My boys loves the Hockey Program in Burbank
“Right now, we’re treating him as if he’s special needs…no different than if he were in a wheel chair.”
“As of right now, we’ve done all we can for him.”
“There is no way you should send him to kindergarten next year.”
Yes, you’re reading that correctly. My son, at age 4, was attending United Methodist Preschool in Burbank when his preschool teacher said those things to me about him in a conference. And that’s just the short list…I took notes.
I said WAS attending because he never went back after that day. I promptly left in tears of anger at the insults, insensitivity and flat out ignorant words that were thrown at me that day.
Is there such a thing as boy discrimination?
Throughout his time he had been attending Methodist, I had developed a kind of anxiety dropping him off. This teacher, whom he adored, would say things to him (in front of me) “We want you to stay at this school,” with an intended threat of dismissal. She said them to me too… “We really want Hayden to continue here.”
If you know my son, he is active, with a capitol A. He’s high energy. He likes to build things and knock them over. He likes to chase you and be chased, he likes to hug and run and jump and make loud noises.
He. Is. A. Boy.
In the 4 months he attended that school, the impression that I got, was that this particular teacher expected all of the kids in the room to behave like girls. Hey, I’ve got two girls, they are completely different than my boy. I can’t give specific examples of that in the classroom, except that I was told he had a hard time sitting still and listening.
Yeah, so? He’s four. He’s a he. He’s smart and active.
Active, brave, bold…. all things a boy should be allowed to be.
He was reciting books we read at night verbatim, without being able to read himself.
He’s probably like a lot of your boys. Smart, active, rough, funny, dirty, loud and all boy.
In that conference I was told that Hayden “is happy”, “makes eye contact well”, “sits in circle time appropriately”, “asks and answers questions other kids don’t get”, “is a huge lover”, “loves to give hugs to his friends” and “is genuinely concerned when other children are hurt”….
…followed by “we believe he’s socially delayed.”
AND
… “We’re not saying he has ADHD, but…. if he does, I certainly don’t think medicine is the right way to go.”
AND
“If you teach him to hold a pencil before he’s ready you will delay his development even further.”
What the what??!
I left Methodist immediately.
I’m going to make a disclaimer. I think this was a teacher issue, NOT a school issue. I have a lot of friends, maybe many of you, whom attended/attend this very popular preschool. I believe this was a teacher issue.
Hayden as an old man on his 100th day of 1st grade
The therapist spend a full hour and a half with him. He did everything under the sun to test his activity level, his fine motor skills, his attention, his eye contact, his ability to follow direction and use his muscles….you name it.
When it was done, the young lady said to me, “He’s absolutely fine.” She agreed that she doesn’t see him on a daily basis, but in her experience he’s a highly active, very bright boy who has some sensory seeking tendencies… “Nothing in which cannot be solved on the playground.”
All things I already knew about my son. Because, he’s my son and I know him well.
I got the printout from that session and made an appointment with the then director of Methodist Preschool. She is no longer there, as I’m told.
In the meantime, I decided to talk to the principal at my daughter’s school. Her school has a Junior Kindergarten program. He was a little young to go, but both he and the JK teacher said to just bring him in for a few trial days. They knew nothing about the Methodist experience. I wanted a complete viewpoint of someone who knew nothing about my son.
He flourished. Within one week he was cutting with scissors and (GASP) holding a pencil correctly in the beginning stages of writing his name!
The JK teacher told me he was a very typical boy and she loved boys. She allowed him extra play time if he was having a hard time sitting or focusing. She allowed him to stand when doing any work if he needed to.
She got it. We kept him at that school for the remainder of the year.
Because of her, his Kindergarten (yes, I sent him, because as his parents, myself and my husband knew it was the right thing to do for him) and First Grade experiences have been spectacular. Beyond spectacular. As a matter of fact, he has gotten straight A’s on the first three report cards of this year, and I’m guessing the next one will be too. (I don’t put a strong emphasis on straight A’s in our home, just FYI…he’s just academically gifted) He has only had a few behavior issues in the classroom, none of which are out of the norm by any accounts.
I am going to make it clear again, I have nothing against Methodist Preschool. We enjoy all activities we do there and are looking forward to Vacation Bible School. They have amazing classes for our kids and parents alike. I do believe this has everything to do with the teacher and not the philosophy of the school. I’d be interested to find out if that teacher is still there and what the atmosphere of the school is with the new preschool director.
I share all of this because I watched a video today.
This video….
My boy and I on Pacific Pier
Boys and girls are in fact different. Vastly different. They differ in brain growth, size, emotions, pace of development, all different from the womb. I’m not a mom who orders my son to “talk about your feelings”. I don’t judge any of you who do, but I simply disagree with this as a sole tactic to get our boys to express themselves.
My favorite quote from the video: “We need to start thinking about how we can make our grade school classrooms more boy friendly.”
I do think there is a war on boys in our culture…
…and I’m on the boys’ side.
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Welcome to Burbank. You and your boy are gonna love dealing with the dessicated specimens at BUSD.
No.
My daughter’s homeschooled. For lots of reasons, but I’ve found that when she’s trying really hard to assimilate some new information or new skill, she needs to MOVE while she’s doing so. Lots of wiggle and jumping around. Could you imagine her doing that in a classroom? I sure can. I don’t like what I’m imagining.
And she’s a girl! Acting, in your words, “like a boy.”
Cut it out with the gender essentialism, OK? You’re using YOUR kids to represent EVERYBODY. Did it never occur to you maybe your kids act the way they do because they take after you and your husband, not because of which sex chromosomes they got?
There probably are a few minor gender differences in brains for most kids… note I said “minor”… and “most”… but you also find a LOT of variation WITHIN a gender.
Where there are obvious differences you can frequently put it down to genetics (as in regular traits, not sex-based ones) OR the fact that girls are told to sit down and shut up a lot more often than boys are at home. I don’t do that with my daughter unless she is *really* energetic. So she hasn’t learned to shut down yet.
I think this “war on boys” crap is just an excuse to let girls’ progress backslide when girls aren’t even as far along as they need to get yet in society in order to be equally successful. I think in the grand scheme of things, teachers are just overwhelmed by the number of students each of them has to teach. Thirty kids to one teacher, or more, is NOT a reasonable child:adult ratio and is probably at the root of many of the failures of public school.
I’m not saying your son’s teacher was blameless. Sounds like she just plain has issues and the already-existing dysfunctional dynamics of the classroom only made her worse.
Dana,
First of all, thank you for taking the time to read my post and respond. One of the things I love most about publishing this blog and in life in general, is discovering the differences in all of us. I do appreciate hearing from my readers and seeing how different or similar we see things. Thank you for sharing.
We obviously see things differently, and I can certainly appreciate that.
Kudos to you for homeschooling your daughter. You seem to be an advocate for her the same as we all are for our children.
Thank you for sharing Dana.
I love this article. I too have a very active son and we suffered a teacher in my sons second grade who absolutely HATED his active energy, enthusiasm, and decided to use negative consequences only for normal. 2nd grade boy behavior. He spend the entire year never, ever getting a treasure from the “treasure box” despite all of the other kids getting something every day. He had a third grade teacher that thought he was wonderful and he flourished. I wish, in hindsight, I had plucked him. But, you live and learn.
I do a blog about women and our gender pressures but boys are discriminating against all the time for just reacting to their testosterone. I love that you wrote this and found a fit for your wonderful son.
Thank you Cherilynn for this. I obviously know where you’re coming from. Amazing what the right teacher can do to change the trajectory of a child’s path. Thanks for reading and posting!
BRAVO Burbank mom I too have a ” challenging” son and agree wholeheartedly that schools need to change to create better environments in which boys can flourish.
IS SOME OF IT OUR FAULT AS PARENTS?
As the mother of 3 boys, I love this blog post. Thank you for writing it. One comment I would like to add is that sometimes parents are just as guilty as our schools. Boys (and girls) come home from school and are allowed to SIT and play video games for hours, or they are put in a car and shuttled from one structured activity to another.
My middle son is very creative and loves to pretend play much more than my other two. Upon starting 1st grade (his first time in all day school) he came home tired. Thinking I was doing the right thing, I recommended that he sit and watch TV to rest. After about two weeks of this he came to me crying saying he hated school – this from an extroverted, optimistic kid! I was shocked. We had also put him in soccer on Saturdays. He said to my husband and me, “I just want one day when I can do nothing.”
Finally it hit me — this creative, pretending kid had no outlet and no time for his creativity and part of it was MY fault. We immediately pulled him out of soccer and stopped screen time after school. This worked like a magic pill! He finally had time to dress up like a Power Ranger, to run, to build things out of Legos… to be HIM, the boy that God made him to be. AND he no longer hated school.
End of story — parents, don’t over schedule your kids (girls or boys) and make sure you aren’t contributing to the problem like I was guilty of doing.
Great post, Jessica! I wish more parents would trust the intuition God gives them. Way to go on advocating for your son! And to Carrie’s comment, congratulations, Carrie, for paying attention! 🙂