Worried about my DD's loss of confidence she she started Reception

[allyfe]

My daughter started reception in September. It is a big school (3 class in-take). She was desperate to start, and she loves it. But, at parents evening we found out that she won't talk to the teachers. She is painfully shy with them and she chews her shirt or cardigan a lot. She seems to be okay with the other children, although she does rely quite a lot on a pre-school friend in the another class at play time.

I was a bit worried about this when we were told, but the more I think about it, and the more I see my daughters behaviour outside school, the more concerned I get. She won't talk (or even look) at a grown-up she doesn't know very well. She hides her face and turns away, and if she speaks she whispers. The issues is that before she started school, she wasn't like that. She was a confident bubbly little thing, whose confidence was sometimes a bit in your face. I have mentioned what the teacher said to a few people and they have all been shocked. She is also now very shy with older children (hides her face, won't talk in front of them).

When she started pre-school at 2 1/2 she was also very shy and quiet, but she was there for two years and she left full of confidence and happiness. I'm just so upset that she seems to have lost all of that (not the happiness, just the confidence). I'm not sure what to do to try to help her to build it up and to feel more confident in herself. I am also not sure if I should talk to the teacher about it. The school haven't realised what she can do (because my daughter won't talk to them), but I don't mind about that because she is so young, it doesn't really matter at this stage. But I do want her to feel confident and sure of herself. I am not sure if there is anything they can do, or I can do, or should be done (although it feels wrong to just not do anything to try and help). I hope this sounds rediculous, but I'm worried that it is somehow our fault that she hasn't got the confidence in herself that she had.

I've posted this in the behaviour section in parenting too, because I thought it might get a different audience on both places. So apologies if you have seen this twice!!

Sorry about the title!!!! Should be SINCE she started reception.

I think a chat with her teacher is needed. I could have written you post, except that DS is more confident around teachers than other children, and the school have worked hard to give him responsibility / bring him out of himself.

I would ask them for one teacher / teaching assistant who your DD could speak to, for now. Once she's got her confidence up speaking with one teacher, then you can add another one. They could also look at other ways of your DD communicating for now - sign cards etc so she can contribute to lessons but on her terms.

Thank you PeterParker. I have called the school and will talk to them. I am not sure what they are doing to help her, but I think they may just be leaving her to it at the moment, so it is really helpful to know that I can expect them to come up with a strategy to help. I will also talk to them about her reading level. It isn't that I expect her to be reading or be taught massively hard things, but I worry that if they are sending home really easy books (one easy one is great for confidence, but they are both the same level, the same words and she can read them without having to bother blending in a few minutes), it just makes me think they may not know what she knows already, and so not be really working with her at her level. I feel like I'm probably worrying too much.

I wouldn't worry about the reading books at the moment, I would concentrate purely on her confidence in talking to the staff. Once she does this then her reading ability will become clear. Just read the school books quickly and then read something from home, note it in the reading record/diary and forget it.

I agree that if she can perhaps get used to trusting a TA or maybe even a student if they have one in (my daughter loves their student) then she will relax more quickly.

Thanks Periwinkle. I do agree that her confidence with the staff is the most important thing. For the reading, I would feel happier if I was able to tell them somewhere what she is reading at home, but we aren't given that opportunity. There is no place to comment on her book form, all we do is sign to say she has read the books. Nothing about how easy or hard they are, or what else she has read.

However, if she is comfortable with the teachers, hopefully that will all become irrelevant because she will be happy to tell them herself what she can (and wants) to read.

I just hope that they listen and do something about it. I am not sure how interested the school are in communicating with parents.

oh how strange there is nowhere for comments in the reading thing. My eldest spent most of last year (and the start of this year) being given books which were WAY too easy but I was able to record what she was reading at home as well as make comments about how she was reading.

I may ask the teacher about that. It does seem odd that, when most of what they read will be read at home, that the school isn't interested to know what that is or how it is going. Overly easy reading books does seem to be more the norm than the exception. Out of interest, did your DD's school notice your daughter was reading better than they had given her credit for, or did they just eventually listen to what you were telling them?

erm it was a bit of an ongoing thing really, I would keep writing about the early reader chapter books she was reading at home and asking what they felt she needed to work on in order to progress and eventually I did ask if she could move up because she was lying on the floor waving her legs in the air singing the words and things like that because they were so easy. This year she kind of promoted herself by picking a harder book and noone stopped her so then she kept doing it...I think the first time it was actually a mistake, she just liked the look of the book so I asked her about it but then she just kept going at that level.

my other daughter so far has been moving up through the levels at the rate I would expect her to, I think partly because they had experienced her sister.