My student is doing better for sure than when we started. She has progressed immensely, not acting out with throwing of chairs or tables. Now, we are addressing behavior issues that relate to disrespect and tattling. I tend to ask her a lot who her responsibility is and she has a hard time answering that question still because she wants to tell me everything else everyone else did. Finally she will let me know that she knows that her responsibility is her. Then I ask her who my responsibility is and she says everyone else. So I think the more I ask her this, the more she will understand what a tattle is and when it is ok to come to the teacher and when it is not. We used to have her “tell it to the turtle” in which she would write it on a note card and put it in the mailbox. However, I think that this was not that effective because no one would answer her note cards.
The other thing we struggle with is disrespect. Whenever she has to be asked to do something multiple times and she has trouble listening, she gets upset and her facial expressions and tone changes. She crosses her arms and says WHAT!? Then she makes noises with her mouth. We are working on the disrespect issues and she doesn’t say WHAT as much anymore. She has trouble with her math skills especially. I notice that some of the disrespect issues occur when she tries to answer a math question and it is wrong. I know that she is upset that she does not answer the question right, but we are working with her math skills to try and improve them and her confidence.
This is really interesting. I am glad to hear that there has been some progress made. That must make you feel amazing!
The turtle idea is really cute too. Sad that it did not work.
Way to go!
It is great that she is progressing, even if she still haves some challenging behavior. From my experience, the tattling is something that many students exhibit, especially at this age. While it is definitely something that should be addressed, I don’t feel that too much time should be spent on it in kindergarten, and instead more energy should be put towards correcting other behaviors, like the disrespect. I am hoping that the tattling for many of my students will start to taper off as they get older.
I am finding that my class has a very big tattling problem with all the students. After researching a few methods I realized that I have to go over the “tattling” verse “reporting” definitions that I got from the classroom that we visited at Rashkis. About 50% of my students have started to think about their actions before they come to the teachers.
It is great to see your student is taking responsibility and seeing her role in the classroom and the effect of her actions on the teacher as well as the class as a whole.