So we moved across the country a couple of years ago, and suddenly my high energy child who dislikes having to do what they are told by authority figures is in a public school where they embrace normal child behavior and actually help kids make better choices rather than using it as a euphemism for punishment. In kindergarten they had in school suspension multiple times and came home with brightly colored “bad behavior” slips on a weekly basis and definitely adopted the identity of being the naughty kid. I just want to say there are good and bad ways to encourage appropriate behavior and I really regret not having the confidence to push back on the bullshit at our old school. Also, I was in a meeting recently to figure out why our kid has trouble listening to instructions, and the school psychologist and speech therapist both said “this is such a great kid” - and I thought how amazing it is to be in a place where a kid can have behavioral issues and that is not seen as precluding them being a great kid. (My kid did punch someone earlier in the year, and they dealt with it at school and worked it out between the kids, and again, it did not make them a bad kid.)
Woof, I needed that read this particular morning. I literally walked out of my job “sick” yesterday because I got an email my kid was having a rough day. Not even to pick him up, just because it gives ME such big feels. And we are in a pretty good, well supported environment but I still break a little every time I get an email or call. Solidarity, y’all.
I also needed to hear this even though my first grader daughter is generally a rule following wanna be teacher (which is an issue we are working on because most 6yos do not want a shift supervisor for playtime, especially not a peer). Last week we got our first ever bright behavior note and it was shocking 1) because it seemed kind of intentionally shaming and 2) because it was for pointing her middle finger at another kid in class which I was like 99% sure she had literally zero knowledge or context for it being a bad thing and the note ALSO had no context!!! This meant I got to ask the unreliable 6yo narrator what happened. It sounds like another child at her table was asking the rest of the table which finger was the middle one and my uber helping teacher wannabe kid was all “it’s this one see!!!” Because she is a functionally only child who was 3 at the start of the pandemic and has literally never exposed to this symbol because she’s barely been exposed to people outside her family!! Immediately after being what she thought was helpful, she was sent (with the other kid) into the hallway which had already been established in her mind as for bad kids!! Then the teacher didn’t really explain anything (i am guessing because she didn’t want to be teaching little kids about flipping people off but also then that means she knew it was innocent exploration), so my daughter thought she was in big trouble and didn’t know why. We tried to be chill about it home and to explain the symbolism of the middle finger without encouraging her to use it. I have no idea if that worked. I was able to message the other kid’s mom and it seemed like that 1st grader had seen older kids flip people off on the playground and was also a very sheltered 1st grader who was just trying to figure out what was going on. Not great. All around not great.
We pulled our kids out of our aftercare program last year after they suspended my then-1st grader. He'd had a series of what I thought were minor issues, then suddenly they were like "three day suspension!" I was so mad about the communication, and also--if you're suspending a 6 year old, you have a supervision problem as much as a kid problem. That's a solution that only works because my husband works from home, and I'm home pretty often, and because we're fine with them watching too much tv--but at least they're being poorly supervised at home for free now!
This gave me all the feels. My son was recently diagnosed with epilepsy and the institutional response has been... shocking.
This idea that we can manage, manipulate and control tiny people into being what society deems appropriate... it feels really dangerous to me.
I wish ‘school’ wasn’t the only option of additional childcare available to our growing children. School as we understand it. Turning kids into cogs in an educational machine, building them for compliance and competency... designed to serve the most beings as efficiently as possible. Act right or gtfo?! Who says what is right?! Harming others is not right, but when we’re talking about 6 year olds... C’Mon?!?
It’s dehumanizing. It’s failing our communities on many levels. Moms are so busy doing EVERYTHING we’ve not gotten in there and reformed the way we ‘train’ our young for generations.
Oof. I feel this so much. And it is SO HARD to find those magical “alternative” programs with a low student teacher ratio and neurodivergence tolerance but still enough learning that your bright, but special needs kid won’t get bored and check out. Even when you are SO PRIVILEGED and can afford to pay more than half the country makes in a year just to send your kid to Kindergarten. If I can’t handle dealing with this shit, it is literally ducking impossible for most parents. I spend equal time angry at the system on my kid’s behalf and angrier at the system on behalf of all the other kids who are being more screwed.
And don’t get me started on how we’ve decided primary school is “work” rather than a place to learn to be humans and make friends and practice manners and eh if there’s time learn the names of the states or some basic arithmetic or whatever. And we’re STILL making this choice when we have a cohort of kids who were trapped inside for a year or more. The curriculum just makes it so hard for even NT kids without any good reason. The world will not end if Timmy doesn’t get to fractions until middle school. The world might end if Timmy never figures out how to play tag.
I really needed this thread, so thank you Claire and OP. My 6yo has been suspended twice from before and after care for hitting, and we were pushed out of our beloved daycare over my ND 4yo. He was excluded 5 times for biting so hard he broke skin. 3 of those were in 1 week, with the 3rd culminating in him looking the new director in the eye and saying “If I bite my friends hard enough I get to go home.” Congratulations, that’s what you taught my kid. My kid who wants nothing more than to stay home because he believes I spend my days in my PJs on the couch watching TV and eating cereal. (In fairness, they’re yoga pants in my makeshift office-but there is legitimate careering going on all day.). I desperately wanted to tell the director “Honey, YOU don’t like me. My kid would like nothing better than to spend the day on the couch with me. So please stop escalating matters until he gets his wish or he will never make it through another day!” But I bit my tongue because we did not want to be kicked out. I did repeatedly ask them for guidance on how to reinforce the matter at home because “at 3, it’s not appropriate to punish a child for hours at a time, but once the immediate consequences are over, he really enjoys being home.” That was met with a “not my problem” stare. The school exclusions at this age read to me as punishment for the parents. They started treating me like I ended drop off in the morning by stomping on my kid’s foot and telling him to choose his victim wisely. The vibe was “Will you please DO something about your child?!” As though I was withholding some magical fix for shits and giggles. I hated to give them the satisfaction of pushing us out to make way for an “easier” kid, but my kid was absolutely internalizing the “I’m bad” message. We got enormously lucky that we found a daycare where the 4 year old room teacher had a background with sensory processing ND kids (mine is a seeker) and the school was new enough to have small class sizes. Someone with the soft skill set of understanding co-regulation and spotting triggers early to de-escalate was magical. But the second she is out sick, we get the call to come collect him. Every professional who has seen him has said he really needs a small class size to thrive, but where is this mythical 10-15 kid kindergarten class? We are enormously lucky that we are already qualified for an IEP for next year, but I’m not entirely certain how that will work. I don’t think he needs to be in a separate classroom, but I also think there will be incidents in a class with 20 kids (State max and the standard around here) of which he will be the youngest. I’d red shirt him, but without our unicorn teacher, I just know it will be another year of constant calls to collect him. I feel like we’ve made all this diagnostic progress, but the schools have not caught up with what to actually DO with these kids, and daycare is even less equipped and with none of the legal protections. Ok. Deep breath. That has been swirling in my brain for a year. Thank you for the forum to let that out.
this is such an important topic! maybe i missed it but just want parents to know that when your kid does have an IEP, there are tons of legal hoops the school has to go through if they decided they want to suspend or expel your kid. basically, if the behavior is related to your child's disability (which you could def make a case for here), they arent allowed to suspend or expel. it's very protective. one more reason to make it legal :)
Mar 23, 2023·edited Mar 23, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
Oh goodness - I have my own stories with ADHD kid and school but what this is mostly reminding me of is my friend who has to pick her 3yo up from daycare multiple times a week because they have an enforced “quiet time” for TWO HOURS and basically anyone who isn’t napping has to play SILENTLY for TWO HOURS. And because my friend’s child is unable to do this they send her home. This blows my mind. My own preschooler’s daycare thankfully has a separate nap room and non-napping kids can play quietly in the next room but it’s an old house so for the half dozen kids who CAN’T just “play quietly” they are taken outside to yell and run free! Why do we expect so much of kids - and such little kids, 3? 5? 6? 10? We need to expect more of adults. Are these educators, care providers, administrators not trained?? Are there no alternatives to punitive carceral punishments that only make things worse!?! I’m obviously triggered so will leave things there. I’m just REALLY over school and flailing around for reasons not to send my second kid - but also I can’t homeschool soooo…
My daughter started kindergarten on the young side of her year, and really struggled for probably the first half of last year with focus in class. One day I got a message from her teacher that she had been found in the bathroom with another girl playing during class time, and the word ‘inappropriate’ was used. Apparently it wasn’t that they had been showing each other private parts or anything, just that she disrupted class as another kid had to be sent to find her. Her teacher then decided to tell me she was concerned that she was using toilet breaks as an excuse when she didn’t want to do ‘hard’ work (I would have liked to know that earlier!) I spoke to my daughter with the angle of ‘its not safe if the teacher doesn’t know where you are, and its important to be in class to learn’ but secretly my huband and I were just like, eh, what grown up hasn’t hid in the bathroom on a really bad day at work?
Speaking as the parent of 2 young adults, I just want to say how much I appreciate the statement about the connection between school success and adult success. I wish I had heard that much earlier, too! I’d add one thing: “adult success” is vast and varied. For some, it looks like a traditional career and relationship path on a relatively traditional timeline. But for others, it looks very different. Furthermore, every successful adult has periods of difficulty, uncertainty, and struggle. I am learning to relax a bit about the specifics for my kids, and for myself.
This was like a godsend today. Last night I got the most passive-aggressive letter sent home from my five year old's pre-K teacher and I was flipping out. It's like a balm to read all this. My therapist has told me a couple of times that thing that Katie Malinski said. I hope it's true! Because some of the other adults in his life are getting MAJOR SIDE-EYE FROM ME. s
Mar 25, 2023·edited Mar 25, 2023Liked by Claire Zulkey
Unfortunately, regular school in general is not the best place for neurodivergent kids.
To all those people who said that their SCHOOL based evaluation deemed their kids as "fine", get an independent second opinion. We went through the school district and was denied services because my kid passed all the test. An independent neuropsychology evaluation told us otherwise.
We are lucky, the school that my kid is in has been overall a good fit. The teachers so far have taken her issues seriously (it also helped that they all had special ed training.) Now that she is getting older, we are reevaluating school placement and looking at alternative programs. As of now we are taking a wait and see approach now that middle school is on the horizon and classes are longer in self-contained. Unfortunately, this is all private school, but hell, we don't need to go on vacation anyways.
School districts are working to be more inclusive, but there is no money for it, which make everything worse for everyone. Nevertheless, advocate, advocate, advocate. It's exhausting, but the only way that people will pay attention.
So we moved across the country a couple of years ago, and suddenly my high energy child who dislikes having to do what they are told by authority figures is in a public school where they embrace normal child behavior and actually help kids make better choices rather than using it as a euphemism for punishment. In kindergarten they had in school suspension multiple times and came home with brightly colored “bad behavior” slips on a weekly basis and definitely adopted the identity of being the naughty kid. I just want to say there are good and bad ways to encourage appropriate behavior and I really regret not having the confidence to push back on the bullshit at our old school. Also, I was in a meeting recently to figure out why our kid has trouble listening to instructions, and the school psychologist and speech therapist both said “this is such a great kid” - and I thought how amazing it is to be in a place where a kid can have behavioral issues and that is not seen as precluding them being a great kid. (My kid did punch someone earlier in the year, and they dealt with it at school and worked it out between the kids, and again, it did not make them a bad kid.)
Woof, I needed that read this particular morning. I literally walked out of my job “sick” yesterday because I got an email my kid was having a rough day. Not even to pick him up, just because it gives ME such big feels. And we are in a pretty good, well supported environment but I still break a little every time I get an email or call. Solidarity, y’all.
I also needed to hear this even though my first grader daughter is generally a rule following wanna be teacher (which is an issue we are working on because most 6yos do not want a shift supervisor for playtime, especially not a peer). Last week we got our first ever bright behavior note and it was shocking 1) because it seemed kind of intentionally shaming and 2) because it was for pointing her middle finger at another kid in class which I was like 99% sure she had literally zero knowledge or context for it being a bad thing and the note ALSO had no context!!! This meant I got to ask the unreliable 6yo narrator what happened. It sounds like another child at her table was asking the rest of the table which finger was the middle one and my uber helping teacher wannabe kid was all “it’s this one see!!!” Because she is a functionally only child who was 3 at the start of the pandemic and has literally never exposed to this symbol because she’s barely been exposed to people outside her family!! Immediately after being what she thought was helpful, she was sent (with the other kid) into the hallway which had already been established in her mind as for bad kids!! Then the teacher didn’t really explain anything (i am guessing because she didn’t want to be teaching little kids about flipping people off but also then that means she knew it was innocent exploration), so my daughter thought she was in big trouble and didn’t know why. We tried to be chill about it home and to explain the symbolism of the middle finger without encouraging her to use it. I have no idea if that worked. I was able to message the other kid’s mom and it seemed like that 1st grader had seen older kids flip people off on the playground and was also a very sheltered 1st grader who was just trying to figure out what was going on. Not great. All around not great.
We pulled our kids out of our aftercare program last year after they suspended my then-1st grader. He'd had a series of what I thought were minor issues, then suddenly they were like "three day suspension!" I was so mad about the communication, and also--if you're suspending a 6 year old, you have a supervision problem as much as a kid problem. That's a solution that only works because my husband works from home, and I'm home pretty often, and because we're fine with them watching too much tv--but at least they're being poorly supervised at home for free now!
This gave me all the feels. My son was recently diagnosed with epilepsy and the institutional response has been... shocking.
This idea that we can manage, manipulate and control tiny people into being what society deems appropriate... it feels really dangerous to me.
I wish ‘school’ wasn’t the only option of additional childcare available to our growing children. School as we understand it. Turning kids into cogs in an educational machine, building them for compliance and competency... designed to serve the most beings as efficiently as possible. Act right or gtfo?! Who says what is right?! Harming others is not right, but when we’re talking about 6 year olds... C’Mon?!?
It’s dehumanizing. It’s failing our communities on many levels. Moms are so busy doing EVERYTHING we’ve not gotten in there and reformed the way we ‘train’ our young for generations.
Oof. I feel this so much. And it is SO HARD to find those magical “alternative” programs with a low student teacher ratio and neurodivergence tolerance but still enough learning that your bright, but special needs kid won’t get bored and check out. Even when you are SO PRIVILEGED and can afford to pay more than half the country makes in a year just to send your kid to Kindergarten. If I can’t handle dealing with this shit, it is literally ducking impossible for most parents. I spend equal time angry at the system on my kid’s behalf and angrier at the system on behalf of all the other kids who are being more screwed.
And don’t get me started on how we’ve decided primary school is “work” rather than a place to learn to be humans and make friends and practice manners and eh if there’s time learn the names of the states or some basic arithmetic or whatever. And we’re STILL making this choice when we have a cohort of kids who were trapped inside for a year or more. The curriculum just makes it so hard for even NT kids without any good reason. The world will not end if Timmy doesn’t get to fractions until middle school. The world might end if Timmy never figures out how to play tag.
I really needed this thread, so thank you Claire and OP. My 6yo has been suspended twice from before and after care for hitting, and we were pushed out of our beloved daycare over my ND 4yo. He was excluded 5 times for biting so hard he broke skin. 3 of those were in 1 week, with the 3rd culminating in him looking the new director in the eye and saying “If I bite my friends hard enough I get to go home.” Congratulations, that’s what you taught my kid. My kid who wants nothing more than to stay home because he believes I spend my days in my PJs on the couch watching TV and eating cereal. (In fairness, they’re yoga pants in my makeshift office-but there is legitimate careering going on all day.). I desperately wanted to tell the director “Honey, YOU don’t like me. My kid would like nothing better than to spend the day on the couch with me. So please stop escalating matters until he gets his wish or he will never make it through another day!” But I bit my tongue because we did not want to be kicked out. I did repeatedly ask them for guidance on how to reinforce the matter at home because “at 3, it’s not appropriate to punish a child for hours at a time, but once the immediate consequences are over, he really enjoys being home.” That was met with a “not my problem” stare. The school exclusions at this age read to me as punishment for the parents. They started treating me like I ended drop off in the morning by stomping on my kid’s foot and telling him to choose his victim wisely. The vibe was “Will you please DO something about your child?!” As though I was withholding some magical fix for shits and giggles. I hated to give them the satisfaction of pushing us out to make way for an “easier” kid, but my kid was absolutely internalizing the “I’m bad” message. We got enormously lucky that we found a daycare where the 4 year old room teacher had a background with sensory processing ND kids (mine is a seeker) and the school was new enough to have small class sizes. Someone with the soft skill set of understanding co-regulation and spotting triggers early to de-escalate was magical. But the second she is out sick, we get the call to come collect him. Every professional who has seen him has said he really needs a small class size to thrive, but where is this mythical 10-15 kid kindergarten class? We are enormously lucky that we are already qualified for an IEP for next year, but I’m not entirely certain how that will work. I don’t think he needs to be in a separate classroom, but I also think there will be incidents in a class with 20 kids (State max and the standard around here) of which he will be the youngest. I’d red shirt him, but without our unicorn teacher, I just know it will be another year of constant calls to collect him. I feel like we’ve made all this diagnostic progress, but the schools have not caught up with what to actually DO with these kids, and daycare is even less equipped and with none of the legal protections. Ok. Deep breath. That has been swirling in my brain for a year. Thank you for the forum to let that out.
this is such an important topic! maybe i missed it but just want parents to know that when your kid does have an IEP, there are tons of legal hoops the school has to go through if they decided they want to suspend or expel your kid. basically, if the behavior is related to your child's disability (which you could def make a case for here), they arent allowed to suspend or expel. it's very protective. one more reason to make it legal :)
Oh goodness - I have my own stories with ADHD kid and school but what this is mostly reminding me of is my friend who has to pick her 3yo up from daycare multiple times a week because they have an enforced “quiet time” for TWO HOURS and basically anyone who isn’t napping has to play SILENTLY for TWO HOURS. And because my friend’s child is unable to do this they send her home. This blows my mind. My own preschooler’s daycare thankfully has a separate nap room and non-napping kids can play quietly in the next room but it’s an old house so for the half dozen kids who CAN’T just “play quietly” they are taken outside to yell and run free! Why do we expect so much of kids - and such little kids, 3? 5? 6? 10? We need to expect more of adults. Are these educators, care providers, administrators not trained?? Are there no alternatives to punitive carceral punishments that only make things worse!?! I’m obviously triggered so will leave things there. I’m just REALLY over school and flailing around for reasons not to send my second kid - but also I can’t homeschool soooo…
My daughter started kindergarten on the young side of her year, and really struggled for probably the first half of last year with focus in class. One day I got a message from her teacher that she had been found in the bathroom with another girl playing during class time, and the word ‘inappropriate’ was used. Apparently it wasn’t that they had been showing each other private parts or anything, just that she disrupted class as another kid had to be sent to find her. Her teacher then decided to tell me she was concerned that she was using toilet breaks as an excuse when she didn’t want to do ‘hard’ work (I would have liked to know that earlier!) I spoke to my daughter with the angle of ‘its not safe if the teacher doesn’t know where you are, and its important to be in class to learn’ but secretly my huband and I were just like, eh, what grown up hasn’t hid in the bathroom on a really bad day at work?
Speaking as the parent of 2 young adults, I just want to say how much I appreciate the statement about the connection between school success and adult success. I wish I had heard that much earlier, too! I’d add one thing: “adult success” is vast and varied. For some, it looks like a traditional career and relationship path on a relatively traditional timeline. But for others, it looks very different. Furthermore, every successful adult has periods of difficulty, uncertainty, and struggle. I am learning to relax a bit about the specifics for my kids, and for myself.
This was like a godsend today. Last night I got the most passive-aggressive letter sent home from my five year old's pre-K teacher and I was flipping out. It's like a balm to read all this. My therapist has told me a couple of times that thing that Katie Malinski said. I hope it's true! Because some of the other adults in his life are getting MAJOR SIDE-EYE FROM ME. s
Unfortunately, regular school in general is not the best place for neurodivergent kids.
To all those people who said that their SCHOOL based evaluation deemed their kids as "fine", get an independent second opinion. We went through the school district and was denied services because my kid passed all the test. An independent neuropsychology evaluation told us otherwise.
We are lucky, the school that my kid is in has been overall a good fit. The teachers so far have taken her issues seriously (it also helped that they all had special ed training.) Now that she is getting older, we are reevaluating school placement and looking at alternative programs. As of now we are taking a wait and see approach now that middle school is on the horizon and classes are longer in self-contained. Unfortunately, this is all private school, but hell, we don't need to go on vacation anyways.
School districts are working to be more inclusive, but there is no money for it, which make everything worse for everyone. Nevertheless, advocate, advocate, advocate. It's exhausting, but the only way that people will pay attention.