No Minivan

I don’t have the slightest clue what to do with the Kid. Sell him to the circus? Send him off to military school? Ground him until he’s 25? Seriously. What do you do with a 5 year old who thinks he knows everything and refuses to listen to anything his parents or teachers say?

Here is an actual email from his Kindergarten teacher:

[The Kid] has started going to first grade now for guided reading and Mrs. [X] says he really enjoyed it. I also want to keep you updated on his behavior. He had 3 really great days last week. This week he has been very disruptive. He is constantly (not exaggerating) yelling out ho ho ho. He also has been disruptive at rest time (even when I give him a book) and during work time he is barely finishing his work b/c he is falling out of his seat or yelling things to me and the class. I just wanted to touch base. If you have any questions let me know.

The other day he was given a writing assignment to review a book he’d read. His teacher has been trying to get him to write at length instead of just one short sentence. So she gave him the direction that he had to write enough to fill up all the lines on the page. So this is what he wrote:

I like the storey bcuse it was funne and it was fun. It made me go ha ha ha ha ha ha [with the ha's filling up the rest of the paper].

When he doesn’t have a book in his face at home he is crazy out of control. His voice has no volume switch and everything must be said at eardrum blowing decibels. Unlike most kids who get quieter the more they’re misbehaving, the Kid gets louder the worse he’s behaving. Punishment/discipline does not impact him. Even when we take away his most prized possessions, he may get upset for a brief moment then he just doesn’t care. Sending him to his room is pointless since it’s completely full of books and toys. Time outs in the hall seem to make somewhat of an impact, but he’s over and misbehaving again the second he’s released. It’s like nothing gets through to him long enough to make an impact beyond the very short term.

We manage fairly well at home. Usually there are enough activities (between books, TV, computer, toys and chores) to distract him from the bad behavior. Plus there are two of us to wrangle him. But at school his teacher is entirely too soft spoken to get a firm handle on him. Not only that, but she has 20 other students to worry about. I know part of the problem is that he’s bored, but he’s not even completing the work before he’s acting up and disrupting the class. I just really don’t know what to do. Nothing seems to get through to him. Punishments don’t work, rewards don’t work. I want him to enjoy school, but I know he needs to learn to tolerate the structure of school and to thrive in spire of it.

And he’s such a brilliant boy, I know he’s smart enough to follow directions. Within the last 2 weeks, he’s read almost the entire “Magic Tree House” series (that’s over 25 short chapter books), not to mention all the other books he’s read lately. He’s in the advanced math group in Kindergarten adding, subtracting, counting by 5s and 10s, and working extensively with money. The child is so smart. And I know his intelligence makes us and his teachers expect more from him. He is only 5 (6 in April) and 5 year old boys are high energy by nature. I’m not interested in putting him on ADD/ADHD meds, but I do want to look into other avenues for helping him focus and be more productive with all that brain. I would like to take him to an expert for analysis and to give us some guidance in that arena, but I’m also afraid to have him be labeled so young.

Luckily, for the next 2 weeks everyone will be home and maybe we can give him more attention than usual and see if that helps at all. Plus, the Christmas crazies will get an opportunity to work their way out of his system and maybe things will be settled down more by the time he goes back to school.