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Apr 2010
Insignificant for you is opposite for child
April 27, 2010 12:00 PM Filed in: Skill Sets
| Elementary
School
|
Dear Dr. Fournier: My child called from school for the first time frantic about a playground incident that he thought was killing him, yet when I arrived, it was a simple misunderstanding with the teacher about a kickball rule. How can I get my child to understand things like this are not a life and death issue? Martina M., Ocean Springs, MS |
Dear Martina: Is there a parent who doesn’t drop everything and run to school after receiving such a message? Most parents would do exactly what you did.
Your child had become upset when he felt a game was played unfairly. Upset about the teacher’s call, your son called out to his classmate, “You cheat!”
Other children in the class reported his unsportsmanlike conduct to the teacher, who without question gave him one check mark for poor behavior. But by allowing students to be the judge, the teacher unwittingly allowed these children to feel in control, and they took the punishment further.
Once out of the class, the empowered children continued to deride your son who was left defenseless.
The Assessment: When you arrived at school, you had to step back and question, “For this I left my office?” The entire incident seemed petty, but you said that this was the first time in six years of school that he had called with a voice of despair.
Naturally, you had many questions to consider: Why did such a small incident loom so large? How should I treat it? Was there something to be learned from the situation?
The answer came from your son’s original plea: “I’m humiliated!” The issue was not the incident itself, but the fact that the child felt humiliated.
Hurt is legitimate, no matter what others think about its cause. And hurt is not to be judged by its size, but by its very presence. It just hurts! When asked why he was humiliated, your son replied, “The teacher just punished me and didn’t even talk to me. Everyone tells children to say what they feel. I did it, and now everyone hates me!”
You and your son discussed this incident with the teacher, who explained to him the purpose of the process. But you want him to learn more than just how to cope with this one situation.
This child also needs personal strategies for coping with the hurt of peer humiliation rather than allowing it to accumulate from incident to incident, not knowing how to let go of the pain.
What To Do: As we listen to our children relate “stories” from school, we must remember that perception is reality. In other words, it does not really matter if our child’s side of the story is right; what matters is how our child perceives his role in that story.
For example, children are often wounded by name-calling. To adults, the answer seems simple: Don’t listen to the names. We tell children to “let them roll off your back.” But we must remember that the way the child perceives this name-calling is by feeling hurt and humiliated. That hurt is very real, and we should not minimize our child’s feelings by dismissing the event as petty and unimportant.
In our discussions, we need to help our children understand that all pain has a message. It is our choice to listen to the message or to disregard it and only hold on to the pain. To minimize the message, however, is to minimize the feeling.
Legitimize your child’s pain by recognizing that feelings are, in a way, our body’s barometer of how we cope with the challenges of life. As much as we want our children to have good feelings and to be happy, we must help our children recognize hurt feelings so they can take on life with strength rather than fear it to avoid pain.
Once you have shown acceptance of your child’s feelings, then try to help him separate and understand the message: What really happened here? In learning to cope with different situations, children need to understand that there may not be a “right” or “wrong” answer. Many people can view the same situation differently, and by legitimizing our child’s views we also help him expand his capacity to deal with disagreement.
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April 20, 2010 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Writing with a pen spells big trouble for children
April 06, 2010 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
|
Dear Dr. Fournier: My
daughter holds her pencil in the most awkward
way. Her writing is as difficult for me to read
as it is for her to write. We agonize over
homework writing assignments as well as other
homework. She has no problem with math at home
yet she has a hard time making her numbers
readable, so much so that the teacher deducts
points off for wrong calculations. The school
psychologist tested her and found no learning
disability. That means I cannot get any help from
the school system for her on this. Our
pediatrician says nothing is wrong.
I am frustrated, as she is, because teachers continue writing on her papers, “Redo this. I can’t read it.” She now has to write cursive, which is a nightmare, plus, her teachers want her to use a pen instead of a pencil. Do you have any advice for me? Sharon D., Springfield, MO |
Dear Sharon: Problems with fine motor skills, such as writing, usually spell big trouble for children in school.
The Assessment: Students are expected to learn through verbal commands from teachers or from written commands in textbooks, workbooks or ditto sheets. Most of these commands require students demonstrate their understanding and learning in writing. For the child with an awkward pencil grasp, this may be a monumental task. Even though she understands the material, her writing does not adequately demonstrate that knowledge.
Asking a teacher to give an oral assessment to the child is usually impractical. But there are other ways to help a student with fine motor difficulties without asking the teacher to do additional work.
What To Do: Ask for a teacher conference but prepare for it thoroughly by researching and analyzing your child’s academic problems.
First, pick a current assignment in each subject and time your child as she reads directions and finishes work. How long does each assignment take? What strategies does your child use to complete the work? Does she have the required knowledge but seem unable to express it in writing? Track her progress and analyze the timed results to determine which assignments are most difficult for her.
For each difficulty you can identify, develop solutions to present to your daughter’s teacher. Remember that each solution must meet one criterion: Your daughter must do the intellectual work required of all students to master the knowledge at hand.
Here are some possible scenarios with possible solutions:
1) Writing sentences from an English book and underlining each noun takes an hour and 10 minutes. Photocopy a month’s worth of pages and have your daughter identify the parts of speech by underlining only. (This can be done for math computation drill exercises also.)
2) Computing 10 math problems takes 55 minutes because your daughter has trouble spacing the problems on the page so they don’t run together. A possible solution is to fold the paper into six blocks (vertical in half and horizontal in thirds). Write a problem in each box and have the child stay within the box to compute the problem. Answers will be in a square at the bottom of each box. Have her do as many problems as she can in 30 minutes, or at least half of the work. If she completes a sufficient number correctly, then she has shown mastery. Otherwise, she will do the rest of the problems the following evening.
3) Redoing work because of ink takes up valuable time. Have your child use only pencil so that errors can be erased instead of crossed out. This also lets your child produce neat, legible work that she can be proud of.
4) Writing in cursive causes homework delays. Have her do work in manuscript, except handwriting assignments.
Teachers want to help their students but they must fulfill their own responsibilities, first. Your solutions should not require the teacher do more work in order to use techniques that respect your daughter’s differences. In a parent-teacher conference, you can work collaboratively to find solutions that will benefit all three learning partners - student, educator, and parent.
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