Blame the kids and the parents

[charliegirl]

www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/alessi_problems_blame.html


Ever wonder if it seems like the school is blaming you and your child for all your kid's learning problems? Here is the answer to that and it tells you why.

[jill]

Depressing to read yet makes parents know they are not crazy in how they are feeling when dealing with the school system.

[charliegirl]

I'm actually thinking about printing it out and passing it around to other parents plus handing it to the school the next time I hear that my son just needs to try harder.

[puzzled]

I am printing it out, and using it for a research paper I am gathering information for on ADHD.

I am so fortunate that I have not run into that brick wall in my district.....so far. I am already starting to worry about high school, and it is years off...

[sweetpea]

I do feel the very same way. When i go into a meeting by myself they just tell me all the wrong things i'm doing. They ask what our family life is like. I blew at that one. Our family life is just fine. If my son wasn't in school we probably would not have half the problems.
Now when i took in the advocate. Oh golly things just turned around. No questions like that were being asked. It was all what can we do for you Mrs. ____.
I'm printing that out for the future.

[lcdc1]

this seems so true in a lot of cases! I guess I have been lucky enough to nip that philosiphy in the butt when it comes up. I am like too bad you feel that way, it is not true. A thing I hear a lot is that my kid needs to become a self advocate and I do work on her to ask her teachers for help more. Part of the issue is that it is hard to self advocate when you do not even understand what to ask! I told them if that is a goal they saw as a needed one, then put it in the IEP and we did, she meets with the district math specialist twice a month to talk about how she feels about math and to get advice on what or how to talk to teachers when she does not know how to MATH talk!

[carol]

Well, after the last three years of hell with my son's old school, I can share a comment one teacher wrote in a note my son brought home. She said, "I think Gage is just trying to be lazy." lol How does one try to be lazy? Too bad she did not stay at that school to find out Gage had dyslexia and that she did the most damage by making him cry to read for her. She had me almost convinced that the only problem with him was that he was lazy. She should be happy that she moved to France. If I ever see her again, I am going to tell her that Gage is dyslexic, not just lazy. I am also going to tell her that she killed his self-esteem and gave him a reading phobia.
carol

[jj]

Geeze Carol, I could cry for your son and for you. What you both must have gone through during that time is just sickening. What a stupid comment. What child would have the forethought to decide "I'm going to try to be lazy" and I'm going to do X, Y & Z so I can get out of doing things. Puh-lease.

[katiekat]

Last year the school was always blaming Sean's problems on the fact that he did not live with his biological mother. Every time I brought up an issue they said something like "oh, well he's been through so much, not having his mother" or something to that effect. I always pointed out to them that his mother had left when he was a year old and that he had no memory of ever living with her. This wasn't some sudden change. And just because I'm not his bio. mother doesnt mean he has some horrible life. In fact it's a much better life then he would have with her. But no matter what the problem was they always came back to that. Yes, my kid can't tell the difference between d,b,and p because he doesnt live with his "real" mom.