My child doesn't enjoy school

[kiasulang]

heyhoe:

My child join P1 this year and doesn't enjoy school. He gave reasons like he'll miss us, or the teachers are fierce etc. However, I think the root of his problem is he's bored.


After many talks, I discover that he find lessons very boring as he can't play and he already knows what is being taught. He came from a playbased childcare, thus I'm wondering how to help him.

Any ideas, please share with me. Thanks!

Hi heyhoe,

If you are still giving your child advance lessons, I think you should stop in the mean time. The reason your son is bored is that he already knows his works.

[heyhoe]

Hi kiasulang,


Thanks for your feedback. No, we didn’t give him any advance lessons. In fact, the primary school is very relax now cause they’re revising K2 syllabus. So far, I only see spelling list in HYPY and english.

In fact, we didn’t even do any revision with him after school. Just play till sleeping time.

[buds]

Heyya heyhoe,


Looking forward to hearing your updates on
the PTC cum 21st.. All the best, k.

Stay with constructive questions.
Discuss with yer spouse and write them down
somewhere you can come back to later and
highlight the issues to the teacher then..

In my experience, better to ask teacher how
she finds your child is doing then you can
relate your doubts or worrying issues to her.
Sometimes, when we just go-speedbullet-train-on
going abt our kiddo, we lose the focus of what we
actually wanted to portray and request to be improved.

Teachers have 30 to a class. That is hard..
In our attempt to make school a happier and fun
place for our kiddies, instead of telling her what we
want to see improved... we can ask what she thinks
can be done within her given time with the children in
class, to help you out with what you think is going on
with your child.

Prior to the PTC, you may want to talk to our child
whether he wud want you to ask any questions on
his behalf.. If he does say anything, you might get
a clue to how he is feeling then..

Spend time to talk abt his friends.. Ask if there are
any good buddies in his life.. Find out if he enjoys
non-academic lessons like music or PE and what
his views are upon them.. If he may think the class
teacher/or lesson per se very boring, then why is
it that music or PE isn't..

What csc said is also true.. Everyone has responsibilities.
My P2 ever said she lazy to do workings for maths in her
SA exam. I asked her wud it be fair if daddie said he doesn't
wanna go to work cos he's lazy? She said cannot, or else
no school money (cos i dun werk).. So we explained to her
our varied responsibilities... she seems to understand after
that. If she forgets we'll just remind her again..

Children have no choice of not going to school, so i can
understand your stress observing the lack of his motivation
to go through his days at school.. Catch up when you can, ok.
I reali hope things will work out eventually when he is more
adapted.. It just curved into Feb, lets hope March will be a
better month. Esp, with the March Holidays to look forward to.

[jesschan]

Hi! I am new to this forum. My older boy is in P3 this year and let me share my thoughts.


I think children undergo a major change when they enter P1. Most pre-school encourages learning thru fun play, has a smaller class size and lots of play time. In P1, the class size is 30 and there will be a proportion of kids who did not have a good pre-school foundation, especially in the ordinary neighbourhood schools. These children will find the school work tough even though it is probably relatively simple for other children who have learnt phonics, hanyu pinyin, number bonds etc… prior to P1. Hence the teacher has to spend more time with the weaker students and manage the brighter children who find school work too simple and bored - tough job!

My son went thru the same phase, finding school work too boring and he only enjoys the recess time and PE lessons. So he often gets into trouble in class initially. Luckily he loves to read and I always ensure that he has a good book to read and that really helped to steer him out of trouble.

Most schools will have an internal streaming to segregate the children in P3 and teaching progress will be adjusted according to the standards where brighter children will start to do more challenging work, more creative writing etc… Children are very resilient, they will learn how to manage themselves eventually, don’t worry.

[learningtobekiasu]

[Moderator's note: Topics merged.]


we are having a hard time with our son who is not used to the structured system of P1 where he has to sit still for 6 hours. he is easily distracted and bored. he is smart and picks up stuff easily so once he knows what the teacher is teaching, he will switch off.

as a result he is constantly (daily) being reprimanded... i think its fine to teach discipline but am very dissapointed and angry at the way the teacher deals with him. daily threats of being sent to the discipline master and the latest was 'if you don't behave you will have to leave the school... and go to a girls school' or something to that effect.

my child is full of life and loves life - he can't wait to wake up every day because he enjoys living - but nowadays it so sad to see him dislike (even to the point of hating) school because of his problem adjusting to the 'system'. a system which i thought has long been modernized! didn't realize there are still these old school methods being used...

any thoughts? am i over-reacting?

[csc]

You are not over-reacting. You have a right to know what has happened to your child.


Suggest you make an appointment with the form teacher to discuss the matter in an objective manner. It is good to hear what the teacher has to say and clarify matters.

And yes, systems are easier to change than people. Perhaps the teacher was trained under the old system and find it hard to adapt to the "new’ system.??

[jedamum]

[quote] he is smart and picks up stuff easily so once he knows what the teacher is teaching, he will switch off.[/quote]
I think there is still a need to talk to your kid and let him know that he should treat the teaching in school as a revision and show the teacher respect (by not switching off) even though he already knows his stuff. Perhaps you can explore into letting him take up a CCA (if permitted by school) so that he can channel his energy and interest elsewhere.

csc:

Suggest you make an appointment with the form teacher to discuss the matter in an objective manner. It is good to hear what the teacher has to say and clarify matters.

And yes, systems are easier to change than people. Perhaps the teacher was trained under the old system and find it hard to adapt to the \"new' system.??

Perhaps you can start exchanging email with the teacher first? Sometimes we risk misunderstanding the teacher's position/words when such has been conveyed to us by our children. You can start by asking about how your kid has been doing/coping in class. If you acknowledged that he deserves to be 'stretched' to curb his boredom in class, perhaps you can suggest to the teacher to let your kid takes on additional duties (group leaders, teacher's helpers) so that he have something else to look forward to. Being a selected 'role-model' will also somehow curb his mischievious behaviour (if any).

Yes, systems are easier to change than people, but in some schools, it is easier to change the people than the proven system. Sometimes, we also have to understand that the teacher may just be having a bad day and such is a one-off incident.

If situation doesn't improve over time, perhaps it'll be better to consider a change of environment if the school's teaching philosophy doesn't match yours.

jmho.

[learningtobekiasu]

the teacher is pre-historic, which i believe is part of the problem - still using methods from 30 years ago! recalled from retirement i was told.



there is a communications book and teacher and parents write to each other in the book (doubt this teacher uses email!). anyway, this is not a one off. there are complains about his behaviour every other day.

this is what has alerted us that there is an issue. we have made an appointment with the principal to discuss and ask her for help in suggesting ways to help him cope.

we have indicated in our notes back to the teacher that our son needs constant reminding and guidance - we just think she is not interested to adapt her methods and fear this might be detrimental to his development in school.

hopefully the principal can suggest something. maybe there is a counselor he can speak with regularly to help him cope with the transition. we know this school does work with special needs kids like autistic students (they take them into ordinary classes and have counselors on hand to work with them), so we hope they might have other kind of counseling for difficult kids.

[heyhoe]

Thank you to all mommies who have taken time to write on their helpful suggestions.


After meeting up with his form teacher, we have agreed that he would offer his assistance to his classmates as long as he finished his work earlier. Alternatively, he can read story book or draw while waiting for the rest of his classmates.

Another reason that I can think of now is that my kid is a sensitive child. Perhaps, he takes offense where none is intended and frustrated at a world that fails to live up his expectation. I guess we’ll just have to face it day by day and hope that he’ll eventually enjoy school.

[learningtobekiasu]

just a quick update in our case. we met with the principal. she thanked us for providing more information to her on our child’s behavioural traits and will speak with the class teacher to get her feedback and response…


we shall see if things improve.