Parents evening - teacher very negative about my 5 yo... Isn't he just like all 5yo boys? Advice pls on how to turn this around. Quite long sorry...

[leoleosuperstar]

DS is 5 in April and in Reception.

Our first parents evening on Thursday. Teachers comments were:

DS has settled in very well. He seems to enjoy coming to school. Does he?
(We respond that he doesn't want to go to school in the morning but is fine once we get going, think he wants to stay home not a problem with school as such..)

She then continues: DS has made very little progress he doesn't sit still, always figgiting (sp?), biting his clothes, playing with his shoes, putting them in his mouth, distracting the other children... Does he has a problem with his hearing? (no). Sorry I have to be honest but I could stand over him telling him over and over what to do and he still doesn't get it done...(us open mouthed). Well at least he has progressed from Nursery where his report says he would just get up and walk off.

I was so surprised as DS is generally a well behaved child and can be a bit of a day dreamer.

When we asked some questions and said he shows very little interest in picking up a pen or reading at home she said that we need to get him doing painting etc to work on his motor skills and not worry about his fine motor skills...

The only positive thing the teacher said was that DS has made a beautiful valentine heart and it was so good she took a photo for his file (it was lovely - hole punched holes threaded with gold ribbon)

The teacher has said we will have to review in May half term and he will struggle next year.

I don't know what to do now - I feel like I have failed him. We had a chat Friday morning before school asked what good sitting on the mat looked like and he showed us and he then showed us what he does (explaining that his brain makes him move about). We practised what is needed - DS said that the teacher makes him sit on the cold floor and not the mat because he moves about and he doesn't like sitting on the floor because it's too cold.

Spoke to teacher on Friday after school and she said that he was worse than ever!

Any advice?

Thank you

I know you're exhausted but your son sounds brilliant.

My ds (4) is like a senile old man in some respects and I know that I am going to cop it at parent's evening this term. He is extremely distinguished and articulatde though half the time this is irrelevant to anything going on around him. He is also a dreamer and would like nothing more than to potter around the garden gathering scrap together for his own version of Scrapheap Challenge. This morning I had to literally drag him out of the fireplace and when I asked him to explain what he was doing, I recd the reply 'Step in Time'. He is almost too different to the boys in his class and I love him all the more for it tbh. (Before you ask, he has no idea who Ben 10 is - none whatsoever)

Shaz - I don't think the teachers at my ds's current school have even heard of learning styles, so you evidently don't teach there!

It's not hooey - I've done some lessons in secondary when the whole lesson has been either moving outside or in the classroom (this was in RE), and it worked for the boys who usually fidgeted and squirmed; their concentration was increased and they were more engaged.

Dear leoleosuperstar,
You have described my son almost as if you have sat in on my child at school & attended my parents evening with me as a fly on the wall.

So I know where you are coming from completely.

Therefore i want to give you advice that we kinda stumbled across as we went along.

Firstly, he is very very normal for a 4 year old and probably will continue to be a very normal 5,6,7,8,9 10 year old. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the child.
I know this as i questioned this; Such was the teachers concern about my sons innability to sit still, not chew his tops, coat, mess with his shoes, disrupt the people sitting around him.... It turns out, he is normal.

I got the very same report when he as in year 1. I was called in on several occasions because of this behaviour.

So, much angst, and tears and posting on here for advice and help.....

His ears and sight are both fine.
He is known as "The boy who cant sit still" by his teachers and kids in his class.
Ok, fast forward, he is nearly 7 and in year 2.
last night we wnet to parents evening.
It was fab, he just needed time to mature, settle, find his place and have positive encouragement, and patience.
He also had some 1:1 tuition (via school) for his reading over a 6 week period....and that acted as a HUGE springbourd for his confidence and his sudenly "clicking" that he is a clever and "good" boy. I cant tell you how much difference this made to him.

Top obvious tips..
Sleep, ensure he has a good bedtime routine and gets 12 hours sleep every night.
Food, ensure he has a good substantail brecky before he goes to school
Omegas..contraversial but i give um anyway, cant hurt.
be positive, ask about his day, communicate with his teacher every day (if poss) ask for the GOOD things that he did in school that day...go on and on and on about this, praise and act so proud of him, tell his dad, siblings, granny about the brilliant things he did in school today.
bad things, leave them there at school, tell him tommorrow is another day.

please dont be hard on him nor yourself, it wont help either of you.
Please be patient, as always is the mn mantra it is a phase, it will pass. he needs time to mature, and you dont want to quash his little personality if he is a busy bean by nature, then there is nothing you can do to force that out of him.

Finally, please dont forget that school will have seen this over and over and MUCH worse as well, so they are designed to cope with it.
Good luck, just really really want to offer you a hug and tell you that everything will be ok with him, because it really will be, i promise x

Ds1 was like this. It turned out he was dyslexic. The school seemed very concerned that he couldn't hold a pencil when he started at 4 yo and so on, couldn't complete simple tasks.

He is 12 now and while I admit his handwriting is dreadful he can draw brilliantly! He does find some things hard but he has adapted and excells in some areas.

He got a lot of extra help in reception and year 1 but it was a struggle for him tbh. He had a great teacher in year 2 that adapted to his fidgeting. He had an egg timer and when it finished he was allowed to stretch or walk to the other side of the room, go to sharpen a pencil and so on. There was something on the desk for him to fiddle with too, can't remember what it was.

Hopefully you can work with the school and help him acheive the best he can. Whoever said ask what you all do together to help him is right. And he could just be taking a while to settle in and suddenly it will click. There isn't always a problem as such. Good luck with it.

Lovely post meatntattypie

blue tack, mine was given blue tack as he wrecked all of his school sweaters with the chewing, he had something then to fiddle with

lol, there is a bit of blue tac on the windowsill at ds2's music class, I get it down when he decides running round the room is more fun that singing the song/playing the drum or whatever. Great stuff!

thanks sunshine, i feel very strongly about this. having gone to the brink of casting my child off as prison fodder..well, young offenders followed by prison and i refuse to not defend him and do everything in my power to help him and bring out the best that he can be.
isnt that our job as parents.

Meatntattiepie - how are the knees this morning?

ahem.
fine
thankyou very much for asking.

Good, glad to hear it

Wow!

Thank you everyone - every single post has been reassuring and helpful.

I feel more confident now to deal with this and that my DS (as I suspected - I had read Raising Boys when DS was born - DS is perfectly normal and not that it would matter terribly if he wasn't ).

Spoke to teacher yesterday at pick up and she does this thing where she pauses for an extremely long time before speaking as though she is trying to summon up the energy to discuss DS. (DS is normally waiting with DP or my sister where he can't hear the conversation or even see the teacher) Teacher commented that he was marginally better on the mat today which was good enough for me and then proceeded to say all the things that had gone wrong. She said DS went to get ready to leave for the day and she found him wondering about - the teacher asked what he was doing DS said 'thinking about my mummy' (he knows how to get me on side obviously) teacher reminded him that he was supposed to be getting ready to leave.

For the first time DS was nearer the front of the line (which is decided how well they have been sitting on the mat).

I clearly said to the teacher that we are concentrating and working at home on DS's ability to sit still on the mat and getting dressed (We tend to help quite a lot with getting dressed in the morning for speed). That day he has taken 20 minutes to get dressed and we had not helped at all and the fact that he did it completely alone was an achievement which we will be working on and today he dressed himself in 12 minutes so I am pleased. I explained that these are the only 2 thing we will focus on and when we start to improve then we can build on this.

I also said that we should remember that DS isn't doing this to annoy anyone and it is a personality thing and he is very similar to DP and when you are trying to work against your personality it can be very difficult.

The teacher said that she would support this and will reward getting dressed within a certain time frame (showing DS on the clock) with a sticker (normally 1st, 2nd and 3rd get stickers).

I also told her that DP had seem DS displaying the behaviour she had described at Karate but I had seem him watching and clearly doing what his swimming teacher had been asking him to do and hopefully when he learns these listening skills doing things he enjoys he will be able to transfer the skills to other things not so enjoyable.

DS had his eyes tested yesterday and managed to concentrate for the whole examination which shows when he is engaged he can concentrate - identifying numbers and letters etc. DS particularly enjoyed the colour blindness test .

Thanks again everyone.

The wobble ball - this is for ds to sit on?

The fact that he can concentrate at swimming shows when he is moving about he feels more able to take in instructions.

Also as a reward for being better on the mat we went to school today on DS's bike and when he joined the queue he was calmer and seemed more self confident this morning.

I agree with our DC's knowing we are in their corners and I always reassure DS what he has been told off for at school stays at school - we will just discuss what happened and we concentrate on celebrating his achievements.

Thats the spirit leo, you are doing great.
I did allow my son to go to and from school on his scooter each day...until i had a tragic accident outside the school gates yesterday, in front of the entire school.

so unfortunately that scooter is in a skip somewhere......

But yes excersize is great.
Walk them like a puppy 3 times a day

Brilliant! - Glad you're feeling better Leo.

I had seen your post actually!

Bless you - I thought you were stretching ready for exercise?

Your son sounds like he is just being a child tbh. Do you have many problems at home with him?

Also, I'm a bit worried by several posters saying that schooling from 5 is compulsory. IT IS NOT. Education is, but he doesn't have to go to school for that. If it works for you, could you maybe look at taking him out of school until he is better at sitting still and so on, and only sending him when he is ready?

He is so young he will develop so much over the next few months.

When ds was in reception (he was 5 last August) they said that he had problems with concentrating when sitting on the mat, they said that he was fine when in a one to one situation but lacked concentration when other children were around and was easily distracted. They also asked if he had a problem with his hearing.

He is now in year 1 and is doing brilliantly. When we had his parents evening recently the teacher said that his general behaviour was excellent and that he was very focused. She said that there are occasions when he loses concentration and forgets what he is doing but she said that was to be expected for a 5 year old and when we asked if there was anything we should be doing at home to help she said do nothing, she said he is perfectly normal and his "scattiness" is part of his funny personality.

I think some teachers forget that they are teaching such young children.

I'd be concerned he would miss out on the social side of school as he loves seeing his friends and has learnt a lot about being a friend etc. DS is an only child so we do tend to do a lot for him.

DS is wonderful at home - we are very lucky we have very few problems and they tend to be day dreaming or being emotional. Mostly DS only has to be told once and missed terrible twos altogether but can be a real winger at times.

I am surprised that he is not liked by his teacher - his nursery teacher always said how lovely he is despite getting up and walking off during mat time.

You're right -dollshouse- I was talking to another mum yesterday at the school and she said in her consultation she had said that the teacher should remember that they are 4yo's and sometimes she expects too much from them.

I am trying not to tell the teacher what to do as I feel that because she has been a teacher for so long she wont change her teaching style and will believe that she is right as she will have seen this a hundred times before.. I feel my DS would benefit more if the teacher felt we were supporting her and if I gently push her towards working with DS.

Obviously it is up to you, but just be aware that school isn't the only way you can educate him, we are thinking about HE for our two, and there is loads going on socially for HE kids in our area, maybe you could look into it if school gets any worse?

I'm dyspraxic and had an awful time at school, but I do hear that it has got a lot better since.

Hi sorry to hear about your parents evening being so negative. My first one with my DS was the same. A blow by blow account of lots of silly little things but made out to be awful. For example during the first month at school (At 4yrs and 3 weeks) the head had asked in assembly a question and my son answered. Inappropriate because he didn't put his hand up but he was listening and did as asked just a small error. Also complained about how loud he talked. I asked T if she though it was his ears but apparently not just him. Turns out he has glue ear!!!! I had concerns that a well behaved child could behave badly in just one place - namely school - and questioned again if school felt it could be something with education he was struggling with. Told no but early dyslexia tests picked up possibility of mild dyslexia!!! Now is slightly behind age levels for writing but told not to worry dispite the poss dyslexia (I am dyslexic) and he has been refused help on the ground he is a boy and the youngest!!!!

My point with this is I feel that T had a negative feeling towards DS from the start and wouldn't consider reasons for unusual behaviour - he is not an angel but I mean very different at school.

I would ask GP advive or health visitor and see if ears eyes etc ok and perhaps if T says again about things like shoes confront them and say did this cause him to disrupt the whole class and the teaching and if not why make such a deal about it. My son would have given the answer "oh" aswell!!!!

Best of luck you are doing the best for your son and don't feel its your fault as he is happy and you've done that.

ok, haven't bothered reading through the thread.

BUT this is an exact description of dd, who learnt nothing in reception, but now in the equivalent of yr2, and the top of her year (about 100 kids), so no academic probs.

however, she is adhd.

what you describe could be any number of things, including (and most likely) to be that that's just how your ds is, and he'll grow out of it. However, at his age, i'd just 'note' what has been said, try a few coping strategies. if next year there are still the same concerns, start thinking about raising it with your gp. you could do that now, but SO MANY kids are like this in reception that few gps will refer, as most grow out of the fidgets.

leoleosuperstar - your DS sounds pretty much like my DS, now 7 and in year 2. Although all his teachers have never been particularly negative, they have commented on his daydreaming - personally I don't see an issue with it - he's in all the top classes so is obviously listening and understanding. We had the motor problem in reception too - the school gave him a special holder thing to go on his pencil so he could hold it better. His reception teacher told me in all her years of teaching she had never seen anyone hold a pencil like my DS. His writing is only now improving. I really think it all comes with time afterall they're only 4/5 in reception its ridiculous to expect them to sit still, concentrate etc.

Luckily for the last 2 years my DS has had a teacher who really understands boys and I do think that makes a difference. She also said at our last parents evening children can only really concentrate for one minute for each year of their age.

I really wouldn't worry too much you know your DS best and in a couple of years you'll probably see a real difference. HTH