Defiant child and pansy teacher.

*doodle*_2

lauren_1 wrote: »

I used to teach post 16 anatomy modules for beauty therapy and Access courses. The nursing covered the safe guarding of vunerable people, not specifically children and I have not done a update course since 2007.

I can't imagine there being much difference in duty of care towards vulnerable children and vulnerable adults should suspicious bruises, cuts and being 'dragged about' be concernced. Would you ignore these things should a vulnerable adult be at the receiving end? Or, would you do your job?

pigpen

Lauren.. I would be furious.. absolutely livid.. and had the teacher spoken to me about my childs homework in such a manner I'd have had strips off her.. BUT..that doesn't deflect from your daughter needing more support than she is getting.

It doesn't matter if you have no limbs, aspergers or purple ears what matters is you are angry and hurt and upset and your daughter is suffering for reasons you cannot explain.

Who is the child protection person? They will be the one who the class teacher spoke to and who rang SS.. go calmly speak to her.. she also has the ability to refer you to the family support worker if they will be of assistance. If you don't know who it is there should be a certificate up in the office with the name on.. or just ask.

Move beyond what has already gone on and look to the future..

relic

puddy wrote: »

its quite an achievement though, from the age of 18 to 29, to have qualified as a nurse, got a degree and a pgce AND had 3 kids

Easy mate.

When I was 18 I was a Formula 1 driver, quit when I was 19 because it was too easy. From 19 to 23 I worked with NASA and got myself PhD in Astrophysics. At the age of 23 I wondered to myself, "What am I really doing with my life?" so I trained as a medical doctor and went to treat children in Africa. At 24 I decided enough was enough, let's settle down and do my dream job of being an accountant.

And here I still am!

Well..... that's what it says on my CV.

Lotus-eater

puddy wrote: »

its quite an achievement though, from the age of 18 to 29, to have qualified as a nurse, got a degree and a pgce AND had 3 kids

It's not impossible. I'm slightly more suprised to hear someone with these qualifications calling a teacher a pansy. Someone who also trained in the public sector.
What is a pansy anyway, from what I understand, the teacher is the opposite.

puddy

not impossible, but possibly improbable

Nicki

I'm sorry but I'm not sure we can say that social services have found OP not guilty of any abuse. They have not got enough evidence yet to charge her with anything, or to remove the children from her care, but her youngest child is under compulsory 2 week checks by a HV. How many of us with children under 5 have any requirement to take their child to the HV at all ever, much less every 2 weeks?

No one calls social service and reports a parent for holding their child's hand on the way to school if there was no compulsion involved. And no one themselves describes it as "dragging their child to school" if they were just holding their hand and chivvying them along.

I have more than once spent in excess of 45 minutes on a 5 minute journey with my DD. What could OP have done? She could have phoned school on her mobile and explained the situation, and that DS would also be late. She could have had DS walk on with another parent and child going in the same direction. If he was old enough, she could have let DS walk on ahead. She could have learned strategies to calm her daughter down, and persuade her to walk independently to school. She could have abandoned the school trip for the daughter on that occasion and made an urgent call to school explaining the issue and organising help, support and advice for the following day (and on her return home arranged for a friend or neighbour to take her son in to school late with an explanation if she wasn't able to send him on ahead). All of these options would have been acceptable to social services and the school. She could even (and I have in extremes had to do this with my 10 year old DD) carefully picked her up and carried her part of the way.

OP has known for 7 years that her child has developmental and behavioural difficulties but she appears to have done little to investigate how to support her child. You don't need a formal diagnosis to know if your child has difficulties that other children don't and there are numerous places to go for advice on behaviour management, even if you don't have the benefit of a PGCE and a nursing degree. Local authorities run parenting courses, charities do the same, there are numerous specialist on line forums on these issues.

thorsoak

Lauren - I'm glad that you are still online - it must be hard for you when it would appear that everyone is attacking you and not listening to what you are saying. But we ARE listening to what you are saying, and we do want to help you and your daughter.

It is a fact that ADHD can be an inherited trait - it does NOT mean that the person who has it or who is diagnosed with Aspergers/Autism is stupid - it just means that these people do not look at the world, at life in the same manner as people who do not have these traits. And early on, from your answers, I thought the same as other posters - that you yourself show Aspie traits. I have a close friend who is has been diagnosed with Aspergers, and once she received that diagnosed (well into her 40s) and learned coping skills on how to deal with the non-Aspie world, she has become a happier person. BTW - she is a veterinary surgeon - so most definitely not educationally challenged. Socially challenged yes - which would possibly be the problem with you and your daughter.

You need to break away from the "them versus us" attitude - it isn't going to help your girl, and will only make you feel more defensive and beleaguered as time goes on. If she is like this now, what do you think she will be like when she is a teenager if you don't get a handle on how to handle her? She's not necessarily being defiant, and the teacher isn't necessarily being an interfering old biddy - your girl is frightened of what is happening, what she has no control over, and your teacher is frightened of overlooking an ill-treated child.

You say that you have to write her answers down for her homework - she cannot give you the workings out because she just KNOWS the answers - that in itself is a pointer to the autism .

We all want to help you to get the help that you as a family need. First of all, please look at this website www.ace-ed.org.uk - tel no 0808 800 5793. This is the Advistory Centre for Education and can prodive advice and support on Autism and Aspergers. It may well be a good starting point for you and your daughter.

Regards - and good luck!

Gleeful

Lotus-eater wrote: »

It's not impossible. I'm slightly more suprised to hear someone with these qualifications calling a teacher a pansy. Someone who also trained in the public sector.
What is a pansy anyway, from what I understand, the teacher is the opposite.

It means weak and pathetic, I think.

PGCE = 1 year
Degree in Anatomy=3 years
Nursing qualification=3 years (quote me if I'm wrong)

So that's 7 years studying and 1 year per child off work/study due to maternity. Gives her a spare year there since the age of 18 to be teaching her access/beauty therapy course, although perhaps she has another qualification somewhere she has forgotten about.....:cool:

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Nothwithstanding the medical stuff...

I am not an aggressive person, my children are/were model students in terms of behaviour.

But DD2 didn't want to walk to school in the mornings. I am not sure where she expected me to magic a car, insurance, tax and a driving licence from to cover the vast expanse of the quarter mile from our front door to theirs, especially when I would have had to park further away than where we live to get there.

She would tippety-toe, stop dead and refuse to move, run back up the hill and if I so much as sounded a little exasperated, would dissolve into a heap of hysteria and be incapable of movement for at least 15 minutes. She could then proceed at roughly five paces a minute. The only way I could be was 'gentle and encouraging and supportive and handholding'. We left for the ten minute walk at least 30 minutes early and she was still regularly late. She would also go into complete meltdown if she were asked/told to do her homework. I do know now that she didn't like the other kids, as they weren't the kindest of children to those that weren't as financially well off, either.

I can completely understand the frustration and anger that you feel when you have to go through this every morning and evening, only to be faced with a teacher who doesn't appear to be sympathetic, as I received school reports saying '...is often unsettled in the morning because of persistent lateness and no facility to do her homework'.

I did politely ask if they considered it would be a good idea to drag her into school kicking and screaming by the scruff of the neck, keep her off school if she starts up or get her so upset by the homework that she was permanently adverse to books and writing and they conceded that it could well be counterproductive.

Getting angry with them, no matter how irritating they are, only puts their backs up. Which is when you get the 'Mum is very confrontational, blah, blah blah....'. But speaking to them reasonably gets them onside even if you could quite cheerfully wring their necks and that of the child that is the subject of the issues. As you can see here, the focus of other posters, including those who work in child protection, is on you getting angry, not how you are being driven to distraction by your child and don't feel that you are getting any support from anyone.

I wouldn't do her homework for her and let the teacher punish her as appropriate during school hours. I wouldn't let her sit and watch cartoons at home instead of homework, though, (for example) as she shouldn't be rewarded for refusal. Not sure what to do about the lateness, as punishing her for eventually getting there seems to me to make it more of an incentive to kick off in the hope that you will turn round and take her home. Perhaps the teachers could suggest something there?

(which also puts them in the frame of mind that you are open to help and not being obstructive)

It sounds as though she is not happy at school. It may be because the teacher is stricter than she has had before, it may be because some of the children in the class are vile, it may be because your daughter is the horrid one and doesn't like being told off. No matter. Perhaps going to the head and saying she is obviously unhappy, you struggle everyday to get her into school, knowing that it is important for her education, blah blah blah, but you need their help and perhaps she needs something else - some more SENCO input, a CAMHS assessment, an EdPsych assessment, something that only they can help with, as you want this to stop before she gets any older - would help?


For the record, DD2 is at high school and seems to be managing fine being responsible for her own timekeeping and homework - but she doesn't have additional issues (well, other than physical ones, anyway ) and has made friends.

shegirl

lauren_1 wrote: »

Are you seriously telling me not one of you have ever had to literally walk your child to school by their hand or arm, I see this happen on a daily basis to lots of children on the way to school, im not dragging her by her feet or hair or scruff of the neck, this is not abuse at all.

So if your dd has taken 45 mins to do what is a 5 min walk you would be happy to sit on the wall whilst they throw the 5th hissy fit of the morning or should i just leave her and get my ds to school on time?

If she's late she gets detentions, if she's on time i get accused of abuse, if ds is late he gets put in the late book when its not his fault at all.

Please tell me how or where I am going wrong with this situation?

No! And dragging is a FORCEFUL activity,it's not just 'walking your child to school by their hand or their arm' it is forceful!

The largest 'problem' with your daughter is evidently YOU.

You say she has been assessed since 3 and you've had diagnosis of aspergers,mild autism (it's one or the other by the way...not two seperate diagnosis,which I'll extend on later),ODD and ADHD and you claim half of it is an act because when she gets what she wants she is nice as pie...well have you ever considered learning about her conditions?Learning how to work with them?Learned to understand her?Learned how to deal with and teach her?Clearly not because you obviously haven't got a clue and don't seem to beleived the diagnosis you claim to have recevied....for the record,my severely autistic son is also calm and nicer when he gets what he wants after being seriously stressed,that's because not having it was causing the stress!Does that mean his autism is an act?NO!!!!


YOU need to take responsibility for your own daughter and your own failings,sort yourself out and actually take some interest in your daughters problems instead of trying to blame everyone else!

Poor child!!