Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy What would you do if you were me ?

mom2one ,

the school doesn't offer anything as far as IEP or 504 . They keep giving him detentions after detentions , or taking away his recess time . Does it seem to work ? Well obviously not , but do they try something else ? No .. they keep doing what they're doing , knowing that it hasn't really worked .

Delayed consequences are ineffective and usually feel to the child as if he is being punished out of the blue for no apparent reason.

DeeDee

The therapist also said that it is pointless to give DS delayed consequences . We're talking about a day or 2 days delayed consequences . So when DS has a good day at school , but then has to lose recess , it seems like you're trying to turn a good day into a bad day because you have to pay for what you did a day or 2 days before .

I definitely agree with the ineffectiveness of delayed consequences. My child is in K, and there is no behavior chart. If there is an issue, usually the teacher sends a note, or it gets handled (usually with a time-out, or losing out on playtime) at school.

What does the behavior chart contain ? Is your child interested (or vested) in this chart ? Sometimes, the effectiveness of the punishments fade, when done again and again. Does your son connect his actions (or this behavior chart) with the detention ?

My son has to sit out free playtime when he does not complete his in-class work. That is his punishment. He does not protest, but he does not feel terribly sorry either (maybe he feels a bit sorry for himself for losing out on playtime). He just does his work when others are playing around him. Often times, it is coloring, and he just takes his time doing it, instead of getting the work done. Just now, at almost the end of the school year, after repeated talks, he sometimes does not do a perfect job coloring and focuses on doing work for the sake of doing work. Do the punishments work ? Definitely not, in my son's case. However, when I asked that he just do the work for half the free time, and bring back the other work home, his teacher said that she can't make an exception. I've also requested that he skip most of the coloring and color only where it really, truly matters (graphs, for example). That needed a 504 to implement, so it has not been implemented so far. Obviously, not a great K experience.

What is the school teacher's logic for issuing delayed punishments ? Is it to make sure that he does not get exempted ? I also believe in positive discipline, and honestly, if my child was told to face a wall or run laps after 2 days of breaking a behavior rule, his self esteem would be pretty much shot. What I am trying to ask is this : do you think the school administration is approaching this from a place where it can be corrected gently or just to sort of make him an example (of what not to do) for the class ?



Get a note from the therapist, ask her to mail it or fax it and deliver this to the school, so it is on his file. Every time, a delayed consequence is issued, write a letter and ask to see the Principal. Three or four times of this happening, I bet (or sure hope) it stops


I am asking this very gently -- do you think an IEP or a 504 will jelp in your son's case ? Or do you think he is just a spirited child ?

I agree that delayed consequences don't work - for any child.


And this is where having an IEP or 504 plan in place is important - the plan will outline the steps to take when your child has a behavior issue at school.

polarbear

IEP is individualized education program , am i right ?

The school never mentioned anything like this and i just learned about IEP recently from reading in this forum too . So , no i have never asked about IEP or 504 to the school , i didn't know that it is something that i should bring up and request .

Thanks Polarbear .

mom2one ,

Well , here is the thing , if a child moved their clip 2 times , which means they're getting orange and so they have to lose recess . Now if they moved the clip before recess that day , automatically the child will lose the recess same day , but for example , DS moved his clip to yellow in the morning and right before school ends , he broke another rule and had to have his clip move to orange , so he would have to pay the consequence the next day since it's already end of school .

I'd think they should do a different approach , and okay if they do want to take away his recess , make him do something , don't just let him sit by the wall for the whole 30 minutes . Kids need to let out their energy .

I've talked with DS how does he feel about getting his recess taken away a day after ? He said it makes him feeling bad , for example because today he had a great day , he obeyed the rules and didn't break any rules , but he said he had to sit by the wall for half recess . And i said " why ? " because yesterday he didn't move his clip to orange .. he had a good day yesterday too . He said " well because me and this other student were talking when we were supposed to stay by the wall "

I am aware they took away the recess yesterday as a consequences for what they did on friday . So there were 4 students sat by the wall yesterday to pay the consequences . But during that time , these 4 kids were talking , and so they had to have another (half) recess taken away again today because of it .

Has it worked ? No , because with how many times he lose recess , it's obviously not working for him . But have they tried a different way ? nope ..

He has this communication card that he brings home everyday , and if it's empty then it's a good news . No news is a good news , but if there was problem at school , then there will be note .. there were also rules written in there by numbers . It ranges from talking , self discipline , respecting school properties , using time and material wisely , etc .. So .. say you accidentally spill water .. then you broke rule #11 respecting school properties and you will have your clip moved . Or if you're talking then you will move your clip to orange .. or to red all the way to purple .

His communication card gets so overwhleming to look at , just because his teacher wrote every single thing that happened at school . The majority of these are small little things , that piles up . And when our therapist saw it , immediately she said " oh his teacher doesn't like him at all "

I really don't think he's a spirited child , so he's no angel at home , but we get along fine , and he does what he's told , sometimes he would try to get away from things he needs to get done . If i tell him to clean up your bedroom , he'll try to get away .. and say later later .. sometimes he would test me how far can i go with him . But he's not a difficult child , even as a baby he was very easy baby ,with exemption of feeding ( easily gagging ) , he was happy , always smiling baby , never gave us a hard time with crying or anything .

Isn't that spirited child mean ? difficult , right ? a spirited child should be giving you hard time even when they're babies , right ?

I don't know .. maybe IEP will help , i really need to read more about it . Since i really don't know much about it at all .

The school will typically NEVER bring up IEPs, evals, 504s or anything else like that. These things tend to costs schools time & money. Head over to http://www.wrightslaw.com/ and read up!

Opinion please ,

Today after school DS said he had to move his clip this morning because one of his friend was saying " i'm a dummy " , then the teacher asked who said that ?

Another student ( who always gets on DS' nerves ) accused DS for saying that . DS then raised his voice and said " it wasn't me ! it was student A "

The boy who said it didn't admit it . DS was really mad being accused on something he didn't do , but he had to move his clip because he was raising his voice to his classmate .

I feel like DS did have a reason for raising his voice because he was accused on something he didn't do , and he felt it was very unfair that he had to move his clip for defending himself . I know DS will tell you the truth , if he does it , then he'll tell you he did it .

Should i just let this go or should i send his teacher an email ? On the way home , DS said , when his teacher made him move his clip that's when he really feels like he hates her for being so unfair to him . What bothers me the most is that he's being accused on something he didn't do and of course he's not happy about it .

How many more days of school does he have? My kids only have a week. If it's that short for your son, I would tell him his teacher is wrong, and let it go.

But I think should also consider getting a meeting with the school before the end of the year to request an evaluation for an IEP.