Help

Ok here is my situation. My boys started kindergarten :itwins_boys: this year. They are in the same class, I asked for them to be separated but that request was denied (that is a whole other discussion topic) , and it seems they keep testing the boundries with their teacher. They are constantly disobeying her and bothering each other. She is at her wits end as well as I. :cry: It seems like they don't care if they get into trouble. It seems the problem is with each other. I have not gotten any reports as to them "bothering" the other children.
Has anyone else had this problem and how did you deal with it. Is 5 to young to start "grounding" and taking things away for more than a day?

HELP ME PLEASE :huh:

 

My children are in separate classes but our issue arose at recess, one of the times they were together. One of my children was causing the issues and the other one was always the victim. I do not think that 5 is too young. I know one of the teacher's told me that they were taking care of it at school and that I should not take action at home but clearly them taking care of it at school was not working since the behavior was happening everyday so I felt I had to do something. I was pretty harsh because even taking away what was special to them was not working. It ended up that the one causing the issues spent a couple nights in their room, I am talking I got home from work, they went to their room, came out for dinner and then went right back all the while me and their sibling were doing something especially fun (one time it was coloring Easter eggs). Honestly, it broke my heart to do it as much as it broke my child's but after a couple nights of such severe punishment we have not had an issue since (hope I am not jinxing myself, that was years ago). I received daily notes home with just a quick, great day kind of thing for a couple months so I knew exactly how the day went then we established that we were over the hump after having great reports for a couple months straight so the notes stopped.


Do you know if there is am instigator/victim or does it change? If you are going to implement some kind of action at home I would just make sure that you know exactly what happened so the correct action is taken (obviously if there is always the same victim you wouldn't want to take any punishment/action towards that child).

 

It isn't a specific child. They take turns. It depends on who is in what mood that day.
Part of the reason I think is that I have shared custody and they split their time between two houses. I try and enforce my punishments while their father will listen to me and yes me to death and do what he pleases.
It is like they feel the rules don't apply to them. I will have to be the bad guy and make sure that they understand when they make a choice there is a result good or bad.

 

My children go to their dad's too but only on the weekend, how often are they at which home? If the children are with dad is there anyway at all to get him on board? Maybe have him talk to the teacher to get a grip on how serious this is?

I too am always the bad guy (since they are only gone on the weekends) and while, like I said, my heart broke having to crack the whip so to speak, I am glad I didn't let it progress and now that horrible time is far in our past. I was literally making myself physically sick with concern. I would watch the clock and at the time that recess was happening I would do this internal chant "I know you can do it, I know you can do". It wasn't until alot of those "great day" notes came home that I actually let myself believe that we might be over the hump.

I hope you find something that works for your children and are able to get dad to understand how important it is to be together when it comes to things like this!!!

 

I did not have this problem and mine were in the same K class. My suggestion would be to maybe come up with some type of behavior chart at home. Have the teacher send home a note each day and based on that you decide what type of privledges they do or don't have at home for the afternoon/evening based on the report.

As far as not caring if they get in trouble I would find something that is important to them and use that to your advantage. I know for my kids different things work differently. My son does not like TV/Video Games/Computer taken away. That doesn't affect my daughter as much. My daughter HATES to be sent to her room with nothing to do. She also hates having her MP3 player taken away. Whatever you decide I think you need to be consistent and follow through with the consequence.

Good luck!

 

Another thing could be if you appealed the decision to keep them together. Use the proof that they are not getting along and are disruptive to others in the class. Maybe since there have been problems, they may be willing to switch one into another class? Other than that, I have no idea, except t be consistent with punishment so they know you mean business.

Best of luck!!