Not Mixing In School

lilmissprincess

Our son is in Junior Infants, he'll be six at the end of March. He's been in childcare (creche/montessori) for the previous three years before he started school, so he's always been around other kids. He previously had some issues where he would need to be on his own for a little while after playing with kids but we put this down to him just needing his own space as well, and this was facilitated well in the childcare we had him in.

Since he started school, he's been in trouble almost constantly for rough play, for being disruptive, you name it, we've gotten a call about it. He's a very boisterous kid, bull in a china shop, but when it came to actual sit down lessons he's been very good and able to concentrate. It seems that when things get a bit looser, he kind of loses the run of himself, and winds up getting in trouble. The school have introduced movement breaks, on our asking, which seem to be doing a little bit.

The real problem now seems to be that he isn't mixing with any kids. He had isolated himself last term because he seemed to associate playing with other kids with getting in trouble, and he came home last night and told us nobody will play with him and the only thing he does at lunch time is "play lonely". My heart is breaking for him. He's a lot - he's no angel and I know that - but school seems to be draining the joy out of my little boy.

Our meetings with the teacher ended in them telling us to get our kid assessed for behavioural issues. We've agreed to do so, even though we have the feeling that the previous childcare places would have pointed something out by now if they had spotted an issue (we spoke to them, they said they never saw anything). We've been told it's years of waiting, or we can pay to get privately assessed which seems to be our only (very expensive) option. I understand that the school are coming from the "we can reduce our ratio if you get given an SNA" approach but it feels like they're passing off everything onto this instead of actually trying to help our son.

Has anyone else dealt with any of this? I'm sorry for the rant, it kind of went into a stream of conciousness because everything has just been piling up. Any tips to help our little boy with making friends, or negotiating the "get your kid assessed" thing would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

tickingclock

Hi, I've no advice on the assessment side of things. I'd imagine as a parent that's it's very hard and upsetting. My only suggestion would be if you knew a parent from dropping or picking up or the parents of the boy he sits beside that you could ask him over to play or arrange to meet the boy and one of his parents in a play ground or play centre. If he got friendly with someone in class that might make break time easier.
I hope all will be ok for him and you

jlm29

Firstly, I would say that the girls in the crèche might not be qualified to say that there’s nothing amiss. They’re looking at kids at a different life stage, and the teacher is looking for age appropriate behaviours, both social and educational. So I wouldn’t get too bogged down about that when making decisions.
But.
When my son was in JI his teacher was always telling me how clumsy he was. She never said it, but I knew she thought he was dyspraxic. She told me one day there was “another child” in the class with dyspraxia, and I knew she meant in addition to my son. I didn’t feel he was, but agreed to get an OT and physio assessment. The physio wait list was short, and he agreed with me that he couldn’t see any major issue. I told the teacher I wasn’t prepared to go privately based on the physio opinion (there’s no private ot service locally, so I’d have had to take him out of school, I’d have done it if I was worried, but I wasn’t). I felt at the time that they were trying to make a bit more work for the resource teacher. We waited a year and a half for ot assessment (publicly), and that revealed nothing. So I was glad I stood my ground.
If you’re genuinely not worried, and you don’t think there’s anything wrong, I’d get him referred publicly and wait. If you think there might be something to their concerns, I’d pay the money.

bringupthebook

School is such a big jump from preschool. My confident son took a few terms before he found his feet in the school yard. So many more kids, many as confident as him all coming together and there were was often rough play as a result. Often if kids are given a bit of space and time they settle in.

Kids behaviour change over time. Go the public route - no harm in assessment anyway.

byhookorbycrook

He may have frightened the other children with his rough play , which is why they aren’t too eager to engage with him at break .

Does he sleep well? Get plenty outdoor time ? Spend much times on screens? Could you invite a child to come over at some stage and see how that goes ?
Is the teacher aware that he isn’t playing with other children ?

Not sure what you mean re “reducing the ratio” and an SNA?

shesty

I'm also curious as to why the school haven't given you a bit more direction on assessment.Do they not have to be involved - even partially - in an application or in the assessment process?

whiskeyman

The creche aren't trained to say anything on behavioural issues, and many have to be very careful what they say.
Don't assume just because they said nothing that nothing was amiss then.
Teachers too have to be very careful what they say to parents.
Take their guidance and get the required assessments. A lot of this will really be in your hands and you'll need to inform yourselves to all that's out there.
(That's all I know, but I'm about to take same road). There's a lot of posters here or more threads in search that will probably be useful.

He's still young so early intervention is key if there is anything to be addressed.

Best of luck.

screamer

I feel so sorry for your little boy. We all just want our children to have happy carefree days at school. I can relate to how you feel as my daughter also suffered exclusion. In my experience kids that are in any way different from
the herd are left out, including being too boisterous, too smart, too quiet etc. In my experience teachers are less than helpful. It might be worth your while talking with your little boy about how he feels, find out if there are any kids he is friendly with and see if you could arrange for them to play in a kids play center or somewhere you get to see him at his ease playing. It’s very possible that your son is acting out due to loneliness in school, personally this assessment stuff would be a very secondary thought.

byhookorbycrook

shesty wrote: »

I'm also curious as to why the school haven't given you a bit more direction on assessment.Do they not have to be involved - even partially - in an application or in the assessment process?

Most school psychologists can’t diagnose anything behavioral - they can only diagnosed things like dyslexia.If the child is to be assessed by the HSE , the HSE may send a form to the school for their input .

jopax

Hi op,
I really feel for you & your little boy. My son started junior infants this year too. It took him a while to settle in. He is wired with energy & I was worried that when he started that he wouldn't sit still.
I was gobsmacked when the teacher called me to say he had hit a boy 2 days in a row for no reason. He was actually playing with him when this happened, my son owned up to it straight away but couldn't day why he did it. Eventually I got it out of him that the boy had been saying mean things to him.
I was mortified as I know like you said he's not an angel but would never be mean either.
Anyway the point of my story was that the teacher was excellent & so understanding & was amazed herself at his behaviour as he was so well behaved other ways.
What she did suggest if we wanted is that they have a kind of a social group where they bring them together & work on their social skills, teaching them how to play nicely together.
I know from my daughter's school they had s similar set up where they would bring them together also & work with them also.
I'm just wondering if there was such a set up in yours son's school as that could help immensely & bring up his self esteem.
I just assumed all schools had such a thing implemented.
Really they should be trying to work with you on this together rather than just throw it back at you.

I wonder if you could enquire if they did have something like that in place or maybe consider putting it into place.
Your son cannot be the only child struggling with this, they need to be taught & helped by the school.
Please keep us updated on what transpires.

Don’t be too quick to jump down the behavioural issues route anyway - he’s 5.
He’s young and full of beans is all, he’ll calm down as he gets older.
I was the exact same at his age, ‘teacher thought there was something “wrong” with me, insisted on my parents sending me to a shrink to be seen (they saw nothing aberrant, I was just very boisterous and playful).

It’s as if there’s something bizarre that a young boy would rather be running around exploring and having fun, not sitting there quietly at a desk in a little grey uniform writing lines - anyway I just graduated from an MSc and am pretty laid back so evened out fine in the end (just delighted I didn’t grow up in America or I almost certainly would’ve been medicated ), he’ll be fine.

Other than that I would just have a word with him and explain that actions have consequences and that if he plays too rough that means other kids might not want to play the next time and for him to keep that in mind and not go too rough.

Noodleworm

It sounds like some of this might be down to him not having a good framework for playing while being respectful of others.
It's not a binary about being active vs sedentary, a kid can be active but not rough - rough implies he's not being nice to other kids and that why they are avoiding him.
It sounds like a good situation for him to work on social skills, To understand other people might not like to play the same way he does, but he can figure out what bits they dont like and what bits they do.