First of all, I insulted no one. It was a general statement not towards the OP. And second, a “decent” parent doesn’t need to be told by strangers to go talk to the teacher before he claims unfairness and bullying. A decent parent works with the team of educators to solve a problem immediately and doesn’t automatically assign blame anywhere but towards his/her own child.
I think someone upthread alluded to it but kids can be quite different at school than at home. You just never know.
Also, it is possible that he was perceived as ‘wimpy’ by the other students on day one and has taken an offensive approach to the problem.
It’s actually a really fine line, and if your son is having a little trouble negotiating it, it could explain a lot. There’s a lot of nuances in little boy society, and it’s easy to send the wrong signals: a boy sees an interaction between two kids and imitates it with a different person or with a twist and doesn’t realize it changes something from funny to jerk-ish. This is especially common when little boys see something happen that everyone thinks is funny, so they assume that if they do the same sort of thing, only a little more, it’ll be even funnier. They think they are going to get a big laugh just like Johnny got yesterday and instead everyone pulls away. It’s confusing and inexplicable.
You then get this terrible cycle where the boy is sad because he feels like people dislike him for no reason he can understand, and so he tries even harder to be likable and continues to miss the mark, making him feel more confused, disliked, and miserable, so he tries even harder, is ever more outrageous. Eventually he starts getting labeled as a “bad kid” and gives in and embraces the label.
I guess what I am trying to say is that it’s a lot more complicated than either he’s being a “little shit” or he’s the victim of bullying.
ETA: kids are often ashamed of being disliked, so they are hesitant to talk about it.
My son is a “wimpy” kid but we had issues with him bullying when he was around your son’s age. It was mostly (we think) due to his ADHD issues and having poor impulse control. It didn’t last much past 1st or 2nd grade.
I sincerely hope this sentence doesn’t mean what it sounds like.
Are you advocating that parents immediately blame their own children for problems encountered at school, and only shift the blame to others after a full inquiry?
In other words, if a kid is having problems at school,it is automatically that kids’ fault?!
As written I’m not seeing how the discipline meted out so far is disproportionate to the problem behavior that warranted it. The minor offenses get a minor punishment, something more severe gets that plus a chat from the principal, and for both the school takes the time to communicate behavior and discipline issues to the parent. How is this a bad thing? Sure they could rarely or never let you know what’s going on with your kid, but last I checked discipline was more effective if it was consistent between home and school, and for that you need to communicate.
If it were true that your kid got physically assaulted and the teacher fobbed responsibility off on someone else, that’s a problem. But at this point it sounds like the veracity of that account is in question and needs to be cleared up.
You’re kidding, right? I’m guessing that most parents do assume that if their kid gets in trouble at school for stuff that the kid probably SHOULD get in trouble for (smearing glue on other kids, talking during class, acting out violent stuff), then maybe the kid is acting out a bit rather than being the victim of systematic bullying by the institution.
It’s by far the simplest explanation. After all, even with the “sitting in the back of class” thing, your kid said he told the teacher he’d be quiet, but you make no mention of whether he actually did stop talking. He doesn’t have the right to disrupt the other kids as much as he wants with no consequences.
The only part of your OP that doesn’t sound like your kid is the problem is the chest punching incident.
/edit: Your kid seems to be “causing” rather than “having” problems at school. There is a difference.
Nothing in the OP reflects any bullying whatsoever. And perhaps it’s just the ex teacher–type-person in me, but I’m a bit horrified that you’re saying that the teacher is actually bullying your son for correcting his bad behavior.
As others have said, this system actually seems relatively fair: minor offenses receive minor fixes (notes home, time outs, etc.) and more major things are handled by being spoken to by the principal. Nothing there seems out of line.
Yup. I still remember when I was maybe 5 years old and saw kids splashing each other by stomping their feet as they walked through a dirty slush puddle that was in front of the door to school. It looked like fun, so I stomped too. The dirty slush splashed all over the white tights of another little girl, and she started sobbing. I felt terrible. 
The teacher, rightly so, chastized me for what I’d done, even though I was just a little kid and other kids were doing it too.
I wasn’t a bully, I was just thoughtless sometimes and was also a meek kid. Doesn’t mean I couldn’t do something that required correction.
Are you serious? This person is a bad parent because of the way he or she is thinking about handling this one situation? That’s what you’re going to go with?
I’m glad you are going in to talk to the teacher. As others have mentioned, the change from Kindergarten to first grade is huge and can be overwhelming.
Also, by this time of year children are extremely tired and getting excited about Christmas, it’s a bad combination and the last couple of weeks of school can be intense.
One thing you might like to ask at the meeting is how your son initiates interaction with his peers. Some children feel awkward or shy, or haven’t the social skills to go up to others and ask them to play, so they poke, or throw things etc as a way of opening up a dialogue.
I’m glad the OP is scheduling a conference with the teacher. If it makes you feel any better (and it probably won’t, but still…), I felt our son’s teachers were being overly punitive when he first started kindergarten at the public school this year.
During the first week I got two calls. Over the course of two months, I got multiple notes home and a couple of calls. And, of course, we scheduled a meeting with the teacher and the school counselor to discuss our son’s issues.
It was awful. And sometimes I do think that the teacher was being overly punitive about discipline. However, keep in mind that your kid’s teacher is teaching 20+ kids at the same time, and the playground monitors are watching sometimes 40 kids at the same time. I don’t generally advocate for conformity, but the younger the kids are, the more important it is in discipline in school.
When I talked with the teacher and expressed my concerns, she said, “I’m not trying to nickel and dime you or your son with discipline. I want your child to be successful while he’s at school. To be successful, he has to follow the exact same rules as everyone else or he short changes himself and all the other students around him.”
All you can really do is what you’re doing now - meet with the teachers, support your child. Also, see what you can do to support your child’s teachers. You shouldn’t be adversaries in this situation. When you talk to your child’s teachers, approach it not from, “My son said you aren’t doing your job,” but from an angle where you’re working together to make your kid successful.
Oh, and I don’t know your situation other than what you’ve told us, but when I talked to my son’s teacher about a couple of girls calling him stupid (it was during a parent-teacher conference), she said that kids generally give as good as they get. When I questioned my son about it afterward, he admitted that the girls had called him stupid after he called them stinky. I’m not saying he deserved it, but I sure wasn’t getting the whole story from the beginning.
This.
My son had similar issues, and when we spoke with the teacher she told her it’s very important that
- If someone is “mean” to my son (verbally or physically), he should walk away or tell an adult rather than retaliate.
- They try very hard to get kids to keep their hands to themselves and respect each other’s personal space. Something that’s not a big deal in kindergarten or first grade can become a very big issue in later years if it’s not nipped in the bud.
FWIW, we instituted a system where instead of his allowance, we reward him 50c when he doesn’t get in trouble and fine him 50c when he does.
Good Luck!
I think the use of the word bully was unfortunate, but the OP is correct to assess the judgment of the teacher.
As I said on another thread, too often once a child is labeled as a troublemaker he’ll get a quick judgment laid on him, right or wrong. And kids aren’t stupid, they soon realize they can start it, blame this troublemaker and he’ll get in trouble regardless.
Once you get a handle like that, especially early on, it’s hard, though not impossible to live it down.
As for being wimpy that is meaningless because it’s relevant. You’re kid may be wimpy but I will bet there are still a lot of kids even wimpier. Often a picked on kid will just, turn the tables on a kid even meeker than he or she is.
Yeah I get the kids will be kids, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have them try to be nice to each other, and it also doesn’t mean you have to overreact either.
I give the OP credit, as I’d rather see a parent care too much, then where I grew up, where most of the parents couldn’t care at all
That ‘acting out video violence’ or whatever, makes me think your teacher is a bit of a nutcase.
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Definitely talk to the teacher and the principal. I don’t think the teacher is bullying your son (thought the kid who hit him might be) but teachers are human and they have favorites and kids they dislike, just as you do. Sometimes they need to be shown that they are not being fair-minded.
FWIW, I was not on my first-grade teacher’s “good” list and she made it known is subtle ways that hurt me a lot. As an adult, I can understand why I wasn’t ever going to make that list (major allergy issues, only kid who hadn’t attended kindergarten and therefore couldn’t recite the alphabet, painfully shy). But her behavior not only made me feel inferior, but gave me a bad taste for adults that lasted a long time.
John, Bill, and Jack* were bored, so they decided to play Diablo. Jack was Diablo, and the others were chasing him. I stopped the game, reminded them of playground rules re: rough behavior, and then set them free to play. They were running all over the playground. Jenny came up to ask me a question, so I was talking to her for a minute, and when I looked up, Bill was on the ground, and Jack was pounding on him.
Turned out that Bill had gotten too enthusiastic in the Diablo-fighting, and Jack had freaked out, and instead of finding me, had knocked Bill down.
Whee!
I still allow such play, within limits and after much clearer conversations about what problems can arise and what to do to de-escalate if the play starts to get out of hand. But I totally understand teachers that don’t allow it.
That said, here are my questions regarding discipline:
- Did the kid do something he shouldn’t have done?
- If so, is the discipline appropriate to the offense?
- If so, where’s the problem?
In your descriptions, I think the discipline is appropriate. RE: the glue incident, I wonder whether he’d been off-task all art period, and the glue-smear was the crowning moment that made for an easy note home to mom. RE: sitting in the back of the room, I’d check to find out whether he can get a behavior plan that helps him escape from the chair o’ punishment.
And if I were you, I’d arrange to have him at the conference, and every time the teacher describes his misbehavior, call him over and chew him out in front of the teacher. I’ve had parents do this before, and it sends a very clear message to their kid: mom and teacher are in this together, and don’t think you can spin stories for me.
If he’s not enjoying school now, there’s a good chance that it’s in large part due to his own misbehavior. If he can get himself back on track to the point that he feels proud of how he’s acting, school will become much more pleasant for him and for everyone else.
- Names changed to protect the guilty.
Thank you all for the replies. I spoke to his teacher, and, put simply, I think they both deserve some blame. My son overreacted to a minor slight, and the teacher overreacted to that. Hopefully, all is well now.
I would also like to add, just FYI, that I am the father, not the mother.
:smack: Sorry about that.
I’m glad you got a chance to talk to his teacher and that all seems better. In reading your initial post, it did sound like the teacher may have overreacted at points, but with kids this age, it’s difficult to tell (mine is a year younger).
I can chime in on his lack of enthusiasm, though - is this his first year in full-day school? My son started kindergarten this year, and although he’s gone to daycare full-time since he was an infant, including great preschool and Pre-K programs at his last daycare, starting kindergarten (ours is full-day) has exhausted him like nothing else. We put him on the bus at 7:40 AM and he is picked up at the bus stop by his babysitter or one of us at 3:20 PM. It’s rare that he’s not completely out by 8 PM. I know he loves school and is thriving, but you’d never guess it at night when he’s exhausted because he doesn’t want to talk about anything he did.
I volunteer once a week with his class’ reading groups, and have been there at other times during the day to help out, so I see him having a great time, and I know how much they do. His teacher is an older, no-nonsense type, so we weren’t quite sure how he’d do with her, but as we’ve gotten to know her, we really like her - she is strict, but she’s also fair and really seems to love her job and the kids. She DOES discipline them, though, and just from observing when I volunteer, she’s very straightforward about what kind of behavior she expects - the kids know the rules and I’ve never seen her penalize a kid for no reason.
My son’s come home with three notes this year so far (they have boards - green, yellow, and red - and if they end up on the red board, it’s a note home), and to be totally honest, as soon as I see why the note was sent home (usually for interrupting, not staying in his seat, not practicing self-control ;)), it’s pretty obvious that he earned the note. Hell, his first note was for hitting another kid with his lunchbox in the cafeteria :o , so I’m kinda just happy that the second and third notes were for talking out of turn and not staying in his seat. (He’s not a hitter, so the lunchbox thing was a little surprising - pretty sure he and the other kid were goofing around and got a little rough.) I do want to hear his side of the story when he gets in trouble, but I also know that his infractions are indicative of his personality (also, he tattles on himself if he gets on the yellow board, which is no note or parent notification, so the kid just sucks at lying :D). On the plus side, he got the first two notes within the first month of school, and then went almost three months without another one (got it last week), so his behavior really improved and I suspect last week’s note was related to the ‘last week of school before winter break’ behavior that a lot of the kids seemed to exhibit. He still lost a couple of privileges, but we hadn’t had to take those away since September. I think it’s helped that we’ve had more of a chance to get to know his teacher, and if I have a minor question or concern, I can just email her and she’ll reply in a day or two.
It sounds like you’re opening up the lines of communication with your son’s teacher, so I really hope he starts enjoying school more. I have no doubt that there are truly heinous teachers out there (my third-grade teacher HATED me, and I can still remember asking my parents why she was so mean to me because I was a quiet kid who rarely got in trouble - reconnecting with some of my school friends as an adult, she is notorious as the most hated teacher we ever had), but I do think they’re few and far between, and your son’s teacher doesn’t sound at all like she even comes close. Hopefully, you and your wife will be able to communicate on a positive level with her for the rest of the year.