The kid thread: Planning, pregnancy & parenting

[oped]

Long way between six years old and eighth grade. 

[Jaguar]

When I was 8 years old the vice-principal decided that I needed to be removed from my grade school. What the teachers all found out though was, she wanted this done cause of my hare-lip and cleft palate.

I wasn't "pretty enough" for that old librarian. Oh I still remember all the teachers comments towards her. They were pissed, my doctor was pissed. She was put in her place I stayed there.


I started reading books really early, like 4 years old. In fact I've read so much by now that I'm going back to the old classics. I'll be starting with some James A. Michener books, like The Drifters. I read this when I was 12 years old the first time.


In grade 2 around 1970/1971, I started reading to my classmates. One classmate said out loud to the whole class "I can't understand you". My response was "TOUGH"


Reading is a passion of mine. A College friend once said to me that I was cool to not have a tv in my home. She would more than likely say the same thing about computers.

[geenamercile]

Nov 14, 2018 19:49:43 GMT -5 oped said:

Long way between six years old and eighth grade. 

Yep it is a lot of time that can't be made up, and honestly by 8th grade there are doors in high school that are closed for advance classes if the student is struggling.  Students who are in a reading intervention course, well that course takes up an elective that student could have spent in learning another skill or subject that interest them.  And we are not going to be able to get that student to where they would be if they had had the earlier interventions.  And I have to heard to many parents in meeting say we always thought they would just catch up, or they would do better if they just put in more effort.          

And again my advice was for gmrs11 was to keep an eye on, not run and demand testing right now, but to keep it in the back of her mind and monitor it.  But re-reading the original post it doesn't seem like the teacher was to concerned about it either.            

[geenamercile]

Nov 14, 2018 20:04:55 GMT -5 Jaguar said:

When I was 8 years old the vice-principal decided that I needed to be removed from my grade school. What the teachers all found out though was, she wanted this done cause of my hare-lip and cleft palate.

I wasn't "pretty enough" for that old librarian. Oh I still remember all the teachers comments towards her. They were pissed, my doctor was pissed. She was put in her place I stayed there.


I started reading books really early, like 4 years old. In fact I've read so much by now that I'm going back to the old classics. I'll be starting with some James A. Michener books, like The Drifters. I read this when I was 12 years old the first time.


In grade 2 around 1970/1971, I started reading to my classmates. One classmate said out loud to the whole class "I can't understand you". My response was "TOUGH"


Reading is a passion of mine. A College friend once said to me that I was cool to not have a tv in my home. She would more than likely say the same thing about computers.

That would piss me off as well.  

[swasat]

I am so sick of my DS’s attitude. He will be 14 in a month and my super sweer boy turned into a monster this summer We are having daily fights due to him being mouthy, in general inconsiderate, rude, obnoxious and selfish.

One silver lining is he is still super responsible and his grades are still very high. But his attitude is gawd awful. I can’t even discipline him through words because he then starts throwing blame and accusations of favoritism at DH and I.

I don’t know how I will survive the teen years if this is just the beginning I hate, hate being a parent sometimes. Why do we do this to ourselves, I have no idea.

[lurkyloo]

Nov 14, 2018 18:17:20 GMT -5 oped said:

Writing is always a ‘lagging’ skill anyway... you need to be able to read and speak proficiently before you can write. It’s just a progression. 

Son bombed his 5th grade language test. I thought, shit, I’m going to actually have to teach grammar.i got the 5th grade easy grammar... been told it’s all you need... still only managed maybe 15 lessons... went back to in context, read, speak, write... he aced his 8th grade language. Lagging skill. 

They do writing before reading in Montessori, but apparently DS missed the memo    He has a mild fine motor delay, so we practice regularly in short sessions.  He’s forming all the letters, but his aim and sizing/planning is a bit uncertain.

I will say that for us, the evaluations were stressful and the county interventions were actively harmful.  No improvement, a marked increase in acting out, and the county person caused a three month delay in getting him moved to the class he needed-he was so miserable!  YMMV, but I am deeply reluctant to go back there.  It was however useful in pinpointing the need for fine motor skill practice.

[oped]

I had a friend who instituted ‘prairie days’ with both her older kids when they reached that stage... along the lines of I am required to keep you fed and housed by law, nothing else. Mouth off to me and something goes away each time until your bedroom is four walls and a mattress and dinner is only what you need for nutrition, no treats. No need for words, just remove. 

She swore by it... never got to mattress only and only had to do the process one time with each. 

I have a thing about autonomy over your own space and things, so I’m not sure I would have gone that route, but it was not an issue. I was plenty up front about the things I provided that they didn’t need, one of the reasons I paid things like part of their phones and cars...so they remained mine. 

Does he have a phone? 

[oped]

Nov 14, 2018 20:51:52 GMT -5 lurkyloo said:

Nov 14, 2018 18:17:20 GMT -5 oped said:

Writing is always a ‘lagging’ skill anyway... you need to be able to read and speak proficiently before you can write. It’s just a progression. 

Son bombed his 5th grade language test. I thought, shit, I’m going to actually have to teach grammar.i got the 5th grade easy grammar... been told it’s all you need... still only managed maybe 15 lessons... went back to in context, read, speak, write... he aced his 8th grade language. Lagging skill. 

They do writing before reading in Montessori, but apparently DS missed the memo    He has a mild fine motor delay, so we practice regularly in short sessions.  He’s forming all the letters, but his aim and sizing/planning is a bit uncertain.

I will say that for us, the evaluations were stressful and the county interventions were actively harmful.  No improvement, a marked increase in acting out, and the county person caused a three month delay in getting him moved to the class he needed-he was so miserable!  YMMV, but I am deeply reluctant to go back there.  It was however useful in pinpointing the need for fine motor skill practice.

How can you write if you can’t read? Do you mean form letters with a pencil? Or construct sentences? 

[oped]

It can be challenging because write and read seem like single actions, but they are so many interlocking skills and multiple levels of definition.

[swasat]

He does. Which is already confiscated. As is his laptop. We already strictly control tv.

The sulking and the mouthing really gets to me. I want both my kids to be strong in their opinions. But he is really venturing into yelling and throwing blame at us, which then leads to fights.

[oped]

That’s a hard one. What blaming? 

[Lizard Queen]

Are things going okay with peers at school? That is such a tough stage.

[NastyWoman]

Nov 14, 2018 20:40:42 GMT -5 swasat said:

I am so sick of my DS’s attitude. He will be 14 in a month and my super sweer boy turned into a monster this summer [img src="http://syonidv.hodginsmedia.com/vsmileys/sad.png" alt="" class="smile" src="//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/sad.png"] We are having daily fights due to him being mouthy, in general inconsiderate, rude, obnoxious and selfish.

One silver lining is he is still super responsible and his grades are still very high. But his attitude is gawd awful. I can’t even discipline him through words because he then starts throwing blame and accusations of favoritism at DH and I.

I don’t know how I will survive the teen years if this is just the beginning [img src="http://syonidv.hodginsmedia.com/vsmileys/sad.png" src="//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/sad.png" class="smile" alt=""] I hate, hate being a parent sometimes. Why do we do this to ourselves, I have no idea.

Because it all starts with a sweet little cuddly being that drools and throws you toothless smiles.

But yes, teenage boys can be ummm... difficult shall we say. However, with any kind of luck they will be wonderful again once they reach adulthood < says by one lucky mom>

[Pants]

Since we are on topic of academics - I have my first parent/teacher for B tomorrow. At her daycare/school they had conferences but it was all v hands on. I don't know what to expect really. 

On my list I have some concerns about social stuff, and a couple questions about the take-home reading. It's too long (and boring af), and I'd rather spend that time reading together on books we will all enjoy. I do worry a bit about her reading comprehension - it seems her reading ability is outstripping her ability to think about what she's reading. I want to know if the teacher has any concerns that I'm not aware of. Other than that, are there areas I should ask about? 

[oped]

How old? 

[Pants]

Nov 14, 2018 21:24:05 GMT -5 oped said:

How old? 

Six - 1st grade. 

[swasat]

Nov 14, 2018 21:13:44 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

Are things going okay with peers at school? That is such a tough stage.

Yeah, all cool. He is pretty much an angel outside. Loads of friends, teachers and other parents love him.

He just does not like to be ever told that he may be wrong or his behavior needs changing.

He will say something nasty to his sister or be mean to her, and when we stop him or make him accountable for his behavior he starts off with ‘favoritism’, ‘you never loved me’, ‘I will never be right in your eyes’, ‘dad will always only listen to mom’,’so you think I am useless, right?’ Etc etc.

<insert eye roll>

[oped]

Nov 14, 2018 21:25:48 GMT -5 Pants said:

Nov 14, 2018 21:24:05 GMT -5 oped said:

How old? 

Six - 1st grade. 

Sounds like you have it covered. Social skills and swap out boring work for more authentic interactions with literature... good goals. I’m sure general progress and interactions will come up on her part. 

[oped]

Nov 14, 2018 21:26:07 GMT -5 swasat said:

Nov 14, 2018 21:13:44 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

Are things going okay with peers at school? That is such a tough stage.

Yeah, all cool. He is pretty much an angel outside. Loads of friends, teachers and other parents love him.

He just does not like to be ever told that he may be wrong or his behavior needs changing.

He will say something nasty to his sister or be mean to her, and when we stop him or make him accountable for his behavior he starts off with ‘favoritism’, ‘you never loved me’, ‘I will never be right in your eyes’, ‘dad will always only listen to mom’,’so you think I am useless, right?’ Etc etc.

<insert eye roll>

Did something happen he doesn’t feel listen to about? Have they always not gotten long? How old is she. 

Id probably start by sitting him down, very concerned about his conceptions that he is unloved and being treated differently, and ask him where this stems from and foe examples and how he thinks fairness should look like. 

And if he had  valid issues address them, and if he didn’t, answer every future time with sarcasm and ‘equalizing’ actions he doesn’t care for... but I’m a sucky parent that way...

[oped]

I wouldn’t worry too much about comprehension at that point pants. As you said, unequal skills... some kids can intuitively DECODE just about anything, but lack the experience and vocabulary to make sense of it all. If they don’t come together there are strategies she can employ to strengthen comprehension later. Now if you are reading together you can stop her sometimes to ask questions, or verbally do think aloud of your own questions.... I wonder why she trusted the wolf? I don’t think I would trust a wolf? Would you trust a wolf? ... but maybe she doesn’t know much about wolves.... you get the idea, although that isn’t a terrific example. 

[lurkyloo]

Nov 14, 2018 20:55:33 GMT -5 oped said:

Nov 14, 2018 20:51:52 GMT -5 lurkyloo said:

They do writing before reading in Montessori, but apparently DS missed the memo    He has a mild fine motor delay, so we practice regularly in short sessions.  He’s forming all the letters, but his aim and sizing/planning is a bit uncertain.

I will say that for us, the evaluations were stressful and the county interventions were actively harmful.  No improvement, a marked increase in acting out, and the county person caused a three month delay in getting him moved to the class he needed-he was so miserable!  YMMV, but I am deeply reluctant to go back there.  It was however useful in pinpointing the need for fine motor skill practice.

How can you write if you can’t read? Do you mean form letters with a pencil? Or construct sentences? 

They do both; his teacher is unhappy with his ability to form uniform/appropriately placed letters and words with a pencil, but they also use the moveable alphabet (wooden letters) to construct words and sentences phonetically. (His reading is actually very good, which is why I say he’s doing it „„wrong“   . Montessori is a little weird sometimes.

[oped]

I use magnetic board letters to construct words, but I don’t consider that writing  

Just for clarification I was talking sentence and meaningful text construction with appropriate grammar when I was discussing lagging skills in writing. 

Fine motor skills in forming lettes with a pencil can be developmentally different from kid to kid too, but I generally think of that as a different, physical skill. 

We do one sentence dictation currently which I consider to be spelling, as it’s encoding. But it’s not really writing, as it’s a given sentence we encode step by step. 

What was the last one? Jim got the last mint. I think... lol. 

So complicated operationally defining what we mean by the things we say.

[Pants]

Nov 14, 2018 21:33:49 GMT -5 oped said:

Nov 14, 2018 21:26:07 GMT -5 swasat said:

Yeah, all cool. He is pretty much an angel outside. Loads of friends, teachers and other parents love him.

He just does not like to be ever told that he may be wrong or his behavior needs changing.

He will say something nasty to his sister or be mean to her, and when we stop him or make him accountable for his behavior he starts off with ‘favoritism’, ‘you never loved me’, ‘I will never be right in your eyes’, ‘dad will always only listen to mom’,’so you think I am useless, right?’ Etc etc.

<insert eye roll>

Did something happen he doesn’t feel listen to about? Have they always not gotten long? How old is she. 

Id probably start by sitting him down, very concerned about his conceptions that he is unloved and being treated differently, and ask him where this stems from and foe examples and how he thinks fairness should look like. 

And if he had  valid issues address them, and if he didn’t, answer every future time with sarcasm and ‘equalizing’ actions he doesn’t care for... but I’m a sucky parent that way...

I was going to suggest something similar. I was the oldest and my brother was a high needs kid and I just remember the FURY I felt over perceived unfairness. My parents never took me seriously. That has spilled over into adulthood. I don't have kids your age but just last week ODD was crying about us not taking her seriously about YDD being an asshole. I was soooo tempted to write it off, because YDD is 3, so of course she's an asshole. But I remember, viscerally, how that feels. So even though I was frustrated and just wanted to sit down after a long day, instead I sat with her and talked about how I was an older sister too, and I remember it was really hard, and she and I could work together on that, because we knew how hard it was. I swear the last week has been a dream in terms of sibling harmony. ODD has been much more tolerant (YDD, still 3, still an asshole) and has proactively brought up the "older sibling" thing with me a few times 1:1. 

Also, you DS is at the age where misogyny really starts hitting boys hard. I would wonder if that's a part of it. (the "dad does what mom says" was the big indicator that makes me think this is likely.) I would have your DH start having some talks with him about that stuff. Raise feminist boyssss do it. 

[raeoflyte]

Nov 14, 2018 21:22:54 GMT -5 Pants said:

Since we are on topic of academics - I have my first parent/teacher for B tomorrow. At her daycare/school they had conferences but it was all v hands on. I don't know what to expect really. 

On my list I have some concerns about social stuff, and a couple questions about the take-home reading. It's too long (and boring af), and I'd rather spend that time reading together on books we will all enjoy. I do worry a bit about her reading comprehension - it seems her reading ability is outstripping her ability to think about what she's reading. I want to know if the teacher has any concerns that I'm not aware of. Other than that, are there areas I should ask about? 

C's reading ability came faster than strong comprehension, and I know that was something the teachers pushed since that is where he was at, but he is doing well with both now.

Our school does the i-ready tests which while I don't love testing it has been interesting to see where he falls at each of those testing points and how the teachers interpret the scores compared to where he is in class.  

[Jaguar]

My mom had 10 pregnancies, of which 9 made it. Mom always felt that out of her 9 kids, that her 3 sons would give her the most trouble when they hit their tweens.



The loss of this new born baby actually made me so melancholy & heartbroken. I found out her in 1987/1988 when I was 24/25 years old. My mom named her Rachel. Rachel lived 3 days

and would have been born in November 1941.

[gs11rmb]

Additional thanks to geenamercile and Knee Deep in Water Chloe!

I will continue to work with her on the sight words just as part of our normal evening routine and keep in touch with her teacher (I'll actually see her today because it is the school's Thanksgiving Luncheon).  I'm going to break the sight words into blocks of five and just do those blocks one at a time until she has all the words down.  I think 20ish at a time is just too much.

I really hope there is not a problem but if the teacher ever suggests any sort of intervention or testing, I won't hesitate.  Ignoring a problem will never make it go away.

[Lizard Queen]

My 3rd grader does AR tests for reading comprehension. All the grades do Lexia online, which does some of that, too, but I don't remember there being more for reading comprehension in 1st grade. In 2nd grade, they were taught how to write essays, which was really impressive.

[NastyWoman]

Nov 14, 2018 22:24:11 GMT -5 Pants said:

Nov 14, 2018 21:33:49 GMT -5 oped said:

. 
. 

Also, you DS is at the age where misogyny really starts hitting boys hard. I would wonder if that's a part of it. (the "dad does what mom says" was the big indicator that makes me think this is likely.) I would have your DH start having some talks with him about that stuff. Raise feminist boyssss do it. 

. 

[Sam_2.0]

Nov 15, 2018 2:10:53 GMT -5 Jaguar said:

My mom had 10 pregnancies, of which 9 made it. Mom always felt that out of her 9 kids, that her 3 sons would give her the most trouble when they hit their tweens.



The loss of this new born baby actually made me so melancholy & heartbroken. I found out her in 1987/1988 when I was 24/25 years old. My mom named her Rachel. Rachel lived 3 days

and would have been born in November 1941.

Hugs

[Wisconsin Beth]

Nov 14, 2018 21:26:07 GMT -5 swasat said:

Nov 14, 2018 21:13:44 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

Are things going okay with peers at school? That is such a tough stage.

Yeah, all cool. He is pretty much an angel outside. Loads of friends, teachers and other parents love him.

He just does not like to be ever told that he may be wrong or his behavior needs changing.

He will say something nasty to his sister or be mean to her, and when we stop him or make him accountable for his behavior he starts off with ‘favoritism’, ‘you never loved me’, ‘I will never be right in your eyes’, ‘dad will always only listen to mom’,’so you think I am useless, right?’ Etc etc.

<insert eye roll>

mine are younger but maybe try "that's not the topic at hand. You telling your sister 'blank' is"