Conference today

[butterfly31972]

Today is difficult child's first conference of the year. The teacher has 20 years of experience. She has not seen any of the behaviors that I see from my son because he has been fully medicated at school. That is until two weeks ago, he started acting out and may need an adjustment to his medications. He was set off by her reaction to his not doing his homework to her satisfaction and her voicing it quite loudly in front of the class. She is very vocal and pulls no punches when it comes to someone not doing their homework neatly, correctly, etc.

Then, I find out a couple of days ago that he had recess totally taken from him one day for misbehavior in the hallway. First of all, I think taking away recess should be illegal!!!GRRRR!!! Especially for a child with ADHD. I spoke with the psychologist and she said she would speak to the teacher if need be. I think I will need to get it written in his IEP that the whole recess cannot be taken from him. What do you think? I have never called an IEP meeting before.

So please wish me luck at 3:30 pm eastern time that this is a successful conference and not a SCARY one. MMMMWWWWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[susiestar]

Here is to hoping that you can reach an agreement on what difficult child needs and will be provided. Do not hesitate to call and IEP meeting if you think that changes need to be made. YOU are able to call a meeting - just as you are a full member of the IEP team.

As for recess, can you suggest that instead of taking recess away they have difficult child walk around the edges of the playground in a big loop for recess or for however many minutes they want to take recess away?

Our state legislature decided about 3 years ago that every child MUST have recess. NO child can be kept inside and denied recess. They linked this to the growing weight problems our kids have. Temperatures were even set for when it is too cold or too hot to have recess outside. Inside recess is required to be in the gym or other space where kids can be active.

Now our teachers give kids "quiet walks" or "noisy walks" or "walk and talk". Quiet walks mean walking the perimeter and not talking. Noisy walks are walking the perimeter and yelling or shouting all the anger/pent up vocal energy/whatever out. It works very well for students who cannot stop talking in class. Of course the child is not forced to scream or yell after their voice gets tired, no screaming until the voice is gone, but they do have to be louder than an indoor voice.

Walk and talk is done before school every day. It is optional at that time, but strongly recommended. Kids who are on early buses or who are dropped off early walk the perimeter of the playground and chat.

Walk and talk recess is for kids who chronically chat with each other during class. They must spend recess walking together and chatting it all out.

These are strategies that our teachers say IMPROVE the behavior in the classroom. Kids are not as restless, do not have so much energy built up so they can pay attention in class. Chronic chatters work most of it out and do NOT get to chat with other kids than they chat with, so these social butterflies try hard to not get this. They want to talk with everyone, not just the 1 or 2 people they chat with during class.

Maybe your teachers can try these, or you can make them part of his IEP. Ironically, these recess consequences started as another parent's battle to keep school from taking recess away from her child. When the legislature banned taking recess away from kids the teachers started to use what was in one child's IEP with many of the kids.

ALL parents and faculty have been SHOCKED at how well this works for ALL of the students!

Wishing you a good, problem solving conference!

 

[tictoc]

I hope your meeting went well. By all means, if you did not get satisfaction today, call an IEP meeting and request that recess not be taken away. I can't believe teachers still persist in thinking this does more good than harm

susiestar: I love "walk and talk" recess. I'm going to mention that to my difficult child's teacher.

 

[butterfly31972]

I decided to request an IEP meeting. We did not discuss the recess today as we had so many other things to discuss in the few minutes we are allotted. I am going to have to bring this up firmally in the IEP meeting that I have called.

I have never heard of "walk and talk" recess. These ideas are wonderful!!!

Otherwise, the conference was positive.