Can't cope with my year 1 child. End of tether.

[SmileAndNod]

Dd has just turned 6 and is coming up to the end of year 1. She is driving us to distraction. There are two issues, her school work, and her attitude.

She has a 'don't care' attitude to everything, including being sanctioned for bad behaviour. She is not remotely interested in trying at school, despite best efforts by her teacher and ourselves to encourage more work from her. She has been moved down 2 groups for losing focus, and actually that's about the time that the loss of interest in school work started. She's never going to be the best academically, but I want her to do well for her IYSWIM . She's working at expected levels in reading and maths but way behind in writing. Structurally it's all there but there's no imagination and not enough of it we've been told. How do we encourage her more? Sanctions don't work, neither do rewards. She just doesn't care. It's almost like she's switched off school and that's it.

She has always been a lovely girl but lately is pushing us to the limits. Her attitude is shocking. She's rude, disrespectful, won't apologize to people, is hurting siblings, point blank refusing to do anything I say. We've always done the 1-2-3 thing and that's always worked. Till now. She doesn't care about consequences and she's frustrating the hell out of me, as it's me that bears the brunt.

Any ideas please? Where has my girl gone? Is school / education a lost cause already at yr 1? There's no way she will cope with year 2

Help!

The speech delay and lack of creativity also stand out to me, but It also sounds like your dd is really lacking in confidence at the moment and is probably ready for the Summer hols!!

a language delay can also suggest dyspraxia, dyslexia or processing/sequencing issues but it can also just be a slight developmental delay that eventually catches up with them. My 11yr niece had delayed speech but you would have no idea talking to her now and she excels academically (although has quite a few dyslexic and dyspraxic tendencies that have never been severe enough for an assessment)

Year one is a funny old year - I don't think you get the range in ability that you see in year 1 in any other year group. And that is all down to child development and maturity. Year 1 children have far too high expectations placed on them, which are not developmentally appropriate and they are expected to participate in very formal schooling yet many of them are still at "the rolling around the carpet" stage of development!

you can't put a pencil in a child's hand and expect them to write!! How does she play? Does she use a "narrative" in her play? Some ways that you can help at home is to ditch the formal writing and just play together.
Model telling stories with small figures "I'm a princess, my name is Elsa, I live in a castle" try and model a simple beginning/middle/end to begin with and then when she gets the hang of that, try extending the vocabulary. "I'm the beautiful princess else, I live in a big castle made of stone"
Role play familiar stories or even movies
Change the characters or endings of familiar stories
Silly rhymes/word play
Write her stories for her! I used to do this an awful lot when I worked in year one, but sadly it doesn't really happen anymore!

Hth

What have we done to the education system?? There is another thread running where a Y1's parent has been told DC in is the 'top 5%' of class, presumably meaning other parents have been told their DC is in the bottom 5%. This thread where a Y1 teacher of a summer born who can obviously write quite well is getting demoted down ability groups..

These are small children. In many countries they would still be in nursery FFS. They all develop at different rates and some aspects of each child's cognitive skill set will develop quicker than others.

We should NOT be putting this hideous pressure on tiny children- and I am no lentil weaver (and I am a Primary Teacher).

I am not criticising you OP- it's the system. It has gone horribly wrong.

Also the relating better to adults than peers.
But we're not qualified to diagnose.

In your shoes OP I think I would say no homework for the rest of this year. Take the demands off her and give her a bit of breathing space.

The education system is worrying at best and you can part understand why people chose to home school and why teachers are leaving. The government have a lot to answer for.

yes op do keep in the back of your mind that in most of the world, your DD would not have started full time school yet!

I work in the Early years, its not uncommon for young children to prefer adult company. Often It's just what they are used to at home or its a real novelty!

I mentioned writing for your dd up thread. This is a great article by Anna Ephgave about story scribing. At Anna's school they have scraped formal schooling for Year 1. They learn entirely through their play! (And her school has an "outstanding" grading!)

We use her model at my school and it is really effective. We use anything as a stimulus- a picture, painting, a lego model, role play.

storyscribing

I forgot to add - regarding preferring adult company,
that DD should still have some developing friendships and be interacting/playing with the other children.

I wish more play was encouraged. Yes I would like my children to do well but not at the expense of their childhood and mental health.

What Sisterviktorine said. With bells on.

My DS1 struggled terribly in y1-3, god the worry! IEPs, dyslexia assesments, constant negative chats with the teacher when he had folded up one of thousands of worksheets into an airoplane instead of filling it out.... As a toddler his speech was delayed too.

With hindsight, he just wasn't ready for school until he was about 10.

In y5-6 he caught up with all the other kids. He is now doing well at secondary.

But I look back at pictures of him when he was 6 thinking:" he was so little, and I expected so much of him"

What a bore for these young kids to sit in a classroom and doing things they don't enjoy.

Wish they could do forrest school until age 10.

Bloody school system.

My ds struggled in Y1 - turned out that he was happy to go to school to learn stuff, but because of all the 'learning through play', he hadn't noticed he was learning and didn't see the point of the activities he was asked to do.
After a meeting with him and teacher going through books showing what he had learnt since the beginning of the year and what he should be concentrating on at that point, he was much happier, and in Y2 has been delighted to trot along to school each day.

He's on a waiting list to be assessed for probably-not-autism-but-has-sensory-difficulties, and couldn't handle the slightly shouty Y1 teacher in the classroom (liked her outside), or the rather sarcastic TA because he couldn't get the jokes before getting upset.

Tiredness and confusing expectations aren't going to help - I would go have a proper chat with the teacher so you can (hopefully!) explain that she's working with kids who are all mastering capital letters and producing more writing or whatever, while the other groups are working on spelling or something they need to work on - they shouldn't be talking about going 'up' or 'down' groups! - and also keep her off sick with exhaustion for a day and do some quiet fun stuff at home.

Read Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards. Many children do very poorly with reward and punishment systems.

I need help then as I'm not sure what to try. I thought you're to praise good and ignore the bad. Except I can't just ignore bad when people are being hurt
I don't know what to do and I'm too worn out to think straight.

I would certainly agree with perhaps getting her assessed. My niece's pre-school picked up on her high-functioning autism which at the time also simply looked like a child not ready for the structure of pre-school. Could be one, could be the other, but getting into the system if it is autism sooner rather than later will help enormously (DN got her diagnosis by the end of reception year).

Otherwise - could be tired end of summer term, could be school expectations being far too much (I have no idea what groups DD has been in, homework is minimal).

I work in autism diagnosis and I'm afraid many areas will turn down a vague referral for autism unless there is clear evidence of difficulties on the triad. You'd need to make a list of difficulties she has with flexible thinking, social interaction and social communication and see a health professional to ask for a referral. Teams are too busy to see kids 'just in case' where there isn't a significant chance. What does school say about her socially?

I work in autism diagnosis and I'm afraid many areas will turn down a vague referral for autism unless there is clear evidence of difficulties on the triad. You'd need to make a list of difficulties she has with flexible thinking, social interaction and social communication and see a health professional to ask for a referral. Teams are too busy to see kids 'just in case' where there isn't a significant chance. What does school say about her socially?

sorry for double posting