Little Miss Naughty-Pants

I think the teacher sounds fine (even quite good).

Yeah, it's a problem. The first time she said something was at the open house and she said it with the it's-a-problem-face. The second time she actually sent a note home because Ducklet has gotten her clip moved every day this week -- twice as far as yellow.

I agree.

Oh. It's a problem then.

Has she (the teacher) given you any ideas on how to handle it from your end, yet? If not, might be worth asking...

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I need to probably have a conference with her after the break. I'm going to try giving Ducklet squinney's speech if she got her clip moved again today.

That's a good idea, maybe the freeducks could practice kindergarten at home.

Great idea, lilk.

Maybe make it a game at dinner. Have a red and green piece of paper and take turns each night. Mom goes first to show how it's done. Then let Naughty Pants be in charge the second night. She gets to choose when to put the red or green paper on the table. She can put the red one on in the middle of Dad talking, replace it with the green real fast, etc.

Oh, and use exagerated faces and gestures to emphasize. When green is on the table, smile, laugh, talk, be happy and animated. When red is on the table lower your eyes to your plate, be silent and serious as you eat in silence.

Oh, putting her in control of telling us when to be quiet will be quite entertaining.

Perhaps down the road Ducklet-in-Charge could be a special treat after a week of not having her clip moved once.

Personally, I'd like to see it done the other way around with teachers.

Instead of moving the clip with bad behavior (negative) I'd like them to move it when they are being good (positive). They should be reinforcing good behavior immediately (seeing the clip move when caught being good) rather than waiting until the end of the week to reward them for NOT doing something all week. (Not talking, Not getting out of line, Not getting up from chair, etc)

Move the clip and positively promote good behavior rather than move the clip to punish bad behavior. The kids would pay more attention to their own behavior in order to see their clip race across the board each day and hoping to be first to reach the goal (other side of the board - like a horse racing game). As it is set up in Naughty Pants classroom, and most others around the world, the kids look up in panic when they see the teacher approaching the board, dreading to see if their clip will be moved for some infraction they may not have even been aware of.

Think of when they get to the real world. As worker bee's we get praise and recognition for doing something well / right. We do not get praise and recognition for NOT doing something. Has yur boss ever come to you and said "Thank you so much for NOT talking during the meeting today. I'm going to give you Friday off since you did not talk." No, your boss comes and says "Thank you for speaking up in the meeting today. Your input was valuable. How about you take Friday off as a little reward for your hard work." Or, "Thanks for not starting a food fight during our luncheon with the CEO of X Brand Company." How weird would that be???

Well I have another chatter box here, and we've had this problem SINCE
Kindergarten, so it will most likely continue, FreeDuck

Actually, our teacher "hired" little Jane as teacher's aid and as soon
as Jane was finished with an assignment (she always finished first), she
started helping other kids quietly. This gave her a sense of responsibility
and also kept her busy.

Well, the behavior report we got on Friday indicates that she doesn't follow directions and has to be asked several times before she does what she is supposed to do. Now, she does this at home, like most kids, but I expected her to do better at school. I'm sure some of this has to do with the talking. Like, she's so busy chatting she's not listening to the teacher.

I think we are just going to have to sit with the teacher and try to find out exactly what's going on. We've already talked to her and told her we'd like to schedule a conference after the break. We'll see what happens.

This is kind of out of left field, but I remember you mentioning that Duckie has had some problems with earwax -- are you sure her hearing is OK? How we first found out that sozlet was having hearing problems was that she wasn't following directions at school (she wasn't hearing 'em...)

At any rate, having a good talk with the teacher sounds like a great idea.

Thanks for bringing that up. I did consider that and she did tell me that she doesn't hear the teacher (that's why she doesn't follow directions). But she just had her annual checkup in July and they said her hearing was normal, so I'm leaning toward the scenario that she doesn't hear because she's talking or others near her are talking. I've been to her classroom in the morning and she is definitely NOT the only chatterbox in the class.

Maybe I should have her hearing rechecked, though. Or at least check for wax.

Miss Naughty-Pants has managed to not get her clip moved past green all week. (They go in order of brown, green, yellow, red, brown being no offenses, with green being a warning, and so on.) That was her goal for this week and so far she's done it. Yesterday she stayed on brown all day! She seems to be adjusting.

When I talked to her teacher again on Tuesday she indicated that they were trying to get all of the children, not just her, to listen and follow directions and that this is apparently an adjustment time for kids entering kindergarten. So I feel a lot better about it and I feel like the things we said to her and the approach we took with her have been effective. So thanks everyone for the great ideas!

Hey, good job! Yeah, starting kindergarten is major adjustment time. Also there is the thing that Swimpy said on littlek's teacher-advice thread -- "Don't smile until Christmas." Basically, teachers start at maximum disciplinarian level and then ease up from there. (Easier and more effective to do it that way than the other way 'round.)

A little update: we have good weeks and bad weeks, in an alternating pattern. Last week was a bad week -- two yellow lights and a red(!) light. She's never been on red before and was genuinely ashamed. She told me she didn't want to go to school on Friday because she was embarrassed about having been on red the day before and she didn't want them to say why she wouldn't get anything from the treasure chest. Some digging unearthed that she didn't move her clip to green when she was told to, which got her immediately kicked up to yellow. So we talked about how she wouldn't have gotten on red if she had done the right thing when moving to green. I think she understands that.

Another thing is that she seems susceptible to peer pressure, not that she needs any to be the naughty pants she is. But sometimes she'll tell me things like "Josie said we wouldn't get in trouble if we run in the hall". I say, well, the teacher says you will get in trouble -- who should you listen to, Josie or the teacher? She seems seriously confused about that. It's like she doesn't recognize authority at all. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I seem to remember that Duckie was very concerned about peers at this age too.

Oh, man -- I know they have to teach kids to pay attention in school and not disrupt others, etc., but I hate this kind of thing. I'm not real fond of the treasure box reward system either. My kids survived both so it's not that big a deal, but I really wish they wouldn't focus so much on behavioral modification techniques. Something tells me that Duckie will quickly learn to despise clips.

Yeah, she definitely has negative feelings toward the discipline system. I guess that's the way it should be, but it's tough. She definitely feels shame about it, but hasn't put two and two together yet about controlling her impulses.