Rock and a Hard Place

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Rock and a Hard Place
1524
Thu, 11-20-2003 - 10:45am

There's something on this board that has been bothering me, and I hope I can articulate it.

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:04am
No, you know where she is in relation to the other kids in her class. It's the big fish in a little pond situation. If the teacher, instead of comparing her class to each other, compared each student to a national standard, it would have been more helpful.

However, you are overlooking the most important point, which is CHILDREN DEVELOP AT DIFFERENT RATES. Just b/c a child is "behind" at the beginning of K doesn't mean that the parents need to rush out and enroll her in Sylvan. It is very likely that the children at the bottom simply weren't ready. It is equally likely that once they are, they will zoom ahead. This is the much touting "evening out" phenomenon. A child who doesn't learn to read until 7 will not always be two years behind a child who learned to read when she was 5. It is much more likely that the 7 yo will "catch up" to the five yo. A child's development is not a steady march, like a tortoise, it happens in fits and spurts, like the hare.

It's understandable that you, as a parent, don't know this. It is scary that your child's teacher doesn't seem to understand it. Again, this is something that would cause me to question the quality of this teacher, and by extension, the school.


Edited 11/26/2003 8:07:21 AM ET by mollimayi

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:11am
But not in kindergarten. And class by class comparisons are less helpful than national/state comparisons.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:14am
<>

Interrupted or changed? So do you like your cave? I trust you avoid fire at all costs. Obviously, something so unnatural as regular daily exposure to something as visually stimulating as a fire is going to impact a human childs hard wiring process. Definitely, nature did not put fires around that a child may have to look at and expreience them daily for hours at a time. Surely such exposure is changing the hard wiring process.

To say nothing of what early life exposure to printed material could do. All that focusing on teeny tiny black squiggles on white backgrounds. Neither a human childs brain nor eyes was ever intended to have to accomodate early life hard wiring processes with regards to this! Imagine what might change as compared to the process in the totally unexposed child, if this exposure to print is allowed to happen!

Then there are electric light bulbls. But of course since you haven't made it passed fire, the light bulbs and print aren't likey issues for you and yours.

OF COURSE THE HARD WIRING PROCESSES CHANGE in response to environment. Its the POINT.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:34am
<>

Don't count on that having much to do with your child rearing self. I got the math gene too and I do alot better in those "guy" things tham most women. When my first baby was a few days old I went into work to fix something. One of the computer admins I worked with wanted to know what having a baby was *like*. I told him it was an awful lot like work. Things keep coming up which indicate some sort of situation requires attention, there is no data that clearly idnicates the source or cause of the issue, the information in the manuals focus on how things are supposed to work rather than how they are actually going. I then told him I figured any competent system administrator was ideally suited for parented hood being as it seems to require basically the same skillset, tolerance for crisis and ability to pick out and piece together minute and unrelated pieces of information from historical brain archives, patch together with the current data, and come up with the right answer. All amidst the screaching and screaming of the user community. Without resorting to tears panic or screaching oneself. You will simply think "now why is this child such a picky eater - is it a genetic predisposition, have I created the monster through environment, is it simply an instinct which needs to be moulded to fit the childs world? How would I address the problem in each case, which one do I want to start with now and how will I decide if my strategy is working or not?" In my experience, the parents with some ability to be analytical and focus on the problem, its possible causes and its possible solutions, are actually the "kid people". The ones who view too much in terms of themselves (how should I react) tend to be more stressed out and frustrated because it just simply isn't all about that.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:37am
Why?

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:37am
The people who truly enjoy challenges as exemplified by things like "how do I react in order to influence my child's behaviour" aren't "kid people". They are "self people".
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:40am
I'd like all available information - individual progress as well as comparisons.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:41am
If your child is far ahead or behind his or her peers, the parents, teacher and school system need to know that and adjust accordingly.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:42am
Yes yes yes.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-26-2003 - 8:43am
You object to a chart, rather than a verbal conference, to convey that information because it's too blunt?

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

Pages