Hello again, it's been awhile! I have a question I hope somebody can help me with. We put Lance in school last Feb, he started Kindergarten. He's loved it, we thought it's for us so we went onto 1st grade. He loves school, I love that he loves it, but when I pick him up from school, I am excited and happy to see him, like any mother would be. When he gets in the car I say, "Hey bud! How was school!?" He will answer with, "fine." usually nothing more. His little brother will say, "Hey Wance! Hi!" Lance won't answer him until I tell him to. Then he barely turns to look at him, looks down and says, "ugh, hi." I'm getting so tired of it, I even cried today. It breaks my heart that he's acting like this towards us. On the weekends he is NOT like this! Just for a few hours after school. I've asked him if he has a bad day at school and if he is sad from that, or if he's sad because he's coming home. He says he wants to be on B track, which means they go from 9:15 to 3:15 instead of his A track that is 8:00 to 2:15. I think that he thinks B track gets to stay at school longer. He says he wants to be in school until 9:30, at night! He also said he likes it there better because he doesn't have to ask to play with his friends like he does at home. Is he having a behavorial problem? I'm going to talk to the teacher, I help in their class for an hour each Wednesday and he is the loveable kid he usually is. Is it something else I have no clue about? What would you do? I said I'd give him until March to stop it, but I'm not sure I can wait that long. I would love to HS again, but DH says no because we didn't do too well last time. I told him, businesses fail, but then the same person will start another one and be successful. I'm feeling like such a failure! Thanks all!
Any time a child that young would rather be somewhere else for long periods of time than at home interacting with mom dad and siblings, I would be concerned. It sounds as if he is developing a strong emotional attachment to school, that normally would develop with family members. The prior attempt to home school may have failed for several reasons. 1. what is your idea of fail? 2. how commited were you to it? 3. how consisitent were you with him? 4. all kids have different learning styles and you may have just not found his at that time yet, teaching methods vary greatly, as does curriculum 5. were your expectations realistic? 6. was the father supportive? 7. he may be immature for his age 8. were there any health, mental or emotional problems going on with him during that time or major changes in family dynamics? Maybe something there will trigger something helpful? You know used to kids took naps in kindgergarten. I think we expect too much from them too young. At the end of a full day, any kid that age would likely be a total grump lol
HI Codi!!!! Long time no see, how's that baby? I dont' have any advice for you... it really sounds like he is thriving in the school setting, but at the same time he needs to make the daily switch from home to school and school to home more smoothly.
I think peanutsweet is on the right track. One of my kids' big issues with public school was/is how many hours they are kept there. If you ds is prefering to remain at school, then he has his loyalties mixed up--and it will only become stronger with each passing day.
I am not sure this is a kid with mixed up loyalties. It sounds like a couple of things to me. Possibilities... He is an introvert...by which I do not mean he doesn't like nor get along with people, but that he gathers his energy by being alone, rather than by being with people. I used to get hurt when my dd would come home and go directly to her room for about an hour...she would be curt and peevish if she didn't get to go to her room or if she was asked to do anything. However, I found that if I left her alone she would come up on her own after about an hour and be my perfectly sweet girl. The whole day interacting with people drained her and she needed to recharge. It wasn't anything inherently evil at school or a bad job on my part. It was just the way it was. another possibility. He is succeeding at school. and this is different from what he experienced at "home" school...so he obviously wants to be there more. It is always more fun to win. I think the "cure" is simmilar...let him be for a bit when he comes home. Then make sure to NOT talk about how you don't like him at school and how you feel like a failure with homeschool. They pick up a lot of what we think they are missing. It doesn't sound like bringing him back home is really a possibility, with your husband not being for it...so it is important to figure out how to keep your sweet boy, sweet. It isn't likely that the school is secretly indoctrinating him into being mean to his brother...
He will get over it. My older children attended school at that age and they still loved it back then. It all sounds normal to me. But I would not allow any sort of bad attitude at home though.
My bet about the "failure" is that in your perception, he did work for 6 hrs a day at school and at home, you tried to imitate what you perceived to be going on at school. Now that he tasted school, he loves the excitement and all the playtime and such. Personally, I know this sounds bad, but I would wait until things are going poorly at the school for him and then pull him out. I know I sound horrible and others will say not do this. But, if you pull him out while he loves it there, you might have all your years ahead of you of him revolting. I can almost guarantee that he will have a bad day eventually. 2nd grade really seems to be when kids start resenting school. As an other option, I would just pull him out and make it clear that this is the way it is and not argue with him. But try to make it fun for him. Doing workbooks and/or textbooks all day long is not neccesary. I do not know if you were doing that. Maybe he was just plain lonely. Anyway, good luck with it all.
2nd grade seems to be when the play is over and work is required. At least that is what happened to our dd. Not long after starting 2nd she started complaining about school regularly!
Thanks everybody for your responses! I was not consistent while hs'ing, probably because of pregnancy, holidays, and a business to help DH with. DH is supportive of hs'ing, he just doesn't want us to end up ruining our kids education by not teaching them well enough, I agree, so that's why he went to public school. Goodnsimple-I think you hit the nail on the head! When I picked him up today I just said hello, he responded well, then when we got home I just let him go and play football, within 45 minutes he was his normal happy self. I'm going to try this all next week and see how he does every day, but I think this is it. DH and I talked about it and we both said when we got home from work (when I worked outside the home) it's so nice to just be by yourself watching t.v., computer time, shower, reading, etc to unwind. Completely makes sense, thank you! I'm not so sure that the school isn't indoctrinating him to be mean to his brother! :lol: JK! They all have their moments, and I know it's normal and not from the school. Crazymama, that baby of mine is so close to not being a baby anymore! In less than two weeks he will be ONE! wow! I can't believe it, he is such a sweet, sweet boy. It's so fun to watch him play and try to keep up with his brothers. They're so good to him also, he loves them so much! Take a look at my blog for pics, he has curly red hair. Especially in the sun, it's definitely red, I LOVE it! People ask "where did he come from, is he yours? DH and I both have darker hair, but my Mom has red, so that's where it comes from. How's your baby?
Glad things went better for you! Maybe he just needs that time to decompress. Jenson is so cute! He sure doesn't look like Lance or Adam.. who are both very handsom little men!! That trip looks like it was amazing!! Cameron is getting big too! They grow up so fast, even faster when they are your last! He is crawling already and cut his first 2 teeth at the same time just a few days before he hit 6 months. I can't believe he will be 7 months old already.. I love watching him learn and try to do what the other kids are doing, they all amaze me all the time.
That trip was awesome! So weird to just pack up and leave, but so much fun! It's funny because a lot of people say how Lance and Adam don't look like Jenson, but Adam and Jenson's birth pictures are identical! You'd think they're identical twins. Look at this, the first pic was Adam in the hospital, the second Jenson: http://imamomofboys.blogspot.com/2009/01/look-alikes.html Watching the kids learn is one of the best things about being a Mom, I LOVE it! Glad everything seems to be well for you!
I have had the same issues with both of my children. I don't mind that they love school, but when the teachers are teaching them, "look at me when I talk to you" is a threat it makes wonder what else they are teaching them. Antiparentism apparently. "my teacher says... or that's not what my teacher says..." I stared into my dd's eyes the other days and said.. "I don't care if your teacher went to college and got a degree, but THIS is the right way to do it and if I hear another odd comment like that I will go to the Board with my concerns!" I got so angry that my dd thinks I am stupid! When I help her with her work she makes 100's soooo you'd think she'd understand that I am not stupid. Anyway, talk to your son about treating you and your other babes with respect and respond when spoken to and to be polite to the family because it is what is right.
Actually, antiparentism is a major reason we decided to homeschool 17 years ago. After ds had been homeschooling a couple of weeks, it was amazing the change -- we had our son back! It's really funny but very sad -- I was working as a school social worker on the multidisciplinary team (the people who do the evaluations to determine whether kids need special ed or not, write IEPs, write 504 plans, etc.), and was looked to as an authority in the district I worked in, but in the district we lived in and ds went to school in, I was just another stupid mama who didn't know beans (I had more degrees than they did).... His teachers refused to do the most basic things that my teachers did before they even considered calling me in about a kid they were concerned with, like taking him to the back table to do a test, having him read the test out loud to them (not reading it for him but just having him read it aloud to focus his attention on what he was doing - ADHD), giving him extra time or monitoring his time (divide the paper with a line and give him x-minutes on a timer to do each part) to finish a test.... In total, a whole attitude of "WE know best for your child, not YOU!"
I do think that Lindina and BmattKsmom are describing two different things. I have run into both with multiple children in multiple school situations. But I found that the lesser anitparent thing pretty normal adjustment to the kids having a new authority figure. If your kids are in school you want them to respect thier teachers. Having them tell you "well, Mrs Roybal said this..." isn't disrespectful to you...they are little kids trying to figure stuff out. Now if they say "Mrs. Roybal says you didn't go to school and you don't know how to do it." that is a whole different thing. I just laughed (with the first example) and said. "I am the mama and in this house, what I say goes...In the classroom you do what Mrs. Roybal says." It was an adjustment when they went to school...but no more than that. Now Lindina describes a much more serious problem, and there is no excuse for that.
