The Next Day

I was planning to write a basically cheery post about how the Beaner woke up happy this morning, as is usual after a meltdown the previous evening, but then his teacher called. We knew he'd been taken out of the classroom a few weeks ago because he was having "body control issues," but when Al asked about it, no details were given. When his teacher called to ask that we reinforce this at home, I said that I needed to understand better what the problem was, or I wouldn't be able to reinforce whatever messages they were giving him at school.

So it turns out that the Beaner has been pushing other kids periodically, and that he's especially bad about touching other kids' work. He can't seem to focus on his own work; he wants to watch other kids work, and then interfere with whatever they're doing. This is obviously not acceptable, and he's been told (by the teacher and other staff) that if he wants to watch other kids work, he needs to keep his hands behind his back.

He seems unable to do this, however, and after messing with another kid's project today the teacher took him out of class again and talked to him about it. She asked him why he did it, and he replied, "because I wanted to." Well, that's a familiar (and frustrating) refrain.

I'm hoping we can get this under control, but at the same time I'm also a little annoyed that the school didn't bring us in earlier. Perhaps they didn't want us to overreact, but now the situation is dire, and I'm feeling the pressure to fix it fast or face having the Beaner be ejected from the class. Ugh.

Posted by Lori in parenthood and school at 10:51 AM on November 1, 2007