Second week at school - teacher made daughter cry...

[MissRoadie]

I'm really upset and not sure if I am overreacting. My daughter, 4, just started reception - only in the second week. She came home yesterday saying the teacher made her cry because she told her off because her letters and numbers 'were wrong'. Poor little mite gets her 'a's the wrong way round but we have always told her she is amazing at writing and never corrected her.

Anyway, DD totally refused to go to School this morning. Started a huge fight with me on my way out the door and is currently begging DH not to take her in. Up until yesterday she loved going to her new school.
AIBU to ask the teacher WTF?

I'm not a teacher

Clearly you're not! You accept the child's interpretation of the event and you seem to find it OK that the child has never been corrected at home! If Mum goes in 'assertively' every time the child claims to be upset she's not doing the child any favours and she is establishing herself as a pita by the staff!

I would find out from the teacher, what happened as dd was a little upset on say Wednesday. Wow they are so tiny, they are going to get it wrong, they are learning. So much pressure for those so young. If she is writing, you do need to correct her.

The teacher now has to undo the incorrect writing habits you've taught your DD.

Oh please. A lot of kids get letters round the wrong way when they’re learning. Including when taught by their teachers.

In Year 1 DS1 developed an incredibly idiosyncratic approach to the letter ‘d’. I discussed with his teacher at parents evening and she laughingly said she couldn’t figure out how he did them but that she’d work on him with it in handwriting lessons but outside of that not to worry about it when he was doing other written work. She (and the school) had a policy that writing was writing, and if kids of five and six were getting their ideas down on paper that was far more important and that the correct letter formation (and spelling, etc - DS1 was a prolific writer but could be deeply phonetic when in full flow) would come together with the writing as the kids grew more skilled in letter formation.

He’s just stared Year 2 and the odd ‘d’s are long gone, he still writes confidently and with increasingly good spelling, and he didn’t have the joy of it knocked out of him by over focusing on where he was getting things wrong all the time. I was impressed with the school’s approach.

Oh please. A lot of kids get letters round the wrong way when they’re learning. Including when taught by their teachers.

Exactly DD is in reception and one of her friends randomly started writing her entire name backwards - as in the mirror image. I don't think I could do that if I tried!

The teacher might have said ' This is the way you write 'a' and corrected her for all anyone knows. She might have said good effort rather than 'this is all wrong'. If the teacher said 'wow! that's amazing', I'd imagine that in a few weeks when they are doing letter formation, it would get a bit confusing if she had been told she was doing amazingly doing exactly the same thing from her parents and then her teacher.

NotacoolDad

Well not so much the word amazing but if I was sat working on letter formation with them at home or school specifically then I would praise and correct absolutely but as a parent at home if my just turned four year old spent two hours 'writing' and drawing a story I would definitely say wow that's brilliant well done to a child not wow good try but your letters are all wrong and the A is the wrong way and there is no full stop. That would bash a kid down!

Just as I'm sure you didn't rip apart any potential faults in your son's machine when you told him he was amazing.

I do think there is a difference.

Exactly Jessy

Of course her Mum should tell her she is amazing.

Only if she is, in fact, amazing. There are many amazing things DD does. I tell her what they are. I never tell her she is amazing when she really isn't. Praise the effort, praise the good outcomes. Never praise stuff that is plainly wrong, that does children no favours.

I also can't believe so many think this warrants a discussion with the teacher. If it becomes a pattern then by all means bring it up, but on the first instance, on the say so of a 4 year old who has never been corrected? Leave it be.

DD came home towards the end of P2 and was terribly upset because her teacher "had shouted" at her. She thought she was this terribly naughty girl and was going to lose all her Golden Time. I asked what for and she said she was talking after she had been told to stop. I told her the teacher was quite right, she should have stopped talking.
I also told her if she had got to the end of P2 and this was the only time a teacher had raised their voice to her, she was doing just fine. The teacher was not generally known as being shouty.

I remember starting school, if the teacher so much as looked at me wrong I would have cried. It’s pretty scary being a 4 year old, she’s been there 2 weeks, it’s likely the teacher just pulled her up on her backward letters and dd got a little upset, things seems so much worse when you are 4 years old and being told you have done something wrong by a almost stranger.

Just reassure her that she’s doing well, maybe spend 20 minutes with her working on her ‘a’. She’s going to get told she’s not doing things right, that’s a part of learning, she needs to be corrected in order to learn.

How can a 4 yo even have 'incorrect writing habits'?!

Unless they are terribly precocious I think it's usual for kids who are learning to write to get it all 'wrong' - ermm that's why they're at school....

My son wrote his J's the wrong way round for a long time and that's the first letter of his name!

I would be quite upset if my 4yo was already in such a state so early into their education.

As for correcting them I think it's best not to barrel in with telling them it's wrong, but to show them the correct way and say e.g. "this is how we write 'cat', see which way the a goes?".

It's similar to when they learn to talk. Rather than say "No it's not a beater, it's a beaker", you incorporate the correction into your response e.g. "you'd like a beaker, yes?"

Oh please. A lot of kids get letters round the wrong way when they’re learning. Including when taught by their teachers

FFS, state the obvious why don't you? Yes of course they do, my DC included...but I didn't tell them they were amazing, I gently corrected them. I wouldn't think much of a teacher who didn't correct a child and teach them the correct way.

Blimey, the majority of DC can't write at all when they start reception. Although you should have corrected your DD.

Poor little mite gets her 'a's the wrong way round but we have always told her she is amazing at writing and never corrected her.

Why would you do this?

As for her crying & getting upset, you've raised a snowflake, you'd better get used to it.

IntentsAndPorpoises

You are right, that was probably a silly comment from me. I had just built a picture in my head of the OP's daughter having them wrapped around her finger. But no, I know it's not always that easy. Apologies for any offence caused.

You definitely don't know she was told off at all, you have a 4 yo version. She was most likely to have been told it was the wrong way round but has to date been told her writing is amazing and not been corrected. Even with your update it doesn't sound as if she is corrected. With DS2 we used to not say too much if he had randomly written something wrong (ie a card or picture for us) but if actually doing writing specifically we would correct as we went. Nothing bad about that.

Just speak to the teacher, tell her DD was upset etc but don't go in all guns blazing (you have already said you won't anyway) and just see what you can do to help her, both with her work and emotionally (especially if she hasn't actually been told off)

You can correct a 4 year old nicely and help her when she gets things wrong, you are really not doing her any favours by not correcting errors, poor mite was probably shocked that someone said letters were wrong way around when parents had said nothing about it and just that she was amazing.… she would naturally be confused.

Reception is not as ‘play based’ as some of you seem to believe!
It’s tough on the teachers,and they need to actively prove how the children are progressing with writing and phonics very early on.
The children that tend to/ will struggle, is pretty evident by the end of the Autumn term.
Many of them might be months away from turning just 5.
School is tough these days. For the poor kids,and the teachers ( too) actually!

'As for her crying & getting upset, you've raised a snowflake, you'd better get used to it.'

OH MY GOD.

She is four years old and in the first couple of weeks of school which is a big change for some kids.

Mine were knackered when they first started as were most of the kids in the reception class I worked in.

They are that exhausted that kids in my class would cry if their carrot broke at lunch or someone told them their top was red not pink.

Seriously don't be so bloody horrible.

If a four year old just starting school is already writing, aside from getting a couple of letters the wrong way round, then yes you can tell them they’re amazing. Your not going to give them a complex with praise.
And you can also tell them they’re amazing when they are. It’s kind of a parents job. These are really young children. People are really over thinking this stuff.
Calling a child a snowflake, too soft, saying they are going to have issues and the parent is causing them and parenting wrong. Really!??
Four is really so young too be learning to read and write anyway, it’s not important at 4. What’s important is building confidence and social skills.

Dd couldn’t read or write before she started school. She’s an active child and wasn’t interested at all. The school specifically told us not to correct the children’s writing / spellings in reception. At first it was largely indecipherable. The teachers could read it though.

She had an award for her neat writing in yr4 and she said the teacher told her it’s the neatest in the school (not sure if I believe that one). It’s ridiculous to say op should have corrected her dd at such a young age. Every child is different and my dd would have hated to be corrected at home. She loved writing once she got the hang of it and correcting her at an early age would have resulted in her refusing to write, which would have been far more counterproductive.

For goodness sake she’s 4 years old we’ve just moved from a country where she would only be in a preschool class and she would have been spending her time building the skills required for writing. The country we’ce Just moved from consistently ranks far higher than the UK in terms of education levels.

Every child is different and my dd would have hated to be corrected at home. She loved writing once she got the hang of it and correcting her at an early age would have resulted in her refusing to write, which would have been far more counterproductive

In your own words, "every child is different". I gently corrected my DD when she got her letters back to front. My DD said 'oh ok Mum' and that was it. She didn't 'refuse to write', she wasn't traumatised and she still loves school and writing.

I imagine if she's never been corrected for for forming her "a"s incorrectly, there's probably a bigger picture here.

The teacher is not BU, but as parents, you maybe have BU.

Please don't be the type of parents who never pull their DD up when it's needed, or don't correct them (in a positive & encouraging way,) when something needs pointing out.

I was waiting for my DD to come out of dancing class the other week, and there was a gaggle of 4 girls aged 3 or 4 year olds wanting to buy something in the dance school cafe. Their rudeness was horrific, and was played out in full view of their encouraging mothers, proud as punch, watching on as their little darlings barged up to the counter.
No please, no thank you, pushing in front of the other people in the queue, talking over the guy at the counte - .

Children who have lived the first 4/5 years of their life living in such a bubble, and are never shown the correct way to do something/behave are far less resilient that their peers, and do not know how to cope when the revelation that they aren't perfect/the best comes crashing down on them.

I pity the teachers of these children, and the children themselves!

FFS, state the obvious why don't you? Yes of course they do, my DC included...but I didn't tell them they were amazing, I gently corrected them. I wouldn't think much of a teacher who didn't correct a child and teach them the correct way.

You were the one who suggested that the parent was at fault for teaching ‘incorrect writing habits’ that the teacher will now have to fix. I was pointing out that if backward letter formation was the result of being taught incorrect writing habits, every KS1 teacher in the land is at fault.

I wouldn’t think much of a teacher who prioritised letter formation and handwriting over fluent writing, and thought repeatedly correcting letter formation in a four year old in the second week of school was getting that balance right, so there we are.

Lyndor, reverse? The DD posted it?