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Our DD was about 8mos old when DW enrolled in cooking school, so some of her earliest exposures to food involved things like mushroom risotto. DW would come home from school with her "classwork" in bins, and DD would earnestly greet her with, "Momma... NUM-NUM!!" She tried anything and everything.

So we figured she'd always be an adventurous foodie... imagine our surprise when she went through the typical picky phase around 2-6. I couldn't believe a child existed who would refuse to try caramel. Still, at least her picky phase was a lot better than most, since we'd already exposed her to a fairly large variety of foods. We have a neighbor whose kid only eats hot dogs, pizza, and chicken nuggets.

DD just turned 7, and she's showing signs of being completely over her picky phase. DW remarked that she never had to make a separate dinner for DD last week, and the one time we ate at a restaurant last week, she independently decided to taste my dish.

kikiandkyle,
I hadn't thought of it that way...I'll explain it that way so she'll follow the rule, that it's best overall for him to learn this. Because alot of the other kids complain to the teacher about the hugging I think my daughter is trying to make him feel better. I'm glad you mentioned it!

I didn't want to seem harsh! But I'm glad I managed to get the other side across. It's hard to tell your kids to not be affectionate

I totally admire your daughter's big heart and think she sounds so sweet. But as the mom of a kid with Down syndrome, it would be great if the teacher or you could somehow explain the reasons behind this rule in an age appropriate way. This can be a big issue with young adults with developmental disabilities out in the world and in the work place, and while it hasn't been an issue with my son yet I think it is great if they work on teaching appropriate social skills in elementary school. I know my son would love to have a friend like her--I love the spirit behind her actions.

I'll certainly speak to my daughter about it. She's almost always been in full inclusion classes and enjoys it but it takes special navigating on the teacher's part, and mine if I know what's going on and know what to do. In K they assigned her to help a girl learn her letters and my daughter, I heard after the fact, was really enthusiastic but ended up doing the work for her, and when the other girl's mother found out she, rightfully so, got upset because her daughter needed to do it herself to learn. So the teachers just cut my daughter out of the "program" all together and both girls were very sad. I asked them if they could just show my daughter "how to help" correctly and monitor rather than just cutting it out but they said it was too much management.

Thanks for letting me know.

I wanted to add again to the original post, that you might also want to explore having your daughter's hearing and eyes checked. My daughter has the type of sensitive hearing that when it gets too noisy or echo-y it's like she can't hear anything, and she does get "left behind". We even had a bad situation last year where her teacher left her out on the very noisy playground and she was locked out of the school since she was separated from her class. This of course is 100% the teacher's issue but it's scary when this can happen to your child.

You'd have to go to an ENT or audiologist type appointment, it's not the type of thing they check quickly in school where it's pass/fail.

Also my daughter's double vision was factoring into math issues where you have to keep everything lined up just so, also adds to coordination issues all over the place. Again, school checks or even ped appt checks don't always check for convergence.

It might not be the case with your daughter but it's my thought that it's better to look into these basic "organic" issues now and deal with them or rule them out (as the case may be) rather than letting things drag on. Hope this helps.

I don't think I explained my child's "trouble with transitions" well enough. It's not an emotional thing at all. She'll be absorbed in her work like all the other kids, and the teacher with call for her group to come up, or for the kids to get in line for the next class. She often doesn't hear the call because she's too intently focused and not aware of her surroundings. Then when she notices everyone around her moving, her brain needs a few seconds to switch gears and figure out what she needs for the next class. Other kids just get up, grab their stuff, and go the second they are called. So my child is often the last in line. If she's rushed by the teacher, she either forgets something or just takes EVERYTHING.

By contrast, she is NEVER late or unprepared for school. Her natural tendency is to be well organized and get ready early so she can take her time. She is on the couch fully ready and watching cartoons at 7:15 every morning, waiting for me to tell her it's time to go. She wants to get to school as soon as the doors open so she has time to organize her stuff, turn in anything that needs turned in, and relax and talk to friends before school starts.

After school, she's given up on trying to bring the right things home in the rush to get out the door with the teacher reprimanding her if she has to run back into the classroom. As a single child, she's in the first group to leave and is always rushed. So she just started taking everything home.

If she does have an attention disorder, it seems she's already doing everything psychologists recommend to manage it, like she knows what she needs to do to function and has developed a plan herself.

Anyone else have a kid like this?

My child does take longer than others to switch gears because she is absorbed, but she is also not naturally organized like yours. She knows exactly where everything is etc., it just looks chaotic to the left-brained eye.

If the teacher knows this about your daughter doing this at the end of the day, can't she make the simple fix of giving her a little heads up? That seems reasonable. It doesn't cost anything and could be done discreetly.

If the teacher is throwing those diagnosis words at you, I think it's very inappropriate. If your daughter has particular habits or something in the classroom that is legitimately distrupting the class or is of concern, she should tell you what those things are, not attach a diagnosis to it.

If the teacher can't back up what words she's throwing out at you with legitimate behaviors that you can start to talk about or investigate, she should not say anything.

Maybe someone else can give you better advice, that you should just ignore the teacher, complain or what...

Layman's reading of what you wrote: this kid has figured out that she can't trust herself on organizational matters, and is perpetually anxious that she's going to make a mistake. If this is true, I think she's brilliant to have seen her own weak point at this tender age.

However, I'd wonder if there is anything that can be done to ease the anxiety, because anxiety is real suffering. Planner, checklists, that sort of thing can help a person be less anxious. Bringing everything home is a strategy that will eventually not work, so she'll need a strategy that stays functional.

I'm not sure whether anything can be done to teach her to redirect her attention more speedily. Surely there's something (pretty much all skills can be taught).

In any case, I wouldn't ignore what the teacher is telling you. Teachers don't tell people about their kids' quirks for fun-- they do it when they see a substantial problem. I'd investigate.

DeeDee

I don't understand why the teacher could not give your DD a 5 minute heads up to transition. I also don't understand why this was only brought up after you asked for more challenging work. I don't mean to dismiss the teachers concerns out of hand, but I have dealt with many teachers in my DS's short school career who did not want to do anything differently than what they had been doing for many, many years and did not seem to understand that kids are different and therefore have different needs - whether that be harder math or a 5 minute reminder to get ready to transition. Your DD seems to have a system down outside of the classroom - can she employ her system to the transitions of the day - can she give herself a 5 minute heads up if the teacher will not? And regardless of her transition issues, if she needs it, she should get more challenging math.

We encourage our DS8 (who is also slow) to bring everything home - that gives him time to sort it at home and figure out what needs to be done with it (instead of everything piling in his desk)He has an accordion file that has a tab for each of his classes, but it also has a tab called DUMP which is where he can put stuff quickly and then sort it out at home.