so much that is inappropriate in this whole situation that I don’t know where to start.