ACS, I agree with you. I think my point should be if you try all that and it doesn't work and there is emotional fall-out, you don't have to stick it out for the sake of the stick it out lesson. It's important to look at the individual situation for your child and act accordingly.
Well, or if you consider going through all those "teachable moments" but don't see that there will be any benefit but DO see the harm being done in the present.
We only lasted 6 weeks, but it was plenty long enough! I wonder sometimes if we should have done more, but I really think it would have hurt DS and gotten us no benefit, no lessons, no nothing. Now, granted, I think ours was pretty nearly a worst-case scenario teacher. I don't think our situation was doodlebug's situation. But I also wouldn't want to advise anyone in a situation like ours to go through all those channels that you're talking about, acs. The right thing for us to do was to get DS out of there. I'm sure of it. There were no positive lessons to be learned in that classroom. There just weren't, and I felt like I had been sold a bill of goods that there would be if he stayed. (By whom, I'm not sure? ??? I guess from wherever I got the attitude that "just deal" is the right thing to say to a miserable 6yo in an intolerable situation he could do nothing to mediate or avoid.)
Sometimes you have to protect your child first and foremost. I just want to give people permission to do that if they need it. You have to decide where the line is for you and your child, but I do think it is okay to have a line, and I don't think the line has to be as extreme as abuse, which is pretty much where I used to draw it. Teachers have the capacity to do real psychological and emotional harm to students, whether they mean to or not, and I think we as parents have to give ourselves permission to stop that if we see it.
Lessons should be learned over time, especially lessons about the flaws and foibles of adults with power over children. I think 6 or 7 or 8 is too young for some of these lessons that we're talking about.
Sorry to take such a strong stand, but I really feel that a disservice could be done to kids here. I just don't think school should be a place for kids to learn to suffer. I think that's a lousy lesson to learn so young.
