Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Consequences of being annoying

My son is in his third week of kindergarten. The first week he said some boys called him stupid. The second week he got a time out for knocking over their block tower (he says one of them told him to but then later when he was in trouble the boy denied it) earlier in the week he bothered them (unspecified) and today he had to leave the room because he crying so much over the same boys telling him they don't like him and excluding him from a building activity. I asked the teacher about it and she said he annoys them and he needs to learn the consequence of being annoying is that other people will tell you they don't like you and not play with you.

He has other friends in the class. They greet him, one was comforting him today, and he plays with them great. It just seems like he is now hung up on this group and wants them to like him and the harder he tries, the worse it becomes.

Thoughts?

If I were you I would meet with the teacher and ask her to be specific about how he is annoying the other boys. Hard to say if he is doing something wrong, or if they are getting away with bullying (could be a bit of both). Getting her to specifically pinpoint any behavior issues he has is important so you can work with him on those.

However, if the teacher can't get specific, and they continue with this, I would let the teacher know that you feel your son is being bullied. If she will not intervene, I would talk to the principal and let him know that you think the teacher is "soft on bullies" Or something to that effect. Our school cracks down HARD from the principal's office when bullying is reported. Hopefully yours will do that same. However... our school would also not permit the exclusion to start with, so there could be a school culture problem there. Hard to know if it is the teacher or the school in general; by the end of this semester you will probably know which.

Sounds like the teacher is agreeing with / promoting what's going on. I can't even believe a teacher would say a child is annoying!

I would maybe ask for my child to be directed to work with a different group of children?

This is the 3rd week of KINDERGARTEN. Not knowing the whole story, of course, I believe kindergarten is about learning cooperation and caring. I would ask the teacher specifics about how your kiddo is "annoying" and how the behavior if the kids excluding him is different from bullying.

You could ask to sit in on a class if you think the teacher would allow it and your presence wouldn't affect your son's behaviour. Unless you're a fly on the wall it's really hard to know what's actually happening.

My DS's grade one teacher actually suggested this and invited me to sit in. I spent two different mornings with the class, "helping Madame," ie cutting things and colouring things at a table in a corner while I watched DS. It was shocking and eye opening. (For us it was me seeing how detached he was from the rest of them... with the surprising element of familiarity - as in, I remember being exactly the same - I hadn't anticipated that).

Anyway. Until I sat in, I really didn't believe what the teacher was saying (and this is a teacher I really liked and trusted).

I am guessing the teacher is spot on when she says he is annoying the boys. He doesn't handle peer rejection well. While he isn't aggressive when his feelings are hurt, he turns pesky - l am guessing it is things like flipping a shirt collar as he walks by, putting a foot on them under a table, bumping into them "on accident".
DH pointed out that this is likely being seen as the social/emotional immaturity schools warn of when considering early K. Perhaps if he were older, he would be able to walk away with his feelings intact when other boys don't want to include him. But maybe not. He is sensitive and thinks about these things WAY too deeply and probably always will. Since pick-up this afternoon I have fielded these questions "Why do you love me? Like what about me makes you love me?" and "Did you want to have kids? What about a kid like me that does things that people don't like or think is weird? Do you think I do those things because I was born too early? (he was premature) You know how things are messed up sometimes if you don't wait long enough. Like food in an oven or an experiment or something. Do you think I am like that?".

(sigh)...off to look at "dream schools" and threads that discuss homeschooling while working full-time.

I really have nothing to give in form of advice or experience (although I could see my son, 4, being in a similar situation one day). But I just wanted to reach out and say that my heart aches for your little guy. It is like he wants to do some things differently but cannot figure out how. And you're right that might be a maturity issue. But the feeling like you aren't quite fitting in, I don't know, I think that might just come with his being different in terms of his thinking, maybe being very sensitive. All I can say that from your posts I feel like you are the best champion he can have. I sometimes say to my husband that it feels like our son chose to be our child because he knew we could handle him. We could keep him safe and make him feel good about his quirky, wonderful self. That we could get the greatest happiness from who he is. That's why we were given the task to be his parents. And it seems to me that you are doing just that, too. It is exhausting, of course. And the first time I saw my son hurt because others thought he was odd because he is very outwardly happy when he is happy (something we love about him!) was incredibly heartbreaking.
So no advice from me regarding the school situation (other than I agree that a teacher should make sure kids don't get excluded in the first place) but just a virtual hug to you!
Take care,
Stefanie

Agree with all the above. A teacher calling a little kid ANNOYING. That is just uncalled for.

First month of Kindergarten. Lots happen. Seems all the kids are testing each other, pushing the boundaries. That being said, kids calling each other "stupid" etc is unacceptable and should be addressed.

My DS4 is in his 4th week of K. The first week didn't start out too well. There was this kid there that ended up hitting DS in the head. When I asked DS what he had done he said very clamly that "I grabbed his arm and told him that I am strong enough to rip your arm off and I don't want to have to do that".
OK, a bit of a questionable response but at least the boy didn't do it again. Come to find out that he is now playing with DS. I think the whole thing was about wanting to be DS's friend and he was doing it to get his attention.

Do they have a chart at your son's school? They have a tree at DS's school where you can end up in the "ready to learn" range or "make better decisions" range. Seems they are VERY strict about this and will call the parents if a kid completely falls off the chart. I like this approach. Keeps the kids on track.

Assuming that the teacher credits the accusations of tower-tipping, etc., and realizing that "Someone told me to do it" can sound like a false excuse, I don't see what's so wrong about the word "annoying". Yes, it's important to make sure that bullying isn't going on, but sometimes little kids don't play well with others, and that can be annoying. I'd be annoyed if someone kept wrecking things I was building.

Could the teacher's word choice be calculated to give less chance of offending someone? Sure. On the other hand, she has to do something about the situation, and I don't think she's making a bad choice. She can't force certain children to let others play with them during free time on the basis of crying in a situation like this; he's not being excluded by the whole class, just a subset that he has apparently been credited with annoying by his behavior.

My son is like this too. For him it's more mischief for the sake of fun, rather than being retaliatory, but the end result is the same in that the other boys get irritated. They'll even get to the point where they'll band together to play pranks on him, but fortunately that doesn't happen often. These are boys that my son wants to play with and is not sure how. Fortunately he has another group of friends who know him and "get" him, that like him and are kind to him.