Well, so far after only 4 days of kindy I'm feeling very frustrated & very confused.
For the past two weeks K has been very defiant & uncooperative & of course that is carrying over to school. Don't get me wrong, she is loving school & I don't think the behaviour is related to school but the timing sure is horrible!
Over the summer we have been working really hard with K on her behaviour. As the youngest of 4 kids it seems like there was always someone there to help her comply with any directions we gave her & while her big sisters were trying to be helpful it wasn't helping K to independently follow directions so that was our main goal over the summer & I was really seeing her blossom & become much more responsible. After such progress it's very frustrating to see such a huge regression in behaviour especially at a time that I really want her to behave her best.
The other thing that I noticed is that she seems to be getting help with tasks that are very basic. The other day when I arrived a few minutes before the end of the day I was able to sit in on the class for about fifteen minutes. I noticed that after the kids were done painting the classroom aide helped K wash her hands. I also was quite surprised when at the end of the day K expected me to help her change her shoes. WTH??!! These are basic tasks that she has been doing for 1/2 of her life already!
So tomorrow I am having a meeting with the teacher & after that I hope K will have a little wake up call about being a whole lot more independent! We will also discuss her behaviour & hopefully come up with some solutions.
As for the grouchy behaviour I'm hoping a change in supplements will help. We ran out of Longvida curcumin this summer & coincidently received our order a few days before school started. K has had trouble with grouchy behaviour in the past when on the full dose so I have been giving her a half dose which she has always tolerated well. I'm wondering if the 1/2 dose is now too much for her too. It is such a great supp for her speech - the only supp that has ever really made much of a difference plus it is so great for brain health that I don't want to remove it completely from her diet but for now I've taken her of all supps just to make sure none of them are causing her behaviour problems.
Wish me luck tomorrow & cross your fingers, or maybe even say a little prayer that we get to the bottom of this soon!
Oh Laura, my heart and prayers surround your girly, and you. Could it possibly just be all of the change? I remember parents telling me that when their child started school, they would sometimes revert back to wanting to be catered to by their loved ones and having something done for them that they could typically do just because they had been doing so many things for themselves all day, often many new things. I hope that it has more to do with this but would want to talk to the teacher too to clear up the "helping stuff". I too, tried to read each child, and helped if I felt they wanted help even if they were able to do a task on their own.
ReplyDeleteAll the best!
~ Ellyn
Hope your meeting went well! I have a meeting with Carrigain's team tomorrow. Sharing your kindergarten frustrations! I think Carrigain's behaviors are related to having kindy be so much more scheduled and demanding than was her preschool. Unlike K, Carrigain has many delays so the work needs to be differentiated for her to be successful - I don't think that's really happening. She is doing a lot of refusing these days and the staff doesn't seem as adept at working around it as was her preschool team. Just though I would commiserate...
ReplyDeleteI watched the Spanish news right when Tommy started Kindergarten a month ago, and they showed how hard it was for a typical 5 year old girl going to Kindergarten. The little girl didn't want to eat and was sad to go to school. I was surprised that Tommy handled the transition to Kindergarten really good, but the first weeks he was not eating as usual and began to take long naps, when he was about to quit his afternoon naps. Now after a month, he eats as usual and has quit his naps. Even my neighbored told me that it takes about 2 or 3 weeks for her kids to adjust to going back to school and her kids are older than Tommy. Every child reacts differently to go to Kindergarten. K maybe needs a little more time to adjust. Support from school will make a huge different. I hope your meeting went well!
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