Help! My dd is scared of her teacher - and I'm not sure why??

[Chrysalis Academy]

My little one is 6, in 1st grade at a project-based learning public charter school. I'm very involved and present - I have chaperoned a field trip, taught an owl pellet dissection lab, and I come in every week and do Math Lab with the kids. I have a good relationship with the teacher.

 

School is good for Mo at this stage in her life. She is very social and loves the time with her friends. She would be bored being at home all day every day, and with a 5th grader who needs more focused time at home working on schoolwork, going out to parks and social events every day is not feasible for us. She is doing great in school, no problems learning to read, write, do math, and she has lots of good friends.

 

The teacher is great in many ways, I actually really like her. She has odd mannerisms and facial expressions, though (hard for me to describe) - a lot of times the smile doesn't go all the way to her eyes, and she has kind of a botox frozen weird expression. It's a little odd, but I've gotten used to it. The thing is, Mo is really scared of her. Mo tells me she yells - a lot (I don't know if this is true, I haven't hear her yell) and that the teacher yells at her (Mo) more than other kids. I don't think this is true, Mo is one of the better behaved kids in the class, and the teacher seems to like her.

 

But Mo is really starting to freak out. She came home on Friday and was a basket case - sobbing her heart out - telling me the teacher was yelling at her, and she's scared, and afraid, and doesn't want to go back, doesn't want me to talk to the teacher, doesn't know what to do.

 

I emailed the teacher asking if we could meet, saying that Mo had told me she's been getting into trouble and that I wanted to touch bases with the teacher, to hear what the problems are and make sure we are on the same page - very non-threatening. She emailed back saying sure, but that there are no problems with Mo, she is a great student and a pleasure to have in class.

 

So what's up??? Why would Mo be so scared of the teacher, when the teacher doesn't even register Mo being a problem in class? I know you guys can't answer that, no one can, but what do you think I should do? Should I try to tell Mo that it's ok, the teacher isn't mad at her, some people just talk loud and she needs to get used to it? Should I tell the teacher her "yelling" is scaring Mo? I really am not sure exactly where to go with this from here. I need to get my dd past being scared of her teacher, if at all possible, because I really think this teacher, class, and school have a lot to offer her.

 

Thoughts or advice? Thank you!

[AnIslandGirl]

By any chance is your daughter a perfectionist? My DD8 would melt down when she was corrected for absolutely anything. A friendly correction on a paper would send her to tears because it wasn't perfect. (As a gifted student and many years of hearing "it's perfect", no amount of deviation was OK in her eyes). It took a lot to explain to her that corrections aren't "yelling".

 

Another possibility might be that her teacher is partially deaf or hard of hearing. There was a teacher in our local PS that didn't show much affect on her face as far as emotions and she preferred a quieter learning environment (good luck with 1st graders!). She was always telling the class to quiet down... the class as a whole, not individual children. I can see where a sensitive child would have thought the direction was centered around her.

 

Just some possibilities, as it's no fun to have a child that isn't simply tickled pink about learning! Good Luck.

[bolt.]

Many children (and adults) are afraid when people's facial expressions don't seem right to them. I think it's innate at a species level, like other phobias. (It's why there's such a thing as 'fear of clowns'.) Your daughter is probably used to using the whole face to determine an adult's emotional state -- and she is probably reasonably good at it. Knowing how the people around you are feeling is comforting. You can predict their behaviour, and so you feel secure.

 

Your daughter feels deeply insecure. She seems to be under ongoing strain of just not knowing where she stands with this teacher, not knowing how the teacher feels, not knowing what the teacher will do next. In this state of anxiety, any little thing is likely to set her off. If a teacher speaks loudly (for attention in a classroom) it is facial data that tells us, "that's not yelling". Similarly, it is facial data that helps us tell the difference between firm/serious, and quietly furious -- which kids often call 'yelling' because of the feel of it, in spite of the volume.

 

It might even just be eye contact that is freaking her out, and she is using 'yelling' more to discribe how she feels than to discribe the teacher's voice. Kids this young do use vocabulary in approximate ways like that.

 

In the interests of solving this...

 

A question for you to quietly contemplate, not for answering here, but... Is there any reason why your daughter might feel particularly threatened when she percieves someone to be angry? Are there any aspects of relationships or past experiences that might make her extra-vidgilant in monitoring the maybe-angry signs in people around her? Does she feel that an angry person might lash out at her?

 

If any of that resonates, I suggest helping her towards an overall sense of safety. For examale: if you use corporal punishment, it's already probably time to be using other techniques, just because she's getting older... and it might help her feel less threatened by (percieved) anger. Or, perhaps talk about the fact that it's against the law for people to hurt other people, and that no one can hurt her, no matter how they feel.

 

There are probably lots of internet resources, just generally, to deal with a child struggling with anxiety. It's worth gathering a nice big tool box and working through some things with her.

 

Also, if you can spend more time in the classroom as a volunteer, for the short term, that might help.

[Roadrunner]

Did she want to go to PS? I am thinking maybe she sees her older sister staying home and this is her way of saying she wants to be home.

If not, can you get her transferred to a different classroom?

[SKL]

My dd just told me last week that her teacher yells at her. She was also saying I was yelling at her when I was helping her work through some math worksheets. I was not yelling, but my voice probably got a little choppy because she needed to do a better job of focusing than she was doing.

 

I do not believe her teacher yelled. First of all, I know the woman somewhat and she's a veteran teacher who's also a parent of grown kids. She absolutely does not strike me as the type of person who would yell at a child during schoolwork. Also, her sister, who is in the same class, stated that her teacher does not yell.

 

I think my child is just sensitive / defensive because she is not doing as well as she wants to be doing. Maybe your daughter feels the same. Perhaps she needs a little reassurance that her teacher is happy with her and that she's coming along fine.

[Mommyof4ks]

My son will tell me I am yelling any time I raise my voice even slightly or if my voice changes in any way really. He was scared of a teacher he had in a class once for the same reason, and I sat in there and saw what he was talking about. It was really just his teacher telling him that he needed to write a word down, but she did it very nicely IMO, just a 'can you write down this word please' as a reminder to stay on task. I hope you get it figured out. It is hard to find the root of some problems.

[Harriet Vane]

There are many possibilities in this scenario. It is possible that your dd is accurately reporting what happens when you are not there at school.

 

My mind goes back to two teachers I had in elementary school.

 

My first grade teacher was volatile. She used to lose her temper all. the. time. She was always yelling at someone in class or being mean. If some poor child particularly offended her, she would tell the rest of the class to put our heads on our desks, and then she'd really unleash a screaming mimi on the poor soul who had done wrong. It was truly awful.

 

My third grade teacher was also a screamer. We never knew what would set her off, but the WHOLE class would suffer when she was unhappy about something. The only time I EVER saw her relax and behave was when the principal was in the room.

 

My mother never knew. These were two women who could converse genially with parents and other adults. They were great at faking it with others. I thought this was just what life was like at school. If I ever mentioned that Mrs. So-and-so was yelling at folks, my mother assumed that I meant someone had gotten in trouble. I doubt it ever occurred to her that there was literal YELLING occurring in the room, of that the teachers were being truly awful and mean.

[EKS]

It is possible that your dd is accurately reporting what happens when you are not there at school.

 

:iagree:

 

It is unlikely that a screamer will scream when a parent is in the room.

 

On the other hand, it is equally possible that your daughter is overreacting to something. Given that your know your daughter well, does this seem like a possibility?

[Chrysalis Academy]

Much wisdom has been offered, thanks.

 

After more discussion today, she admitted that she had behaved badly on the bus on Friday and asked if she could write an apology to her teacher. She did so and is now feeling better about going to school tomorrow - so that is a good start.

 

I think that the comment about kids being able to read "off" emotions on a person's face is right on. That whole post was very helpful, thank you. Both of my dds are very high in interpersonal intelligence, to put it in Gardner's terms, or just very very good at reading people. They always have been. I think that the weird disconnect between emotion and words that I see on this teacher's face is very apparent to Mo, and it is very disconcerting for her, as it's the first time she has ever spent any time with someone with this oddity. Perhaps she will get used to it, or learn to cope?

 

As far as whether yelling goes on when parents aren't around vs. her being sensitive/overreacting and using the word yell for what I wouldn't consider yelling: This is something I've considered, of course, but I think it's the latter. She is not a super sensitive kid (in the sense of being anxious or fearful), but she is not used to being yelled at, so maybe something is coming off as yelling that looks fairly mild on the surface. I also don't think this teacher could possibly get away with being abusive in the classroom - the charter school is set up with a ton of parent involvement, so there is a parent in the room almost all the time, and the classroom is connected by a hall with no doors to the second grade room, and you can hear loud sounds from either room in both.

 

So if I'm right about that, I guess the question is how to help her keep from overreacting? To not take the weird affect personally? It's strange but I almost find myself wanting to tell her that getting in trouble a little bit is no big deal, just to keep her from overreacting!

 

We are strict parents, and have high expectations of her behavior, so maybe she is afraid that if she gets in trouble at school she will be in trouble at home? She has never been hit or abused in any way, though, so she has no experience/reason to believe that anyone could physically hurt her. It definitely seems to be an emotional thing - she is having trouble connecting with an important adult in her world - rather than a fear of being hurt. I think.

 

I don't think she's a super perfectionist. She is very very bright but well-adjusted, in the sense that I don't see her displaying any of the super perfectionist tendencies that I read about in uber-gifted kids.

 

Maybe her ambivalence about homeschooling vs. public schooling is at the heart of her issues (well, along with the fact that her teacher's facial expressions are off - I think that is huge). She was emphatic that she did *not* want to homeschool when her sister started last year, she loved school and is very social and would miss her friends. But lately she has expressed that she is jealous of the time her sister and I have together, and that she misses me a lot. But when I ask her if she wants to homeschool, she is very confused and says she would miss her friends. So I am sure that this is conflating with her issues with her teacher and leaving her feeling very conflicted.

 

My own thought is that this child is better off in school for the time being, because I truly don't feel able to meet her social needs right now, but I hope to homeschool her later on. I admit I am second guessing that some now, but I don't know . . . I guess I'm feeling fairly conflicted at this point about what is best for her. Up till now it had seemed so clear . . .

Edited October 23, 2012 by rroberts707

[Arcadia]

I think that the weird disconnect between emotion and words that I see on this teacher's face is very apparent to Mo, and it is very disconcerting for her, as it's the first time she has ever spent any time with someone with this oddity. Perhaps she will get used to it, or learn to cope?

 

I watched a documentary where they were explaining about using Botox for Tics. Maybe it might help your daughter if she understands that some people have medical reasons for being slightly "expressionless".

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

No advice. Just sympathy.

 

When ds1 was in ps for first grade, about mid-year he decided his teacher and the student teacher were vampires. He would try hiding from them. He put his head in his desk and would try to squeeze into his cubby. This was all before I got his Asperger's diagnosis, so it was very confusing for all of us. I didn't care for his teacher, but I couldn't imagine why ds would think she was a vampire. No amount of talking about how vampires don't exist made any difference. I finally ended up sending him to school with a baggie of garlic to ward them off. Kinda crazy, but it worked.

[Chrysalis Academy]

No advice. Just sympathy.

 

When ds1 was in ps for first grade, about mid-year he decided his teacher and the student teacher were vampires. He would try hiding from them. He put his head in his desk and would try to squeeze into his cubby. This was all before I got his Asperger's diagnosis, so it was very confusing for all of us. I didn't care for his teacher, but I couldn't imagine why ds would think she was a vampire. No amount of talking about how vampires don't exist made any difference. I finally ended up sending him to school with a baggie of garlic to ward them off. Kinda crazy, but it worked.

 

Now that was a brave and creative solution!

 

Mo's teacher made a point of "collecting" her this morning, and welcoming her back to class (she was home yesterday). I really appreciated that she did this. I think (I hope?) it's going to be ok. I think that Mo is just having a hard time bonding with this teacher because she can't "read" her, and she is not used to spending time with an adult with whom she has not bonded - she adored her K teacher last year. But I think she is a solid teacher and a good person.

 

I am also going to try to focus on making sure Mo gets as much "me" time as I can give her, and that we include her in our homeschool efforts when we can, and as appropriate, so that she doesn't feel like there is some magic happy thing going on at home that she is left out of . . . even though it is kind of true :tongue_smilie:. I hope at some point she will feel more sure, one way or the other, that she wants to hs or stay at ps. It's not something I am willing to go back and forth on, and if she leaves the charter school she will lose her slot and regular ps would be the only option. I don't want to close this door for her right now.