Year 5 and getting discouraged…

[Parenting1011]

DS is in year 5 and has always loved school, gets on great with friends and teachers, achieves “above expectations” in all his subjects and tries hard. However, he is becoming very discouraged and I’m looking for ideas on how to tackle this with him and ways to approach/discuss it with his school…
frequent things he says when he comes out of school (invariably looking sad and low) are that the teachers don’t notice him, don’t call on him when he raises his hand in class, he doesn’t get recognised in any of the ways they do (star of the day, worker of the week etc), he’s bored or that the class have had to leave the room due to other children having outbursts. I’ve told him he needs to keep it up, frequently tell him how proud we are of him, reassure him that his teachers will be noticing what he does and that he should take pride in knowing he is doing well and trying hard… but… he’s 9, he thrives off that recognition that he’s doing well and he’s not getting that at school. I don’t want him to get to the stage of not bothering to try because he doesn’t feel it’s worth it. I appreciate his teachers have 29 other students and can’t constantly praise him, but parents evening is approaching and I’m trying to plan how to discuss this with them. So… any ideas on how I can keep DS trying hard and perhaps get some more recognition from school for his efforts?

You can simply share his experience with the teachers and tell them what your child feels.

At parents' evening, could you ask for a small goal he can work towards, with specific feedback on it? That gives you something more concrete than whether he gets an award. Take a couple of his exact comments too and ask whether the work is stretching him enough, rather than assuming he needs more of the same.

Yeah I was just nervous it would come across too “give my child attention he’s better than all the rest” and didn’t want it to seem like I wanted him to get picked for everything which I obviously understand won’t happen

It's not "give my child attention, he's better than the rest" its, 'Give my child attention because he's lacking confidence and feels he isn't seen."

Children who are "easy" in the classroom routinely get less attention and are less likely to be praised for effort and performance. I don't blame the teachers, but it is frustrating. I have two children who went to the same primary. DS, who struggled with school got lots of support, lots of recognition, lots of praise. DD, who excelled across the board not only got very little recognition or praise, her teachers didn't even realise how good she was.

I would absolutely raise it with the teacher and ask if she can make some effort to acknowledge his achievements/efforts at times.

Like the idea of a goal of some sort for him. He did volunteer for a couple of school pupil leadership type things at the beginning of the year. He got given one but this particular role has done nothing so far - other groups/roles have been praised in the school newsletter for this and that, whereas his group haven’t even met up yet (teachers are supposed to organise this and they get released from class for it but nothing has happened and he keeps getting told it’ll be ‘soon’). He pointed out to me the other day that all the others have been mentioned except theirs 🙄 think he would’ve been more suited to the other role he went for to be honest (who ironically have done much more) but after only going after one role last year and not getting it, he went for two this year and this is what he’s got. Fingers crossed it picks up through the year

My kids are older now but ds was exactly the same, he thrives on praise and loses motivation easily.

Mention it at parents evening but only in context of your child, no comment around others. So you could say ‘John really thrives on praise and loses confidence and interest if he isn’t acknowledged in class’. If they want more details just explaining that a positive comment in the moment is what’s needed. It’s not all about being picked for things or getting certificates, but a decent teacher should really be spotting and commenting on positive behaviours all the time. Saying they’ve worked hard, their picture is good, they sat nicely in assembly, thank you for helping etc. This is the stuff that makes so much difference across a whole class when often all they hear is negative and ‘no’.

Absolutely your first section. I was just worried about it coming across wrong and maybe I’m overthinking it. Didn’t want to be one of “those parents” so was trying to think of how to put it across nicely

You need to try and promote intrinsic motivation.
Have you tried explaining to him that education is for HIS benefit. Hard work is not for the teacher and good results are the reward.

Absolutely mention to the teacher to see how they can support.

But also start to work on his being able to have pride in his own accomplishments without always needing validation from him teacher or peers.

Do this by discussing what he has done in school that day perhaps over the dinner table, ask questions, appear interested , give targeted very specific encouragement and praise, mention other kids need more support and how being a more independent learner is fantastic for his future. You get the gist. Still worth speaking to teacher too, although from experience it didn’t go far.

I'm afraid I'm a bit cynical about teachers after my experience at primary, even considering DS got mostly good support. The way they acted towards/treated DD because she was easy and just got on with stuff was completely unacceptable. I raised it, lightly, a couple of times because I also didn't want to "'be that parent" but I'm quite irritated that I didn't push it harder.

On plus side, she's 6 weeks into high school and things are already different.

Thanks for the comments. We do discuss his day at home. He gets praise for his achievements and I absolutely have talked to him about having personal pride in how he behaves and what he achieves… but at 9 he still feels hard done by when others in his class get praised/recognised for doing the same or less. We have had talks about what is fair vs what is equal, he knows he has classmates with different needs and that people will be better at some things but not others and that may change over time and he does get it, but he also wants some of that recognition. Think I feel better about broaching it now and just wanted to know I want going to sound like a me me me person for bringing it up