DD started kindergarten...opinions pls

[crystal8080]

I'm starting to get worried about that little girl.

Looking for opinions on this. My daughter is very bright. I have spent a lot of time getting her ready for school, teaching her what she needs to know. She can count to about 49 before she asks what comes next. But she gets the principle idea all the way to 100.

She is quick to understand concepts. I taught her fractions cutting up a watermelon, and she understood. Knows all the shapes, colours, alphabet. Her playgroup teacher says she's very ready for kindergarten.

However, she has big problems with her emotions. Actually the more I talk about it, the more she sounds like ME.

So, the last 2 days have been kindergarten half days to decide which kids will go to Kindergarten and which kids will go to the Kindergarten/Grade 1 class.

When I went to pick her up she was sitting at the table pouting. A quick circle time to say goodbye and my kid is trying to hug a girl who doesn't really like her and was seriously pushing her away like NO. Before she stopped.

So after we left I asked her why she was at the table. I assume she was having a fit and decided not to help clean up. But no, the teacher told her to sit there. Doesn't want to tell me why.

Finally she tells me that she was throwing toys. Why? Because a boy was playing "lion" with her (her game) and pretended to have a knife. So she threw a toy at him. At his face. A wooden toy. But its ok, because he got out of the way.

Opinions please? My husband thinks this is fairly normal since the kids are worked up about school, but uh..i don't think throwing hard toys at someone's face is ever 'normal'...changes or not.

Is this the start of things to come? She is very bossy in general and I'm afraid she is about to become "that kid". You know what I mean.

[SquarePeg]

Being bright, prepping her for kindergarten etc has nothing to do with emotional maturity and social skills, so don´t confuse the two. Social skills are learnt through play with other kids and at kindergarten, playgroups etc. Don´t be too hard on her she needs time to settle and learn how to get along with other kids her own age, which is a little different to getting along with adults or different aged kids. She may be bossy at home but she´ll soon find out that being bossy doesn´t work for her at kindergarten. Let her find her own way. The whole class needs to get along as a group. If you want to help her, let her mix with other kids her own age outside of kindergarten and work out how to get along with them, resist the urge to intervene (unless of course it´s getting out of hand or physical). BTW some people like bossy, I am very indecisive and love my "bossy" friends!!

[sarahsweets]

Do you think your daughter has adhd? I know my youngest has adhd but we didnt realize it right away due to her emotional outbursts. This was before I knew alot about adhd and emotional regulation.

[Geno]

Well, one thing I would do is demand the reason she put my child there, especially if she was trying to hide it.

[JANAE]

My 4 yr old son spent alot of time in the daycare front office. I think he was there more than he was with his class. This was before we had the diagnosis of ADHD/ODD, but he has had problems with behavior since he was 3. He has been evaluted through school district and goes to a special education class and is doing great so far. just an FYI.

[crystal8080]

Originally Posted by LindaGreen

Being bright, prepping her for kindergarten etc has nothing to do with emotional maturity and social skills, so don´t confuse the two. Social skills are learnt through play with other kids and at kindergarten, playgroups etc. Don´t be too hard on her she needs time to settle and learn how to get along with other kids her own age, which is a little different to getting along with adults or different aged kids. She may be bossy at home but she´ll soon find out that being bossy doesn´t work for her at kindergarten. Let her find her own way. The whole class needs to get along as a group. If you want to help her, let her mix with other kids her own age outside of kindergarten and work out how to get along with them, resist the urge to intervene (unless of course it´s getting out of hand or physical). BTW some people like bossy, I am very indecisive and love my "bossy" friends!!

Social skills is the big reason I've been taking her to playgroups the last few years. Difference being...I'M THERE. She was doing well by the end of last school year, maybe it is an issue of getting to settle in. Maybe she does just need to learn what is acceptable and what is not in a new place and i'm concerned over nothing.

Originally Posted by sarahsweets

Do you think your daughter has adhd? I know my youngest has adhd but we didnt realize it right away due to her emotional outbursts. This was before I knew alot about adhd and emotional regulation.

Yes, I think so. We all know it presents differently, and its the emotional regulation that worries me. Hard to know what is normal and what isn't that's why I'm asking.

Originally Posted by Geno

Well, one thing I would do is demand the reason she put my child there, especially if she was trying to hide it.

I'm thinking of signing up for a teacher interview they have available to find out. We will know who her teacher is on Monday, so I should have a talk with the teacher and she what he or she thinks.

Originally Posted by JANAE LUISI

My 4 yr old son spent alot of time in the daycare front office. I think he was there more than he was with his class. This was before we had the diagnosis of ADHD/ODD, but he has had problems with behavior since he was 3. He has been evaluted through school district and goes to a special education class and is doing great so far. just an FYI.

DD never went to daycare. But there are quite a few times I have had to intervene during playgroup. I can recall a few times having to take her home and causing a huge tantrum when other kids would just leave quietly. She is quite big for her age and its really not easy to remove her from the class while also carrying her little brother

[zette93]

I'm having trouble figuring out how old your daughter is. Has she recently turned 4, or is she turning 5 soon? Is the class the beginning of elementary school, or something you do before entering elementary?

(In the US, most 4 yo are in pre-school, most 5 yo are in kindergarten, and most 6 yo are in first grade. Kids with fall birthdays might be a year older due to missing a birthday cutoff or their parents choosing to wait an extra year. In Australia, the 4 yo class is called kindergarten, the 5 yo class is "prep", and the 6 yo start first grade. What are theses classes called in Canada?)

I'd definitely ask for a teacher conference to get her observations. Given your other post about the constant chatter, I'd also consider having her evaluated for ADHD and/or ASD.

There are some good experential social skills classes that might be worth doing.

[crystal8080]

I've heard of pre-K for 4 year olds. I took my kids to a program in-school for kids 0-5 that is offered by my province. It's to get children ready for school. However, most people don't know about the program, and it isn't offered at every school. My daughter turned 5 in April.

Children starting kindergarten this year must be turning 5 by December 31st of this year. You can wait another year if you wish, I know a lot of parents with December babies decide to do just that. So, this year the kids will be born 2007 (or 2006)

Again, going to that program was for developing those social skills. That is why I took her. It wasn't to teach her her ABC's. I wanted her to play with other kids, do the transitions, listen to the facilitator (not a teacher, an Early Childhood Educator) and I thought by the end of it she was going to do ok. She knew some kids who were also starting kindergarten, I thought I had done everything I could to get her ready.

Now my anxiety is pretty high thinking she is going to have the same ****ty childhood I did.

[zette93]

Just realized I got mixed up in the chattering thread and thought crystal8080 was the author of the thread started by justchillin4now. So please disregard my suggestion about testing for ASD.

[mommytriz]

Originally Posted by crystal8080

Again, going to that program was for developing those social skills. That is why I took her. It wasn't to teach her her ABC's. I wanted her to play with other kids, do the transitions, listen to the facilitator (not a teacher, an Early Childhood Educator) and I thought by the end of it she was going to do ok. She knew some kids who were also starting kindergarten, I thought I had done everything I could to get her ready.

I am assuming you are talking about the strongstart programs. I took my kids to this as well and just in case you haven't stayed with your child in the K class I can tell you there is a world of difference. Strongstart usually had 3 to 4 year olds plus siblings and very little structure. My daughter was a star at strongstart as well as in Montessori pre school, but K was not good. Our K teacher had very little patience for an immature 5 year old. There was innadequate supervision in my opinion. The teacher let things go too long expecting kids to "work it out" at 4 - 5 years old. K is pretty demanding for these little ones and you definitely can't compare strongstart to K at all.

At strongstart there weren't kids calling my kid names, being mean, not sharing or out right blackballing her from playing with a certain group. This didn't happen at pre school either and my good natured, active, amazing girl quickly got labelled as immature because she couldn't handle all this crap thrown at her.

Luckily my daughter went through the system a few years before it went to full day K or she would have been in big trouble. No way could she have handled a whole day of the stress it caused her.

We now know she has inattentive ADHD, and tests quite high in intelligence, but with the added bonus of vision dysfunction. A tough combination because she was probably bored, but couldn't show she had knowledge because she tuned out.

My biggest advise is to try to volunteer in the class and observe for yourself what is happening. I heard endlessly about my daughter's outbursts, but when I went in I saw how some of the kids behaved and didn't blame my 5 year old for getting p***ed off and emotional. She had no power in the situation so she was left with frustration she didn't know how to handle that.

[crystal8080]

Well that's just it right. You don't see the emotional impairment until she is compared to her peers. That was always where my problems were too.

She started telling me more about things that happened those 2 half days in the K class, and although I know she is on the low side of emotional regulation, I'm still not sure how much of a problem it will be for her. I do have to wait to see I think.

I now think it was just a ZOO in that classroom, and its not a place for parents to be because we have to allow the teacher to assert control.