Jesus. My daughter, along with all of the other children in her 5th grade class, received new seating assignments this week. She complained to me today that she is now sitting next to a boy who apparently spends entire days picking his nose and scabs and…um, eating what he retrieves. Personally, I could not endure such company and therefore feel she shouldn’t have to sit next to the picker. I’m told that her teacher is well aware of said boy’s activity. I need to send an email this evening to the teacher requesting that my daughter be given a new seat assignment, and while I see where I could have fun crafting this correspondence - I’m not up for it right now because I am exhausted from having spent the past few days writing. My creative (and diplomatic) juices are spent. Any Dopers willing to allow me to plagiarize them this evening? I believe the grounds for my request should be based on hygiene/germs, but I am totally open to other ideas.
I remember sitting behind the notorious class farter in middle school. I don’t remember whining to my parents about it. I think if you write this letter, you’ll look like a hysterical nutjob. Don’t.
I couldn’t stand being in your daughter’s position. I wouldn’t go into hygiene or whatever because that could affect anyone and someone has to sit there.
I would say that your daughter is upset and completely distracted and cannot perform in class if the situation continues. Sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but she needs to be moved immediately. I’d cc the principal.
Cut and dried. Move her now.
You could say that your daughter is going to vomit if she has to sit next to the picker. That would certainly be disruptive to the entire class.
This is 5th grade. Not that it’s your responsibility to poinit this out but that kid should be seen by counseling services. He should also be seated by himself in class and have the reason for that explained to him. Like, with real support I mean. Nobody’s doing that kid any favors to let him continue such established anti-social behaviours.
The school is aware and should get him help. If you insist on writing a letter, omit your daughter, except to say that “My daughter told me that…” and ending with “He needs medical or psychological help.” Do not mention her nausea or discomfort.
Through her life, your daughter will have to sit next to heavy garlic eaters at work, share a break room with people microwaving fish, and share a library with the occasional homeless guy without hygiene. It’s life. Sadly, she needs to deal with it.
Could she be discretely allowed some sort of toy or book to distract herself from the boy?
I disagree, pretty strongly. The letter shouldn’t be about the other kid. It should be about the OP’s daughter. The OP is in no position to know what is best for another kid or how the school should be treating him.
Tell the daughter to put on her big girl undies & put up with / ignore it. She’ll be exposed to worse in the future and right now she sounds like a pretty precious whiner. Which may be way off base, but is how it *may *be perceived by the authorities.
Either that or she should start barfing on the boy when it all gets too gross for her. One way or the other they *will *get separated pretty soon thereafter.
I mean, someone has to sit next to the nose-picker, right? I’ve had an honest-to-God adult co-worker who was an obsessive scab-picker and eater. It sounds like the teacher has a good idea in rotating the seating chart so no one student has to bear the brunt of nose-picking adjacency.
No, the correct solution probably involves isolation and ostracism*. Maybe psychosurgery or waterboarding. Hell, routine waterboarding would break up the hardened snot and make the more socially acceptable Kleenex Solution work.
Yes, I’m being sarcastic.
Sad to say, “the physiologically and socially inept you will always have with you” (to paraphrase). tuesdayweld’s daughter, like the rest of humanity, is going to have to be able to function in the presence of folks whom the rest of society consider marginally dysfunctional. Getting freaked out over minor hygiene infractions is not a productive life habit, and letting someone else’s dysfunctions make you dysfunctional seems like a really bad strategy.
*Of booger-boy, not the OP’s daughter. I figure I should clarify that.
Please do not recommend any kind of treatment for the picker. Is there any way this conversation could take place by phone or in person?
In fact, I might encourage the student to speak directly to the teacher about her concerns. Privately, of course. She’s what, 11 or 12 years old? Is that reasonable?
Unless the kid is leaving pools of blood around, there is no hygienic reason to move her. “He’s icky” is not a good reason.
It is possible that the kid has been to counseling and the school is aware of the issue. If he’s of average intelligence and just has an “interesting” neurobiological condition, he’ll have been mainstreamed. The days of all the “weird” kids being in one class are long gone, so somebody has to sit next to him.
It’s also possible that the kid is just socially inept.
Either way, this is the time for the OP to talk to the daughter. She is old enough to learn that in life you’ll be around people who do not behave “normally” and that you have to learn to tune them out.
I suggest she learn the neat trick of wearing her hair to one side so she can’t see the icky person nearby. Works well.
ETA: And feel some compassion for the teacher. One of my mom’s middle-school students was a scab-picker. Nose-picking is pretty common, too. Who do you think buys the Clorox wipes to clean up? And who do you think cleans up? Ugh.
While it’s true that we all must learn a strategy for dealing with an annoyance, in most circumstances we have options. We can, on trans, in a library, even at work, change our seat if we can’t just ignore it or use other methods to block. As a matter of fact, in such a situation, say as the library and a person with bad hygiene, our method is almost always to change our seat.
But this child is in an assigned seat. She has very limited options, can’t create a barrier between them, can’t use earplugs, or anything really. Not to mention that the particular type of behavior here could be *very *distressing, not just annoying.
I say give the kid a break and see my first post above for a possible way to handle it.
As an adult, I could not cope with having to sit beside someone like that all day, every day. It makes me gag just picturing it in my mind. I’m not sure what my 9 your old, grade 5 self would have done in that situation, but I know I would have been pretty grossed out and found it very difficult to cope. At that age, if your parent won’t go to bat for you, who will?
The child with the picking problems may already have a behavior plan in place. The teacher is not at liberty to discuss that plan, if one exists, or the student with someone else anyway. In any case, she is aware of his habits and has probably discussed them at length with his parents. As has been said, someone has to sit next to this kid, and it’s your child’s turn. I’m sorry. Hopefully, it won’t last long.
Yes, it’s an assigned seat, so your child doesn’t have the option of moving when she’s grossed out, although, in some classrooms and at some times during the day, that can be negotiable. Your child needs to advocate for herself here and ask the teacher if she can move to a different part of the room when her neighbor’s habits become overwhelming. She can also ask to keep a box of tissue at her desk to politely shove in his direction, if she so desires.
But, assuming that her neighbor keeps his bodily fluids to himself, this is an opportunity for you to teach her patience, kindness, and tolerance. Although what he is doing is socially uncouth, he is not hurting her or hindering her. He has his own issues to work through, and it would be a quite sad if she unintentionally added to his burden by doing something that inadvertently humiliated him. She doesn’t have to become his best friend, but I have found that advising my children to be kind to others have never been the wrong way to guide them.
Mittens and padded handcuffs probably would be unacceptable, huh?
If you do speak to the teacher about it, you will probably have more success, and look more reasonable, if you justify your request by saying that your daughter finds the the boy’s behavior distracting. This frames it as something that has an impact on your daughter’s ability to work effectively, rather than as personal criticism of the boy. Yes, he’s behaving in a disgusting manner, but you don’t want to look like you’re criticizing a kid who may be ignorant of good manners and/or incapable of practicing them.
I’m assuming your daughter is of at least average academic ability and of at least average social acumen. If these assumptions are correct, why are you the one handling this? It’s entirely within the potential of an 11-year-old to approach her teacher discreetly (perhaps through a letter) to explain her concerns and to ask for help resolving them. Certainly it makes sense for you to coach her in this regard, to proofread her letter or to talk about how she can make her case persuasively to the teacher–but this is such an excellent opportunity to practice the art of diplomacy that I’d hate to see it wasted.
If she’s unwilling to risk the embarrassment of approaching the teacher, that, too, is a powerful lesson: sometimes it’s less painful to endure the problem.
I also endorse encouraging your daughter to discuss the matter with her teacher. You might role play it (seriously), so it doesn’t come across as whiny. Distracting behavior, may I move is good? So-and-so is gross, not so good. If your daughter is feeling compassionate, she might also work in, “I am worried about ‘X’. I think a teacher/adult should be working with him to understand social norms.” Or however, she might feel comfortable expressing that. Make sure she gets adult in there, so teacher doesn’t throw it back to her.
She’s fucking 10, maybe 11. She needs mama’s back-up, at least. To a child at that age, everything is excruciating. (And child development is pretty much my expertise.)