Negative reception parents evening

[Auroraspyjamas]

Dd5 started reception in sept. She goes in fine, says she enjoys it and has made lots of new friends. She comes back excited to tell us new things she has learned and seems to us to be picking up phonics and writing letters well.

However, we had the first parents evening and I found the teachers feedback very negative. She said dd’s voice is much louder than anyone else, that she finds it hard to concentrate at carpet time, gets distracted and distracts others, gets frustrated easily when things don’t go her way and can be ‘handsy’. She said one positive which is that dd occupies herself well and is always busy. Towards the end she said something like ‘ooooh it sounds like I’ve just been really negative but it’s all positive really.’

I left feeling quite worried and unsure how normal this kind of feedback is for a 5yr old.

yabu - this sounds like something to be concerned about and you should do x (please share)
yanbu - teacher sounds overly negative / this is normal enough for a 5 year old and she’ll probably pick it up with time

She is one of the oldest in the years, so expect to be more mature than most of the others.
Having a very impatient (but young in the year) child myself , its definitely something to work on!

Personally I’d rather hear from a teacher where I can help my child than just meaningless positive comments. At 5 it’s a bit early to differentiate between normal behaviour and ADHD so leaping straight to neurodivergence isn’t necessarily helpful.

If she’s used to having everyone’s attention at home and not having to share or take turns then school can be a big adjustment. I’d work on social skills with her such as not pushing, snatching or talking over people. These things are always difficult to get used to for young children but whether she’s neurodivergent or not, this will help set her up for better relationships with her classmates in the future.

I would OP - for your child’s sake, she’d benefit from consistency at home and school. Have you sat her down and explained that she needs to put her hand up at school and do lots of listening vs talking? Most children need explicit instructions and reinforcement.

I think as a society we like to blame less positive behaviour on ND rather than parenting as it means parents don’t have to change or learn to parent differently. Teaching a child patience - to wait quietly, to wait their turn etc is learned, it’s not an innate quality.

We were at a busy play park this week and the amount of older kids (age7-10) pushing in front of my 4 year old (who was waiting nicely for a turn on the steps) was ridiculous. I had to call out from below to ask them to stop and wait for her as she’d been waiting well beyond them all and they were pushing around her like she was invisible. Kids whose parents weren’t watching and clearly hadn’t taught them to help little children and wait their turn. I think lots of parents have no clue how to set boundaries and teach there skills (not you, just saying in general). We need to up our parenting game if we want respectful children.

I wouldn't let strangers on the Internet diagnose your child with various SEN with very limited info. I'd go back to the teacher and get some clarification about what she thinks is causing these issues and how they deal with them at school and what you should be doing at home.

I had a similar experience with my oldests first parents evening. We had been told it would just be about how they were settling in. DS was enjoying school and making friends so I went with no worries. They told me DS is too loud, that they always know where he is because his voice booms across the classroom and he needs to learn the difference between an indoor and an outdoor voice! Also that he wasn’t displaying a dominant writing hand which he should be by now and not great with his pincer writing grip and concerns about his fine motor skills. Nothing positive at all. I was totally deflated. I can report that DS is now a bright, well rounded 14yo who writes very well, has no fine motor or hearing issues. I realise it’s good to take action on things your DC can improve on but I’d also try not to cling too closely to them either.

Who’s diagnosed OP’s child?

Quite a few posters saying ND/ ADHD which could be the case but really I think the OP needs to actually go back and get more clarification.

I have a child diagnosed with inattentive ADHD specifically. ADHD is broken down into 3 subtypes, a marker for inattentive is daydreaming/not paying attention but without being particularly physically hyperactive or disruptive in class. (My child to a T)

So it sounds to me like this teacher suspects more generalised ADHD for your daughter as she has specifically mentioned being loud and distracting other children. Possibly or I could just have this perspective based on my own experience. A lack of awareness of other's personal space is also specific to ADHD.

I would ask if the school senco could observe your daughter in a classroom setting to see what they think, if you are concerned. It's quite an easy first step for a school to do.

Yeah so nobody diagnosed, Infact many of us with lived experience of ND children have given advice mirroring yours, go back to the teacher and ask for clarification. Early intervention is imperative with ND so IF this is what OP herself suspects , then she has been given advice on how to navigate that with school. Why have you advised op to ignore that advice from parents who have lived experiences of the very thing OP MAY be going through? Surely if her child is ND it’s helpful? If she’s not ND then it’s not helpful because it won’t apply?

Some children take longer to settle into the school routine, my son is one of them, my daughter wasn’t. They’re all different. Getting her hearing checked would be good though as the talking loudly is definitely a sign of issues.

Yes this!

I actually think this teacher is great for potentially recognising signs in a little girl as well, as little girls are often overlooked.

Also my son is diagnosed now but I've spent many parents evenings with teachers outlining signs and symptoms of him being neuro-diverse and not actually saying the words "I think he's autistic/adhd" as teachers aren't qualified to diagnose anything and probably scared of how parents will respond to conversations like that. So it's almost like they do list everything they've noticed and hope you get the hint. That's my experience anyway.

Yeah, the only reason my daughter’s year 5 teacher advised ADHD and autism is because I worked at the school and had a close personal relationship with her. If I didn’t she wouldn’t have ever said that directly because as schools you can only advise and almost hint at it and not specifically say ‘ yep it’s ND’ even if it’s quite clear. I do think there’s a lack of understanding and education within schools though which isn’t the teachers fault, schools and local authorities need to invest in more training and education around recognising issues and how to have appropriate conversations regarding this with parents. Also , schools should have anticipatory adjustments in place already, like fidgets that are accessible, a room thats sensory focused so the child could access if needed, alternate timetables they could implement for children who benefit from a different pace of learning an are displaying traits of ND. But not all of them do and so a backlog of children who need support builds and the classroom environment becomes chaotic and the teachers feel unsupported. It’s a spiral

Thank you, that’s reassuring. I do have a tendency to worry about her!

May I ask how old your child was when diagnosed and if you had to push for diagnosis with school? I did ask about possible nd in the parents evening but I got the sense she hadn’t considered that. We have been considering it for some time.

Agree. She's a five year old who is a noisy fidget, like many, many kids her age. I'd be reiterating to her that she needs to keep quiet and listen to the teacher at carpet time. Waiting your turn is a skill that takes a while to learn, and it's worth practicing at home: when she's interrupting you, tell her to wait, and invite her to speak when you're ready.

The teacher saying "it's all positive really" says to me that none of the things in the OP are a major problem, they're just the things to be aware of that DD may need more help with. In six months' time the situation is likely to be very different as the whole class settles into expected behaviour standards.

Don't panic, OP, you're doing alright

Why is it seen as a negative to suggest the op (who has themselves independently from this parents evening already had suspicions around ND) go to the school and suggest they monitor and make note of ND traits they might see with the idea they can help start interventions and have support in place to help the child. If the child isn’t ND then this will become clear relatively quickly, and the support and interventions created specifically for an ND child will be withdrawn and there would be no negative impact from having had them for a brief amount of time. If, however, it’s noted that actually the child is really benefiting from this support , and the school start to see ND behaviour, then they can help the parent through the process of having the child referred and then diagnosed. That’s an if though. Just mentioning your concerns around suspected ND doesn’t mean that’s the final say, your child is now diagnosed and is ND and nothing will change from that point on. The process of referral and assessment and diagnosis is a long, complex road, that has multiple stages and factors. The amount of evidence needed to support a diagnosis is substantial and it’s not one that’s made overnight because of a handful of Mumsnet comments.

Early intervention is so important, I cannot comprehend why people with your mindset would rather ignore there may be potential signs that point to ND, an instead opt to just wait and if at some point it becomes too much to ignore , then you take the steps to get support. At that point the child has already been struggling, and there will be significant consequences to the lack of support and help and being made to struggle on and to conform in an environment not built for their brain to access easily. The idea we wait and see until the person or child is significantly struggling is why we have such a large amount of adults now mainly women being diagnosed later on in life, because situations like these arose, and they were ignored and ND was never considered. By the time we are adults and diagnosed our lives have been changed permanently from the decades of struggle and masking and lack of help and support. Not to mention the ingrained lack of self worth and confidence we now have due to a lifetime of never being able to live up to society’s expected way of behaving.

If a child is ND then asking for help as soon as you can is imperative, and if you do that and it turns out the child is NT and just settling in, then it won’t have any impact on them whatsoever, and they can quite easily fall back into the school routine with other NT kids and won’t need to continue the support.

If later on it’s discovered a child is ND, and early on in life , their parent tried to force them to sit still, not talk loud or out of turn and to conform to the neurotypical way of living and behaving, then you have actively contributed to the negative mindset and lack of self worth this child will have within themselves now. It is impossible to force a ND child to behave in this way, their brain is not doing it in the fist place because it physically can’t, and it will cause them genuine physical pain and burnout to act in a way that’s deemed by society as acceptable.

OP’s child May be a neurotypical child, settling in to a new school routine and just taking awhile to adjust to a new environment. The child may also be ND and taking both of these things into account and acting in a proactive way to support regardless can only be beneficial. By assuming they aren’t and waiting until breaking point to then ask for help is harmful and is the reason we have such a problem with ND in society currently.

There is a reason the life expectancy of undiagnosed people with ADHD is 7-9 years lower than those who are NT, to get ahead and to implement support because the signs show their MIGHT be neurodivergence can only be positive.

8 and things started to be noticed from the age of 3 in nursery. I didn't have to push for anything with school, the process is just long and NHS waiting lists are long.

I'd ask if the senco would meet your child/observe them in class and see what they think. It's a really reasonable request.x

Honestly I think panicking parents and suspecting neurodivergence from six weeks at school where - from what the teacher has said - a 5 year old child behaves in an age-appropriate manner is unhelpful to everyone concerned.

How? Please explain how advising the op based on my own lived experience with a child with similar behavioural traits and the op herself saying they suspected ND is panicking parents? Why is it acceptable for a parent to a Neurotypical child to say ‘ yes this is my lived experience and my child is neurotypical and grew out of it so my advice is to xyz’ but then not acceptable and deemed as panicking parents when a parent of a neurodivergent child says ‘ yes this is my lived experience and my child is neurodivergent, so my advice is xyz’. I also think it’s highly insulting to those of us with ND children to say we are panicking parents by advising them to monitor and mention the ND concerns to teachers, as though ND children are something to be concerned and panicked about. It can be, if the situation is severe and support isn’t out there, but what we are doing is advising OP to mention concerns and have the reception be aware of the full picture and to be monitoring behaviour with everything in mind, how can that be taken as negative?

I would get her hearing checked - ds had glue ear and the two things I always noticed when it was bad was his volume went up and he put the volume on his tablet up.

However it's also possible that the teacher mentioned that she was the loudest simply to say that others are probably talking etc but she can notice your dc because she is loud. I remember chatting to a little lad from one of my dc's forms and he said he was always being told off for talking when he was talking with others. When I was in the classroom, I realised why - he was just louder than the others. You'd hear a vague hum of other children saying something quietly and then over the top, "Adam, give me back my rubber..." So he was the one that the teacher would tell to be quiet.

If she's already 5, then she's one of the oldest in the class. Compared to an August-born 4yo, she probably does make more noise, just because of size and age.

Speaking as a teacher who has done MANY a reception parents evening meeting, I'd say they were a bit of an artform! Parents often come in quite anxious, as often it's the first time really getting to hear what someone outside of the family genuinely thinks of their child.
For example, the child who just doesn't listen on the carpet, and seems completely away with the fairies, I might phrase it something like, "I'm not sure if Amy is always listening... Has she had her ears checked recently?" 9/10 times the parents will immediately tell me they've noticed something similar! Turning it into something potentially medical, distracts from it being a behavioural issue, but plants the seed in the parents head. So if it comes up again, they can be "oh yeah..." Usually though, the child just needs a bit more time and a bit more growing up and it's never an issue again.

For young or inexperienced teachers, the reception parents evening can be a challenge.