DS8, third grade, has been ramping up the poor behavior in class for the last 2-3 weeks. He drives right up to the edge of the infraction cliff at least three days a week.
Meanwhile, at home this week, I've been focusing on working through frustration at challenging tasks. Two or 3 days ago, it was a logic problem from the gifted pull-out that he had gotten wrong on his own. We went through, step by step, sometimes talking through clues more than once. He was frustrated and agitated almost to the point of tears (which is actually an improvement). So we acknowledged the frustration, took several deep breaths, and got right back to work. Eventually it clicked for him, he saw where he had made his mistake, and promptly (and seemingly happily) finished the rest of the puzzle.
Last night I brought home two instruction pages for origami Christmas crafts. He was thrilled and got right to work. Fifteen minutes later, he came to me with the second one (a reindeer) and the instructions, again so frustrated and near tears and babbling about how he tried it five times and it doesn't work. We acknowledged his frustration, took some deep breaths, and started from step one. It turned out that he had skipped a step he insisted he had done, and he realized that he must have done that step on one of his earlier attempts. So we worked together through that and the next step or two, and then he was happily on his own through the rest of the project.
It occurred to me this morning that some of his recent misbehavior at school may be his attempt to thwart his expression of frustration. If I thought I'd get so upset that I was about to cry, I'd probably try to avoid it, too. I believe his classroom teacher and the gifted teacher have been trying to give him higher-level work, and I'm afraid he may be shooting himself in the foot with this behavior. I certainly can't expect either teacher to spend 20 minutes at a time working so intensely with him.
Would you try to discuss this with the child? How would you go about it? My son does not seem nearly as savvy as many of yours with matters of emotions or things "going wrong" at school, and he is hesitant to say anything negative (my fault for trying to teach him to look at the bright side, stop complaining about silly stuff, etc.). Should I talk to the teachers first? We have a parent-teacher conference on Monday, but it's the standard one for all students, so we won't get much time. I'm hoping to use that time to schedule a more substantive meeting with both teachers next month.
Or do you think I'm barking up the wrong tree altogether by trying to connect unrelated things?
Last edited by BonusMom; 11/19/09 09:46 AM.
