Frustrations of a First Grader's Mom

I have always liked – really liked – Max’s first grade teacher. A few days before the first day of school back in the fall, I went to meet with Mrs. G., to fill her in on Max. Basically, I painted a worse case scenario.

Because Max’s IEP is only for speech, I wanted to make sure Mrs. G. was aware of Max’s other issues – ADHD, sensory issues, compulsive behaviors, occasional tics and a perfectionistic streak that often renders him incapable of doing his work – should the need arise for special accommodations to be made. I had no idea what – if anything – Max might need, as he did very well in kindergarten the year before. Max’s schedule then was three full days and two half days. And I could tell from the work he brought home from his morning class (perfect) and afternoon class (riddled with errors) that he ran out of steam toward the end of the day. Now that he was starting first grade, I wasn’t sure how five full days would affect him. And rather than wait for him to start struggling, I wanted to head it off at the pass.

She appreciated my honesty and I was grateful to have been so well received. She told me about some of the things she does in her class – for all the students – to help them do their best work: morning stretches, walks around the classroom between lessons and teaching the kids to use pressure points on their ears to “wake up their brains,” as Max would soon describe to me. I left this initial meeting feeling Max was in wonderful hands.

In all these months, whenever I had a concern that one of Max’s many “issues” were impacting him in the classroom, Mrs. G. simply attributed it to typical first grade stuff. When he tested far below the expected reading level, I explained that kids with apraxia may have trouble learning to read. She said there were other kids in the class who also needed help and she felt strongly that with extra help he would catch up. When I expressed my concern that the errors on Max’s math sheets were due not to a lack of understanding of the work but to his impulsivity and distractibility, she assured me that all the kids will accidentally add their numbers when the problem called for subtraction.

Mrs. G. never saw Max as anyone other than a typical first grader. He followed the rules. He did all his work. He behaved. There were other children in the class who required more attention – two of them, both non-communicative, shared a parapro. Another boy was always out of his seat and required constant redirection. Compared to these children, Max didn’t stand out. I thought this was a good thing.

Until today.

I went to talk with her about the whole sticker/lunch thing, as well as to discuss some ways we could Max more comfortable in the classroom since he had expressed that he becomes restless and agitated. (My words, not his.) When I told Mrs. G. that Max was distraught not to have had lunch with her she let me know that Max wasn’t the only one who earned the lunch but didn’t have it due to a missing sticker. She explained that from an administrative perspective, she couldn’t have a bunch of kids asking her to check her records to see if they had earned a sticker from previous weeks. OK, this I understand.

“The lunch is really just an added bonus,” she said. “The real reward is the sticker the kids earn every Friday for showing good behavior all week.”

This I did not understand.

I told her that I was sure Max didn’t see it this way. And when I thought it over later, I felt even more strongly that this made no sense. The kids who behave, especially those for whom it comes easily, I’m sure, fully expect that sticker every Friday. I know I would have were it me. I’d be surprised not to get a sticker.
So of course the lunch is the reward.

She explained that she wanted to kids to learn how to be responsible for their papers and how to stay organized. I agreed these were worthy goals. But I reminded her of Max’s limitations in these areas – he has ADHD, after all. She still couldn’t see why he might need help managing his papers. And then, the clincher:

“Well, I’m sure this will help Max try harder next time,” she said.

And this is when I burst into tears.

The only thing Max “learned” from this lesson was that he did the hard part – he kept his act together for ten weeks. He listened, he participated, he sat in his goddamn seat for far longer than any six year old should be expected to, let alone a child with ADHD, and yet, in the end, he was punished.

I felt like a fool for crying and Mrs. G. felt bad. But she still missed all the points I was trying to make.

Then we started talking about helping Max feel less fidgety. I told her I was going to bring in a seat cushion for him that’s designed to give a child sensory input just by moving around in his seat. She knew what I was talking about as the school had the same cushions for some of the other students. It seemed Mrs. G. understood the concept of sensory input and for this I was relieved. But not for long.

“They also make these pencil toppers that are supposed to be for fidgeting,” I started to explain. And then I got a look that said, “Uh, I don’t think so.”

I’m sure she was concerned about it being a possible distraction for the other kids. But that’s not what she said. What she did say demonstrated to me that she did not in fact understand sensory input.

“Well, I wouldn’t want Max to feel like he was being rewarded,” she said.

Her ignorance stabbed me in the gut.

I’m sure the way she perceived the idea of a fidget toy was that a child would take it out when he was having trouble doing his work and therefore was being “rewarded” for not completing a task. She didn’t understand that for a kid like Max, doing two sides of a math sheet in one sitting is too much. He can’t focus that long. He gets distracted. A fidget toy might actually keep him on track.

And to think I was going to suggest Max keep Starbursts in his desk. No way she would have gone for that.

In a way, I should consider myself lucky. Despite his quirks and challenges, Max has done very well in school. It took getting to the second half of first grade for us to come up against some issues that require our attention and possibly, some accommodations.

Unfortunately, we seem to have come up against a brick wall as well.