6 yr old having issues at school

[terese17]

My son will be six tomorrow.  He is currently enrolled in a private Catholic school that follows a "normal" curriculum.  He has been having issues since the beginning of the yr.  He went through a transition time, where he would not follow directions, and would talk back very rudely to his teachers.  His teacher and I met and had a plan of action which we followed through with and it seemed to take care of the problem.  However, it recently came to my attention, through my sister who volunteers at the school (her daughter is in the same class) that he has been in trouble for being rude to other teachers, like the gym teacher and the woman who works on reading with him, and that he was also involved in a fist fight with three other kids.  The school didn't call me or anything, so they obviously feel like they dealt with it. My son doesn't tell me anything about school.  When we try to work on anything with him he whines and starts to cry about how hard it is, even when I know he can do it because he's done it before.  I have taken away all screen time, but it doesn't seem to help.  I cannot spend  a lot of one one time with him, as I also have a 3.5 and a 1.5 yr old with a new baby to show up any day now.  He went to a Montessori preschool for two yrs and loved it.  He never had issues there.  The only options we have for grade schools in my town is public or catholic.  I do not want my son pegged as the trouble child in school.  I had to deal with that growing up and grade school was hell for me.  What do you think/what would you do?   

[VisionaryMom]

The first thing I would do would be to contact the other teachers to ask about what happened. I would tell them that I was unhappy to find out from a parent volunteer (even if it is your sister!) that my child had been in trouble repeatedly. It may be that he was rude to each person only once, in which case I can see how they may think that they handled that specific incident and didn't need to contact you. This behavior obviously is a pattern, however, that the school's actions haven't addressed.

I cannot imagine why no one would tell you about the fight, though! Schools often swing too far the other way, ime, and I've never heard of a fight happening without parents being told.

Then I would gather a written version of the incidents I knew about and make an appointment with the head of the school & your son's teacher. Perhaps by showing the whole pattern they will have more insights on what to do. (Though I never experienced being labeled the bad kid, I definitely see it following you. My son has a child in his class who's in trouble often, and even in K, a lot of kids are distancing themselves from him.)

[claras_mom]

Even if you can't, can your dh spend more one-on-one time with him? What I've found with my 6 yo daughter is that she talks at unexpected moments. If I ask her about her day, or a particular event, she's likely to say "I don't remember" or "it was fine" or something equally non-committal. The more we're able to make time for her, even if it's just all hanging out in the living room, the more likely she is to share something spontaneously--and there have been a couple of times where what she had to share has to do with conflicts at school. I wouldn't have known about it without her volunteering the information. This suggests to me that the face time is pretty important to her in terms of feeling comfortable with tough subjects.

I do know it can be difficult with younger kids--my younger is almost 2, and needs and wants the same kinds of attention her older sister gets. And visa versa.

One on one also helps with general crabbiness. To some degree. :

[CallMeMommy]

Subbing, just because I'm glad it's not only my kid!  I could have written your post word-for-word.  The rudeness, not doing his work, whining, fighting.  At first I think the school was content with just dealing with it on their own, but his teacher emailed me a couple of weeks ago letting me know the full extent of what was going on.  Since then he's been losing privileges at home if he's misbehaved at school, and getting a reward if he's been good (usually playing a game, just the two of us).  I hate rewarding behavior that he should be doing on his own anyway, but I think some of it is because I also have a toddler and a new baby and he's feeling deprived for attention.  His teacher emails me every afternoon to let me know if he's had a good day or a bad day.  He's still having some rough days, but on the whole it seems like he's improving so we'll keep going with it.