Malika
Well-Known Member
In France there is no school on Wednesday (another strange invention of the French ) and I take him to gym class in the afternoon. The teacher is a gifted with youngsters, I would say, having just the right mix of friendliness and firmness (and teaching a gym class to 4 to 6 year olds is hardly the easiest of pedagogical assignments...)
Anyways... The teacher accepts that during the parts where all the children sit down to watch a few of them performing the moves they have practised, my son continues to run around the room and play (I do too, I suppose, although of course I would prefer if he sat with all the other children; some things with hyperactivity you just have to accept). Then he started going on the big mat where the children were performing; the teacher told him to get off and he did not. This I find unacceptable... I went up to him and told him to come off at once... again he did not. So, feeling angry and uncomprehending of this defiance and naughtiness, I announced that I was leaving and did so... crying, he followed me (it was very near the end of the gym class anyway). In the car, I was cross and spoke to him in a very cross voice saying that this is not acceptable... He began crying as though very upset and saying "Stop talking in that cross voice!" Whether or not he has ADHD, whether or not he has ODD, he just has to respect certain rules... When I pointed this out to him, he said in a silly sing-song voice "If I don't want to, I don't want to!"... Eventually, when I said that I would not tolerate this behaviour and that if he did it again, I would take him straight out of the gym class and we would not go back, he said he would not do it again... But will he?
Is there any point in trying to understand this "defiance"? As a child I would not have done this - not because I was scared of being punished but because I would not have wanted to annoy the group, to have stood out in this way... So I find it hard to "get" what this very annoying and provocative behaviour is about.
I had left him in the class by himself and returned shortly before the end... as soon as he saw me he started acting up and being naughty, which often seems to happen.
How does one get such children to respect and understand social rules???
Anyways... The teacher accepts that during the parts where all the children sit down to watch a few of them performing the moves they have practised, my son continues to run around the room and play (I do too, I suppose, although of course I would prefer if he sat with all the other children; some things with hyperactivity you just have to accept). Then he started going on the big mat where the children were performing; the teacher told him to get off and he did not. This I find unacceptable... I went up to him and told him to come off at once... again he did not. So, feeling angry and uncomprehending of this defiance and naughtiness, I announced that I was leaving and did so... crying, he followed me (it was very near the end of the gym class anyway). In the car, I was cross and spoke to him in a very cross voice saying that this is not acceptable... He began crying as though very upset and saying "Stop talking in that cross voice!" Whether or not he has ADHD, whether or not he has ODD, he just has to respect certain rules... When I pointed this out to him, he said in a silly sing-song voice "If I don't want to, I don't want to!"... Eventually, when I said that I would not tolerate this behaviour and that if he did it again, I would take him straight out of the gym class and we would not go back, he said he would not do it again... But will he?
Is there any point in trying to understand this "defiance"? As a child I would not have done this - not because I was scared of being punished but because I would not have wanted to annoy the group, to have stood out in this way... So I find it hard to "get" what this very annoying and provocative behaviour is about.
I had left him in the class by himself and returned shortly before the end... as soon as he saw me he started acting up and being naughty, which often seems to happen.
How does one get such children to respect and understand social rules???