How do I help dd?

[tiredandgrumpy]

Another thread this morning helped me realise that I need to do more to support my dd. She is one of the diligent, well-behaved kids who are sat next to the harder to manage kids so that the class can become more manageable.

I confess my first reaction was frustration and I do still agree that we need to ensure that she's not being disadvantaged, but I can see now that there are things she can learn from this position.

Trouble is, I can't find a way of getting this through to her. Her complaints about her current seating partner are that he copies her all the time, won't talk, farts a lot (!) and leaves her to do all the work when they are supposed to be working together. All low level stuff and nothing worth moving her for. She's very upset about it. How can I teach her to deal with it?

As the kid who was always put in this position, please talk to the teacher. It’s not up to your DD to manage his behaviour, that’s the teacher’s job, that they trained for.

Teacher may be able to keep more of an eye, or help your DD know when to ask for help, or at the very least talk to her and acknowledge her frustrations.

As the kid who was always put in this position, please talk to the teacher. It’s not up to your DD to manage his behaviour, that’s the teacher’s job, that they trained for.

They are managing their behaviour! Would you suggest all the disruptive children are seated together? That would mean the whole class didn't get any work done.
All children copy from each other, it can be a useful way for some children to get ideas but more often it is a disadvantage to the child who copies rather than the one who is copied from. Teachers can tell who copied when they mark books.

But it’s clearly not working if the OP’s DD is coming home distressed by it. Hence the suggestion to talk to the teacher, so that they are aware and able to support both the DD and the other child...

This thread is going to turn into exactly the the same as the other thread on this...!

Sorry @EduCated But not every complaint of a 5 year old can be acted upon. None of those complaints are of any significance.

I would just reiterate to DD to ignore it

@EduCated

Obviously it's a shame OP's DD is upset but the answer isn't to just remove everything from the class room which is irritating she does need to learn to cope with low level disruption. At secondary school and later at work she might have annoying people sitting next to her.

I didn’t say that it could or should. I said to speak to the teacher to keep an eye and to support.

I read the OP as asking for strategies for her DD (doesn’t mention age?) to manage the situation and effectively manage the other child’s behaviour. She can’t and shouldn’t be expected to.

Obviously louder children are sat next to quieter ones all the time. Sometimes that is enough in itself and the lack of a co-conspirator stops the behaviour. Sometimes the quieter kid is able to let it wash over them. But OP’s DD is coming home ‘very upset’. Is it really unreasonable to suggest OP speak to the teacher and make sure that they’re aware and able to support both kids in that situation?

To be honest when I was a kid I always had to sit next to the naughty ones as apparently I was a good influence. I didn’t really mind if they calmed down but occasionally you’d get one who disrupted my learning or did horrible farts and thought it was funny. I don’t think it’s ok, i wouldn’t put up with this behaviour in work so don’t see why it’s inflicted on kids

Thank you for your comments. I specifically kept this off the other thread as I wanted to keep it clear of a discussion of seating tactics etc!

My dd is in year 5. She's rather overly fussy about who she sits next to - I asked her who she would be happy working with and she could only name 1 other child in the class.

Yes, I agree her current seating partner isn't ideal and I have mentioned it to her teacher, but I do think there is an element of her needing to learn to either work with him or ignore him. Since I'm someone who would just switch off & ignore him I'm probably not the greatest role model for her. I would appreciate other people's thoughts on whether my approach is best, or what I can suggest to her.

There are friendship issues too and I am looking to move her, but this is not an easy process as schools locally are oversubscribed so spaces are hard to come by. I have to work with what we have got for now.

I haven't seen the other thread (I did have a little look - could someone post a link to it please?)

My DD (also Y5) sounds a bit like yours! She 'always' seems to sit next to someone who is annoying in some way, and she's easily wound up by it.

When she was in Y3, the lad sitting next to her asked for her help so often that she fell behind with her own work. After a few months of this, I suggested that she simply said politely to him every time, "I need to get on with my own work, so you'll need to ask the teacher." Perhaps that was mean, but she wasn't actually his TA, and it was affecting her own learning. It solved DD's problem: the other kid was not her problem!

By Y5 your DD ought to be able to deal with this herself. I'd suggest your DD deals with each of the specific issues (rather than moaning generally about this annoying kid!). I'd suggest the following:

1) he copies her all the time
She should go and see the teacher and explain this, and ask whether it's ok if he copies 'all the time'. If the teacher says it's never ok, your DD needs to find out from the teacher what she should be doing about it. If it's sometimes ok, the teacher needs to tell her when those times are.

2) won't talk
Not sure what you mean by this, but if you mean that he won't talk when they're supposed to be doing paired learning, then when it happens she should ask the teacher what she should do with a partner that won't talk. She should try not to moan, but explain that she is getting no response and the shared task is therefore impossible, and should she do something else instead?

3) farts a lot (!)
I don't have a suggestion for this one. I think she'll have to put up with it.

4) leaves her to do all the work when they are supposed to be working together
If she's being honest about doing 'all' the work, then it's similar to number 2 - she should ask the teacher how to do the paired task when only one person is participating. Again, not in a moany way - maybe ask the teacher politely whether she can do the task on her own?

Basically, use this as an opportunity for your daughter to learn to raise specific issues calmly and constructively. The teacher will hopefully have some useful suggestions, and if it's not working and your DD persists in asking for 'advice', the teacher will probably change the seating plan anyway, for an easy life!

It might be worth you picking up a book that's aimed at helping kids to dealing with anxiety, Eg "when you worry too much". Maybe don't give it to her, as you don't really want to be sending the message that you think she is (over)anxious, but just use some of the ideas on how to deal with the worries. They tend to focus on stuff like only worrying about what you can change, distract yourself, ignore the behaviour. Give her an insight into how reacting to another child's behaviour can encourage it, whereas ignoring or saying something like "that again? Soo boring" can work a lot better.

We also found useful. It's about bullying which is not directly relevant but it's an interesting insight for DC .Basically don't just tell her to ignore, explain to her why and how to do so effectively and maybe do some role play, and build up her self esteem & confidence to focus on her own stuff and not letting her partner's behaviour define her day.

Finally, checking with the teacher when they will next move the children will help DD keep it in perspective. Hopefully it's just a few more weeks. Remind her that children grow up, they are all still learning and some of them just take a bit longer.