Light-hearted mutual support thread about kids who don't do so well in school?

[ragged]

I wonder if that might be possible?
I don't really want heavy duty advice or "You must be doing something wrong, here DO THIS instead" tone.
Just thought it might be nice for those of us with expasperating children you know, we're seemingly always getting to chat with the teacher after school might get to swap notes, moan and laugh a bit about it all.

Any other takers?

These children all sound so alike, I think there's a race of Dr Who type aliens who are infiltrating normal families with DC's who obsess over imaginary characters.

Tigerfeet my DS is like your daughter academically, he's just turned 8 in the summer and it's only in the last six months that his reading has picked up, that was with one to one help at school in lunchtimes twice a week, me paying for a tutor for an hour a week, and then us doing 20 mins of reading every day. We do live abroad so he was learning to read in a foreign language but his English reading has also come on (as I said with the aid of Pokemon books) and he's probably reading at his age group in English now; but for the first two years, he just couldn't grasp it at all.

However, his handwriting is shockingly bad, because he can't be bothered, letters aren't really the wrong way round anymore but numbers are - 24 becomes 42 etc and then the numbers themselves all face the wrong way. He is however dyspraxic and I've just had him tested for dyslexia, although I'm now starting to think perhaps he's not as it all seems to be coming together.

He's a daydreamer and by the end of last year the teacher was closing the curtains next to his window to stop him looking out.

He has been given an assistant for two days a week and hopefully she'll keep him on the right track.

Club Penguin is also very popular here too and he got a puffle for his birthday that goes everywhere with him (in his Pokemon backpack). I believe it's a circus on Friday or something like that, that you absolutely must, must have membership for (it's not going to happen). I do limit Club Penguin to weekends though, so maybe the obsession isn't quite so strong.

But like other DC's he's very melodramatic, last night was the worst day ever, because I'd told him off for not coming and brushing his teeth when I'd asked him to, big dramas.

It is nice to know that there are other DC's out there who sound like mirror images of my DS, even down to some of the things they say. I sometimes feel very isolated when I'm confronted by teachers telling me all his faults, it's nice to know that he's not the only child like this.

Ah, but these children are right, school is boring. I helped in a school for three years and was astonished at how unutterably dull, regimented and slow it was. Good children are the ones that sit still and quiet on the carpet. Curious, enthusiastic and lively children suffer.

And yes, I am sure one school in a thousand is really great and not boring at all.

AND another thing. Most of you say your children are bright and funny at home, well that's because they are allowed to speak and they have a small adult child ratio. In a class of 30 where they are supposed to be quiet, and nobody is really engaging with them, they do drift off. So would I.

Tigerfeet - feel free to CAT me off board, but your dd sounds very like ds1 who is dyslexic...

oh I'd love to have a meet up with you lot and your children
it is like peas in a pod.

Anyone else's rather sensitive?

My ds cries if people around him are shouting, cries at films/books/sad music, and cried yesterday because we said we might get a dog (it is his life-long dream to have a dog). When Dh asked gently ''why are you crying?'' he said: ''it is too much to think about, that my dream might come true''

He is also a fantastic comedian though.

What I don't understand is how anecdotally there are so many children like this (usually boys between the ages of 5 and 8, although with some exceptions) and yet the teachers are completely puzzled by them and don't know what to do with them!

I think there should be a special module on it at teacher training college.

Oh, bless your ds molly.

My ds can get upset easily, but a bigger problem is his anger. He can go from calm to red with rage in a matter of seconds.

Does anyone else's child of a smiliar age, still have regular tantrums ?? Ds does, and I keep thinking that he should have grown out of it by now, but again I think it is all to do with him having very poor control over hiis emotions.

Where some children would not cry or shout because they know people would look at them etc, ds just does it. If he is sad he cries,, if angry he will shout, and so on.

erm, he used to have an appaling trigger temper.
He is 10 very soon and seems to have grown into himself more, emotionally. We have done a lot of work on anger management.
Now he cries, instead of hitting someone....
Still. at least no-one ever got arrested for crying!

Oh yes, we have tantrums. This morning it was because I asked him to clear his breakfast plates from the table. Cue wails of "Why do I have to do it!?!?"

He also tries to avoid going to school by not getting dressed. I usually find him half an hour after the other two have come down still sitting on his bedroom floor wearing nothing but his pants and reading a book.

Anger management, thats what my mum keeps saying ds needs.

I do try different things to stop him exploding, but nothing has worked yet. Perhaps like your ds, it will get better as he gets older

there is a very good book called Volcano in my tummy which has discussion points and worksheets (shit, that sounds so worthy and dull, but ds knew he had a problems and it was making him and me and everyone unhappy so was happy to 'learn' some techniques.)
It did take a long time though. but he is 100 per cent better and I am learning to relax and not have to helicopter so much to avert disaters injuries to others

dd, so littlest pet shop for us there are millions of them about the house. She made a nature reserve for them with my nice (once a year) bunch of flowers the other day, had to put my foot down when she tried to take it into school to show teacher!

told dd that she was like a pop bottle and that the things that annoyed her built up until she exploded; teacher asked me why dd had told her she filled her bottle nearly to the top; just smiled innocently.

thanks molly I will :)

sensitive - god yes - frequent tears here. this week's return to school has set her off a few times, not over being at school as such but peripheral things such as not knowing where to line up in the playground when the bell rings now she's moved up a year. She doesn't have anger issues over and above your usual 6yo stroppiness.

I find it hard to strike a balance between supporting her at home and pushing too hard. She reads to me every day (not so much during the holidays) and in Y1 she got a weekly homework project that we do together - she really enjoyed doing these and got a headmaster's award for one piece of work she did :).

Sounds like I need to get her into Pokemon so she can read all about it

Oh yes, we still have tantrums - massive screaming ones which are much worse than when he was a toddler

He is also very sensitive and is a natural born worrier.

I agree tigerfeet - its very difficult not to push too hard. We read everynight too, and we solve maths problems together, but even those have to be based around Mario

MrsM - seeing red - well I can't tell you (you obviously already know ).

Actually, since DS has moved school he has lost that 'violent' explosive streak. I've wondered about this endlessly. I now believe two things have happened in this little boys life:-

1. he has lost his frustration - he was regressing badly at old school, clinging, crying, very volatile etc. and really struggling to read (always surrounded by books at home looking at pictures). His teachers told me he couldn't do it and he was quite literally sat behind a post.

2. he has found 'structure' at his new school. There is a definite time-table so he knows what he is doing when and who will be teaching him and who he will be reading to and who is going to look up to and respect. He is also listened to (he is very quietly spoken and has only just been signed off by the speech therapist).

Oh and there is a possibility that he could be dyslexic so we are at the ticking boxes stage with that (still nowhere near a competent reader).

Still hates school though!

Oh, and his bedroom is a right tip all of the time - is this significant ?

No Em that's just a boy thing.

Oh wow, sorry to start & abandon this thread but I've had a very busy day! So glad to see it took off without me :).
I can't see DS working thru the Volcano in my Tummy book -- when he's in a good mood, sure, but that's not reliable. (sigh).

I got asked aside for the little chat on the first day of school. DS (6, yr2) was asked to draw a picture and he utterly refused to do that or any other work the rest of the day. At home, it took me about 45 mins yesterday to coax him into drawing something after all on the given topic. It was a huge confidence problem, he was so sure he'd do it wrong or badly.

Anyway, today the teacher came out and said that he'd had an utterly fantastic day, his confidence boosted emormously by my efforts yesterday. (phew!) Thank Goodness I have a lot of Brownie Points with this particular teacher, I used to be a regular helper and she had good experiences teaching my older (much CALMER) children.

Still, The first day -- can't even get thru the first day without an issue (sigh).

DS is a sweet lad, reasonably bright, but very emotional, exhuberant, hot-headed -- "silly" I think ought to be the official diagnosis on his IEP (yes he has one, I wrote it, and all it says is stuff about his speech problems which are now officially resolved ).

DD is our packrat messy bedroom from Hell child -- and she is a model pupil at school . DS (inspiration for this thread) is reasonably tidy, actually.

Can I join? dd (7 in July) has just started year 3. She's always struggled at school, esp. with maths. Her reading is coming on but is still a fair way behind. She struggles a bit socially too - is very 'young' for her age, it's as if she's with the wrong peer group! She does have a fab imagination and has some great ideas for stories etc - she just can't write them down properly. She's always preferred playing to leaning, can't blame her really.

Paddington we gave our DS an old MP3 player to play with and didn't realise it had record facility until he passed it over to DS2 with loads of stories that he had made up and then recorded, for him to listen to at bedtime.

You could try something like that with her, that way she gets to tell her stories without the stress of writing them down.

It's actually DS's imagination that causes him his problems, too much time in his imaginary world and not enough time in the real world.

Oh ragged I feel for you! That was me last year, on DS2's first half day going up to Year 1 before the summer holidays I was called in by his new teacher! I was mortified. It continued in the same vein for the next 12 months, but he's been back for 4 days now and there haven't been any problems so far

Tigerfeet we are DD sharing. My DD still stuggling with basic words at beginning of Year 2 but can spot 'Spongebob' at a mile. She just cannot be bothered with Phonics and the teacher kept saying last year it will come well I am still waiting and this year is SATS so fingers crossed. Her handwriting is good though and she knows full stops and question marks and their uses etc so you never know.

Ah Fudge, what a rotten start to the day. DS kicked off (about something minor, arguably quite trivial, of course). I almost always take the laid back let him scream it out and kick out approach, but we are trying different things lately with him. So today I opted for zero tolerance... physical restraint, firm consequences, all that. Because he was screeching at me to leave the kitchen and trying to kick me and I can't really stay out of the kitchen on a school morning.

What a mistake (never again, I think I can confidently cross zero tolerance off my list for the future, along with threats and punishments, totally ineffective). What would have been a moderately unpleasant 5-20 minutes strop turned into a full-blown physical battle for 40 minutes. Got him to school in the end (though TA had to haul him in). What a nightmare.

There's a theory that with explosive children you need to get them to eat a high protein snack every 2 hours, but how the heck do you do that when they turn their nose up at most high protein foods?

Was pulled over by DS's Teacher this morning so I feel your pain ladies.

She told me that yesterday all the children has to stand up and say something about themselves. DS stood up and started talking about Mario and didnt stop. When she asked him to sit down as it was someone elses turn he cried.Its such a sore point too. If anyone critisizes Mario or his interest in Mario he takes it so personally. It explains why he didnt want to get out of bed this morning.

I did get him to do some reading last night so thats a plus