I am sad and concerned that my daughter's teacher had to finally make a call to us. The school does a behavior color chart system. I know my daughter has gotten the "yellow" a couple of times and I've done the action and consequence approach but last night we recieved a call from her teacher, she's in first grade and well I am unhappy. The teacher's message is that DD is being mean and rude to her friends i.e. your haircut looks funny, your glasses are ugly etc...I am not defensive about her call to us because I've seen this streak in my DD. We've been working on what is and isn't appropriate to say.
We let her listen to the teacher's message on the voicemail so our DD knew her teacher meant business and so do we. I guess I just don't understand what's gotten into her. My husband and I are not perfect but we certainly don't sit around critcizing and making fun of people. My DD says well other kids are calling her scardy cat and pooh pooh head and that's why she does it. We said regardless of what other kids do you don't turn around and start calling them names or making fun of them in any way shape or form. It's mean and wrong! Our DD is a young 6. Late summer birthay. So I know there is some catch-up for maturity in comparison to some of the other kids.
The teacher said there has been some improvements here and there but yesterday was a bad day for her which prompted her call. Your thoughts? Anyone going through something similar? How do I get my daughter to practice proper social graces and not be mean and rude to her classmates...She certainly won't have any friends if she keeps doing this.
Edit: The teacher has not seen the other kids call my DD names but will watch out for it. She did see one boy causing some trouble with my DD but nipped it in the butt right away.
Every kid has to learn it sooner or later -
"If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all."
Remind her that when she falls and scrapes her knees, it hurts. When someone says something rude Or is
mean, it also hurts. It hurts their feelings.
Words are powerful. When a friend is mean, we feel sad and lonely. Ask her If she is trying to make her friends feel this way?
Irene uses the excuse, I am just telling them the truth. You will need to teach err at sometimes to keep from emberassing people, it is better to not say anything.
If your child insists that others are calling her names, remind herto "use her words". "I do not like wu you call me names. That hurt my feelings."
If she can express her feelings, they will leave her alone.
I would have a talk with her. Point out that SHE feels bad when she's made fun of... so why would she want her friends to feel the same way? You could also do a role-play with dolls, and ask her to stop and think 'How would I feel if someone said this to me?' You could also teach her to fight fire with water. Instead of insulting the kids back, tell her to try saying something NICE to them when they are being mean. My cousin's daughter was having the same issue in 1st grade. She was being bullied, and acting out because of it. Her guidance counselor suggested everything I just put, and it made a HUGE difference almost immediately. Over the last couple years, she has become pretty popular, because all the kids like how nice she is.
You might also try action and REWARD instead of action and consequence. Instead of punishing her when she does wrong, you can get a cache of goodies (little $1.00 bows, treats, maybe you do something special with her) when she gets a (insert good color here...) on the color chart. Incentives instead of punishments usually yield better results. It gives them something to work FOR, which helps the positive attitude, instead of something to work at avoiding, which is a negative.
Two thoughts: Without making a huge deal of it, pay attention and make appreciative remarks on whatever you see or hear from your daughter that's kind, helpful, thoughtful, etc. Kids crave attention, and if they get positive attention for positive behavior, they are less likely to fall back on negative behaviors. Sometimes it's possible to help a child change dramatically when you focus only on the positive.
Second, there are some truly marvelous communication tips in the book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Faber and Mazlish. The authors are experts in practical and mutually-respectful ways to draw a child out, find out what's going on in her head, and make her part of the problem-solving team. I love this approach with my grandson, and have heard parents rave about the results they have gotten even with some "problem" children.
I'm glad you are actively looking for solutions. My best to you.
It sounds like she needs to understand the difference between being mean and being assertive. I think sometimes there is this "get them before they get me" mentality that happens in school when kids are scared or insecure or don't know how to handle conflict.
We did a lot of practice with our daughter, because girls in particular can be mean and if you don't know how to respond you can get yourself in trouble with the teacher or the girls. We went over how to respond to situations like when kids say mean things, leave you out, won't play with you, talk about you behind your back.
Because she felt empowered, she didn't act out as much. Practicing making friends, introducing herself, inviting someone to play, giving sincere complements, declining to play politely is really important. It's just practice, practice, practice kind of like practicing your instrument before the recital.
Hope this helps.
L.
I would just keep emphasizing that while she doesn't have to "like" or "Be friends" with the girls that are teasing her, that she should not be disrespectful in return.
Is this just your daughter's explanation, or did the teacher back up that the other girls are being mean to her as well?
Ah--first grade--so hard to watch the "pecking order" play out.
Your daughter will "get it".
Maybe if she gets a yellow or red, let the teacher let YOU know so she can get an appropriate consequence at home? (I find electronic devices to be very motivating!)
I have had that both ways with my boys. It's normal to a point but they must learn it's not ok. I have to remind them of how they feel when people stay or do stuff to them. I would talk to the teacher and make sure she knows you want to be involved and know when something happens. I know sometimes last year I would not know my youngest was getting in to trouble till it was too late and he was in big trouble. Some parents don't care and teachers need to know they have your full suport.
Good luck and God Bless!
Do a role play with her, don't warn her first. Say something like "wow, your eyes are brown, brown eyes suck and blue eyes rule" OR "your hair is too straight you should curl it".
Say things to her that she cant immediately change or fix about herself, such as her making fun of someone that wears glasses, they cant change the fact that they wear glasses.
See how daughter feels when you belittle her for something that she cant change. When you see her getting that "bummed" feeling, let her know that you were doing an experiment and now how does it feel to be made fun of for something you can't change?
There was a Little Bill episode about that. The new boy wanted to play the mean game and LB was looking for mean things to say. His dad taught him to say, "So?" What the kid said wasn't TRUE, "SO..." LB did not get mad, so it wasn't fun for the boy to pick on him anymore.
If the teacher will work with all the kids, then DD needs to talk to her about the other kids vs just calling names back. Not tattling but maybe have her ask the teacher how to handle it when they do that. Remind her that it doesn't feel very nice when someone calls HER names, so she shouldn't do it to other people.
My SD is bossy. Still is. When she was in elementary school we told her that if people didn't want to play the game HER way, they had that choice. HER choice was to be a better friend so she wasn't playing her game by herself.
Girls in general will use words. Boys will punch each other and everything is over. Girls will sneer and throw words and dirty glances for months. Middle school is the worst for it, IMO. Teach her how to handle these words and to choose her own words more carefully.
My now-8-yr old son was the exact same way in 1st grade! Except that his warnings came from bossiness, invading other's personal space, interrupting, etc. His school would give warnings--3 and he'd lose a ticket for ticket shop. To specifically address his awareness of the behavior, we started keeping track of his better days to reinforce that good days are more important than bad days. If he got a week of non-3-warning-days, I'd take him to Sonic for a slush flavor of his choosing (they're 1/2-price from 2-4pm!!). If he got up to a month of no warnings, we'd take him to Toys R Us for a small something something. I HATE rewarding behavior that is expected, but at the time, he needed the positive reinforcement of positive behavior to remind him to make better choices. Throughout the year, his teacher would help guide him as well and 2nd grade was a vast improvement and now 3rd grade has been a tremendous improvement! He's only gotten a few 1-warning days (though the punishment for getting 3 strikes in 3rd grade is an automatic trip to the principal's office for a chat, so that's not a place any kid wants to go!!).
The other part of it is to correct the behavior with him understanding WHY he shouldn't do something with the constant reminders of "How does it make you feel when others do it to you? How do you think it makes Bobby feel when he gets called names? Do you want to make others feel that way?" Empathy in young children is NOT necessarily an ingrained trait in many kids, so it's something that has to be taught gently but consistently. It's important to be able to put yourself in other people's shoes and the earlier our kids are able make those connections of not wanting to cause hurt to others, the better off we all are!
As long as you don't let her behavior go as acceptable, you should definitely see some improvement from now to the end of the school year and then more as she gets older.
Thats because teacher do miss a lot of teasing. I suggest talking to her about pretending the people picking on her. Tell her most people do it as it makes them feel better about themselves. kids knowing that usually pick back less often
