It's like a battle of the wills since my 6 year old daughter started kindergarten. We never had issues like this in preschool, so I chalked it up to just a kid who handles change poorly. Her first month in school went about as poorly as possible. I was getting phone calls from the principal, emails and calls from the teacher, my daughter even got a half day suspension from school due to her behavior. It was baffling, and so unlike her. She's strong willed, don't get me wrong... But the way she was acting was beyond her norm. So my husband and I weathered the storm, did everything we were asked to do, star charts at home, conversations about school, grounding her from stuff. Which frankly got old, and frustrating for me. I felt like I had to ground her everyday. The teacher would send these daily reports home that talked about all the bad things my kid did that day. It started to feel like she was being boxed into the stereotypical "bad kid" with little hope of ever being seen as anything but. Then one day, she turned it around. I have no idea what changed, but her attitude did a 180 and she started doing really well in school. My husband and I were so pleased, the teacher stopped harassing me, everything was great. Then Christmas break happened and I worked a ton so our schedule got all messed up. No big deal, so I thought. School resumed, I started getting emails from the teacher and calls from the principal and vice principal about her behavior. I figured it was an adjustment thing again, and it would resolve as she readjusted. So then today I get approached by her teacher who wants to ask me how it's going insert internal eye roll I immediately know this isn't a "just checking in conversation" as she claims. Nope, my kid is refusing to do her work in school, being defiant, and just general debauchery. The whole conversation I'm thinking what do you want me to do? Like she's just complaining about my kids behavior but she's offered no solutions. So I pipe up with a genius idea (not really, but something my mom did when I was in school) and I offered to come to the classroom to help her and get a better idea of what is going on. I was immediately shot down, that wouldn't be a good idea. The way this teacher describes my daughters behavior is not the behavior we see at home, so my thinking is I should witness this behavior first hand in the environment that it's happening in. I know my daughter has told me kids taunt her and tease her in class- I think it's normal kid stuff, doesn't sound like bullying by any means. So, I'm wondering why a teacher wouldn't want a parent to come and assess and help? When I was struggling in school my mom thought it was 100% my fault and I was being a POS, she sat in my class for a week and observed the teacher. Low and behold it was not me, the teacher was awful, she would refuse to answer questions I asked and respond with "you already know the answer, go sit down." She would send back my 3rd grade math homework so many times that my mom would do it with a calculator and she'd still mark it all wrong. This was at a private school, and I think that teacher was ready for retirement. Anyways, I mention this because I feel it's important to my intrinsic bias, as I've been a victim of a terrible teacher and it took me a long time (tutoring, summer school, etc) to get caught up and be successful in school again. My daughters teacher has thrown a lot of red flags my way- for example she doesn't participate with the other kindergarten teachers, progress notes that just tally the amount of times my daughter did something wrong without addressing ANY improvements, her phone calls about how she's never seen a child act out like my daughter in all her 17 years of teaching, telling me that the girl who has a reading deficit can do her homework faster than my daughter, and now telling me I shouldn't come to the classroom because it wouldn't be helpful. I'm not a teacher, maybe she's right? I love my daughter, but she is not perfect, she is a boundary pusher- but she responds to set boundaries once they have been identified. I don't claim to be a perfect parent and I'm not trying to put all blame on this teacher. I'm just trying to navigate these murky waters with little experience in the matter, and do what is best for my daughter. via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2Rp87VE
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