Five years old and already in the principles office

I received a call from the school, a lady with a panicked voice told me to come pick up my son from the principles office. He was acting out and they felt I should come pick him up. Ok. Off I went not sure what to expect. What I found was the principles office in lock down as they tried to control my 5 year old. This included restraining him “for his own safety” as he was jumping on things, hitting and more. I told them to let him go, and my son ran to me. Then he became hostile to me as well as I tried to find out what was going on.

It seems he became out of control in the classroom, jumping on desks so they removed him. This did not work so well as it caused him to lash out even more. He was angry, frustrated, and somewhat scared. There have been a lot of changes in the last few weeks. He changed daycare, his sister did not, he started school and so did his dad. The daycare he seems to be ok with, but he is not doing so well in the more structured school environment. He cannot remove himself from an activity and do what he wants anymore. He does not take to well to being told, “No, you have to do this”. He takes after us, his parents, a little too much.

There are two big issues though. The first is that we were told that daycare would take care of snacks, but for the first week when everyone else had snacks he did not. He was feeling very left out and was upset, but never said anything to us. Nor did his teacher. He told his daycare teacher on Monday, who told us what was going on. We were not happy when we found on Monday that he had been going to school with out a snack for over a week. It was a misunderstanding the daycare gives a snack after school not to take into class.

When we asked his kindergarten teacher why she did not tell us this was going on she said he did not really need a snack because he had lunch at the daycare and a snack after. That is a problem for me, it has nothing to do with food but socializing and fitting in, and she did not understand that. Of course he has been upset, he has been left out and made to feel different. On Tuesday we sent a snack with him but he had his melt down and was removed from the class before snack time.

The second issue is that he has a severe speech problem. At his old daycare everyone understood him. He feels that people don’t hear him in his kindergarten class. His outburst started because yet again he was saying something to his teacher and felt that he was being ignored. He was angry and was trying to get her attention with his actions. He got it but not the way he wanted it.

The school decided that starting that Wednesday they would have him in Kindergarten for one hour and then remove him and put him back into daycare. This would give him a chance to adjust to kindergarten. Everyday they would add an extra 15 minutes until he started acting out again or was doing all three hours. I did not feel that comfortable with this, another way to make him feel left out and different. Sure enough they removed him with out any warning. Suddenly he was being pulled from class for no reason at all. He wanted to stay with his friends and had another melt down.

I don’t blame him. I would be upset to if I was being good and doing what I was told and someone came and took me away. He kept saying he did not do anything. Sure enough I had to come and get him a second time. Both the daycare and I were not happy with the way things were handled and let the school know it. Things got changed that day. This was not going to happen to him again. On Thursday he was given early warning that he would be leaving the class, and his teacher from daycare came and got him. He did not feel as if he was being punished this time.

I am trying to work with the school but I don’t think that they have handled this very well. They have labeled him a problem child now. Personally I think his outbursts were completely validated as his only way to get people to hear him. We are more aware of what is going on now so things have calmed down now. But I am not happy with the teacher’s poor communication skills. We look at his communication book everyday and so far she had put nothing in it, no comments on what he is doing or that he was left out of snack or acting out. I am holding her accountable, I will be calling her everyday to find out what is going on with my son. I am not going to let them label my son a problem child just because she could not bother to write in his book to let us know there was a problem.


Update - after trying to work with the school for most of the school year we ended up going to the school trustee.  End result – an investigation into not only my son’s teacher but also the principle and vice principle.  The teacher was not asked back for the following year – she was doing things that were not acceptable.  The principle and vice principle stayed for one more year – but my son was sent to a different school.  They were removed from the school the following year – seems they were both under investigation the entire year – why because the things that were done to my son was just the tip of the iceberg.