Parent Teacher Conferences

1st quarter parent teacher conferences didn't go as well as we would have liked.

We met with DS's kindergarten teacher on October 10 and this is what she had to say. I'm going to rewrite his Kindergarten Progress report, which illustrates how well he does at each assessed skill. The teacher used symbols like x, / and *. I gave them numerical values to be easier to understand. Anything is quotes is the teacher's note behind the assessed skill.

Kindergarten Progress Report
Score:
3 - student demonstrates development of goal consistently
2 - student is currently working on developmental goal
1 - student needs improvement of developmental skill

Social skills
2 - listens carefully "talks"
3 - raises hand
3 - is secure in speaking
3 - offers information during discussions
3 - is responsible
1 - works in groups (shares, takes turns, is kind)
2 - follows routines "needs reminders"

Academic Skills
3 - knows 10 colors
3 - recognizes 10 basic shapes
3 - can count 10 objects
3 - can recognized numbers 0-10
3 - can write first name "be sure to use lowercase"
1 - works well (stays on task, quietly, independently, puts forth effort, finishes on time)

Comments: DS is doing well in academics, likes books and contributes to discussions! DS needs to work on his talking in class while working. Has a hard time working in groups without supervision. 

Hopefully our next parent teacher conference shows some improvement in his social skills. 

She asked about our gluten free diet and when we told her that we had let it lax into non-existence, she suggested we re-implement it to see if it helps his behavior. We felt really beaten down by the feedback she gave us, like we were failing as his parents and failing to teach him right from wrong. 

I asked her if it was possible that he could be bored and that was contributing to his behavior issues in class and she assured me that the day is busy enough that he can't be bored... ok, bored was apparently the wrong word to use... I guess challenged would have been a better word. She told us that she teaches to many levels in class to keep those who are more advanced engaged and learning - who am I to doubt her? I just think it's wrong that she says my son fails to apply himself simply because he wishes to no longer color a picture she assigned him. He applied the correct color to all the areas of the picture, but because he didn't fully fill it in with color, he was not applying himself. Maybe she's right, maybe she's wrong. She has been teaching for 30 years and I've only been a mom or 5. I guess we'll wait and see what the next assessment indicates. Hopefully the gluten-free diet helps us to mold him into a well behaved student. 

Introducing our son

My son is 5 years old. For the last couple of years, we have been battling some concerning behavior issues. He is disruptive in school, defies rules, exhibits aggressive behaviors, is loud, easily excited, emotionally charged, and difficult to control. His preschool teacher commented on his behavior last year and was very helpful in discussing discipline options with us. She used a color system to indicate his behavior while at school and we would discipline as we felt was appropriate when he got home in the evenings. This only worked for a short period of time.

Next we tried separating him from the class thinking that maybe he wasn't being challenged enough with the daily lessons. He was sent with the Teacher's Aide to start working on sight words. This worked very well for a longer period of time than the first approach, but was short-lived because the school year came to a close.

He then started attending a summer program that is affiliated with the school. There were a few instances of unacceptable behavior that was documented (hitting friends, talking back to teachers, etc), but I think a lot of his misbehavior was ignored or dealt with using time-outs and not communicated with us.

Before kindergarten started, I attempted to transition our son to a gluten-free diet becasue during my own studies on Primal and Paleo, I learned that gluten can have behavioral rammifications in children. This seemed to work but it could also have been the start of school that changed his behavior - new surroundings to explore and learn about that engaged his attention. Now, however, things are getting out of control again - as is his diet.

We had parent teacher conferences last week and the teacher was essentially telling us how terrible our child is. She said he's very smart but he fails to obey the rules, fails to follow direction, fails to remain on task, fails to apply himself and prefers to do his own thing regardless of the instructions given to him. She then asked about his gluten-free diet. We had to confess that we'd gotten away from it for various reasons (excuses, really) and would reimplement immediately.

The school has agreed to let us bring fresh fruit, cheeses, fresh baked homemade goodies, etc, to the school for his snacks. The after-school program has agreed to feed him snacks from home as well. There will be instances where my son will have gluten-containing foods - like on chicken nugget day at school. Our son is a pickier eater, but is coming around. We have recently discovered he loves mashed potatoes and just about any meat with gravy on it.

So this is us, reimplementing.