What to do...

Post Reply New Topic

when you quiz your child at home about what they are working on at school before assessment time and his answers are 100% correct at home. But at school he just blurts out whatever answer he can come up with just so they will leave him alone because it may be repetitive to him? Needless to say his progress report had some suggestions that we were already doing and our son always answers the questions correctly when we quiz him? His 2s should be 3s but because he didn't do them well during his assessment he gets to have 2s.

We just have no idea what to do! We also thought that he had trouble writing because it took him forever, or he was taking forever on purpose....while in fact he has the most beautiful handwriting and was fully capable of doing it right. The problem was, having him to do his writing assignment at school and he stayed behind with the rest of the class because the teachers and we thought he just had trouble with his writing. We don't know why he does it but we think it may be because he is bored in class?

He is in Kindergarten and doing well academically and one of the better students.

Any suggestions? TIA!

Sounds like me in third and sixth grades. I'd freeze up in class, basically. I have always had gorgeous handwriting...but not so much in those grades, because I was just too scared to do anything right. Those were the years I had teachers that saw different kids as easy targets. They'd tease/torment me in class but all the other kids would laugh along and everyone acted like it was socially appropriate. I didn't understand that it wasn't, and when I did try to tell my parents or the principal, they didn't understand what I was going through. My behavior was different in those classrooms than home or other learning environments because I was scared. In third grade, I would get sick at school all the time and have to be sent home because I was throwing up or had wet myself or something (although, the teacher not letting me use the restroom was usually to blame for that). By sixth, I had learned how to fake sick...and I went as far as having "accidents" that resulted in my own injury to get sent home several times that year.

It may have been that those teachers thought if they were hard enough on me I'd start being "normal". Few admit to it, but that's a REALLY common opinion among NTs. That would explain why no one cared what they did to me. The authority figures all picked up on their earnest desire to help me, and placed the blame on me for not responding to it properly.

I have no idea what your kid may be dealing with, but you described me perfectly at those ages.

Teacher and peer pressure can have a lot to do with that. I was a straight-A student, skipped two grades (but I started school late because of a January birthday) until I hit 10th grade. Sometime around the middle of 9th grade, I figured out that having the right answers all of the time made me more of an outsider. It was "cool" to be stupid and very "uncool" to be the kid that teachers liked and held up as an example to the class. Once I got into the mode of deliberately messing up, I also found that I could ignore the teacher, do my own thing while they babbled on and still do well enough to pass. I toyed with the idea for awhile but had a hard time with the ethics of it. What finally pushed me over the edge was when a teacher accused me of cheating on an English paper because it was written "way above grade level". He spent the rest of my 9th grade year trying to "catch me" cheating. Instead, I deliberately dumbed down all of my subsequent work to match his expectations. There was no real difference between an 'A' and a 'C', so why not just be a happy average student and avoid the hassles. That carried forward through the rest of high school. I attended about half of my classes and adopted a solid "Go For The Bronze!" attitude. The upside was that I could fade into the background and avoid all of the negative attention that went along with being smart. (I also got to log a considerable amount of time in arcades and in the computer lab)

yup, it sounds familiar.

When my son was in Kindergarden, he had absolutely no interest in learning/showing he had learned whatever was on the agenda. For example, the teacher tested them individually during the first month of school. He asked her why she was doing that, and she explained they were tested to see what they needed to learn, then they would be tested again to see if they learned what they are supposed to know to go into first grade. At that time, he could only identify about 2/3 of the letters of the alphabet, and only a handful of sounds, could care less about shapes etc. Then after Christmas break was over, he announced he was going to first grade. He explained he passed the teacher's test with 100%. I asked and sure enough he had. Now you couldn't tell on his daily work that he knew all he did, nor could you tell by his interactions, but he knew that test counted and did his best.

That still works today at age 10. We emphasize the important assignments such as benchmark and unit tests and don't place as much emphasis on the repetitive daily work which he often gets bored / rushes through because he got it the first time and they are still working on it two weeks later.

On the other hand, sometimes the difference is the environment. The sensory input in a classroom is totally different than at home. For example, my son complained of the sounds of people's pencils writing, and other students small noises from moving in their desks as being very distracting. Therefore, his IEP allows him to take tests alone or in a small group. This also helps him differentiate the important tests.

I don't know, its Kindergarten. Seems to me to it should be a lot more about social and emotional well-being and less about academics. I would want to know more about what is causing the blurting out "just so they will leave him alone". That sounds like some anxiety going on. You could try to talk with him more about how he feels in the situations when that happens. If he is bored and ahead of the rest of the class they may be able to find some work arounds. My DS is similar. He is also in K and goes over to the 1st grade classroom for reading and they put a math curriculum on the computer for him to do while they are doing this other (REALLY BORING) curriculum with the other kids. My real concern though is that he doesn't seem to like school in general. The teacher and others have been making accomodations for him but I get this sense that he is just generally stressed out by the whole thing.

I agree that in Kinder this should not be such a big problem. Does he like his teacher? With my daughter-if she "bonds" with the teacher in some way she is more apt to want to please her and feel safe within the class. If she doesn't like the teacher and doesn't feel comfortable she will just not participate or answer correctly. Sounds like your son wants to participate but is just blurting things out to be a part of things without thinking through his responses. I don't think oral answers in a group in Kinder should be counted against him, as he may be feeling overwhelmed within the group. However, he should be able to write his letters and identify his letters one on one (as he is doing at home) and that should be what counts. You cannot underestimate the intensity of impairment of social anxiety. And in our experience, the only thing that will mediate it is time and a building of a comfort level, as well as lots of protective assurrances from the teacher (not admonishments-they do the opposite).

Same as my sons. They could read before Kindergarten (simple words and sentences). Imagine our surprise when their first report cards came home saying that they didn't know most of the alphabet?! They were too overwhelmed from a sensory perspective to recall what they knew in any given moment in a noisy classroom, and just didn't get the concept or purpose of showing what they knew to the teacher.

Over time they learned the purpose of demonstrating knowledge, and that they were expected to, and the sensory overload issues decreased with various accommodations and desensitization over the years. I wouldn't worry about it too much in Kindergarten. It'll come.