Is it normal for frustarated children to act out?

Paddle him?! Yikes what sort of state are you in anyway?
(I live in a pretty backward state, NM, but that would not be legal.) Schools have no business in the physical punishment thing. I think it is hard enough for parents who actually really love the kid, but this just verges too much on potential child abuse.

I believe he should be taught. He is acting out as he is frustrated. I’m not saying you should coddle him. OTOH, it sounds like their inteventions aren’t working. If you can afford it, I would try and find a good tutor.
I should write up something like Victoria does, so I could mail it out.
There are effective programs for parents to do the tutoring but you need to have good rapport with your child and fair teaching skills. Math U See is an excellent tutoring type program. www.mathusee.com
Your kid needs intervention not punishment.

—des

As I read this, I start to wonder what the “interventions” the school has tried consist of. Since the school is sticking to the letter of the law doing its three interventions whatever they are before anything else, time for you to investigate what interventions are required by law and regulations, whether punishment is one of them, and whether the school has stuck to the letter of the law on its side (almost certainly not, they always cut corners.) Once you catch them out on not keeping their side of the bargain, this gives you leverage to push for something better. Leverage may mean suggesting a lawyer look into things; you may not actually have to get a lawyer, just mention the idea and see if you get more action and less delay.

Well there are laws on due process and so on, that may apply here. I am not sure but there should be some parents groups that deal with this. OTOH, I have heard of people getting wonderful IEPs and then they don’t really teach anyway.

—des

Ebeth,

You are reading the situation correctly. It is very, very common for fathers and schools to make the kinds of mistakes they are making. Your son is lucky to have even one person (you!) who understands the situation correctly. Please realize that he is not going to get what he needs unless you find a way to successfully advocate on his behalf.

Nancy

Thanks for all the encouragement. Sometimes I just want to give up. I have nobody backing me up.
I know my son needs discipline, but until his life stops spinning out of control, my gut tells me he needs understanding, too. I feel that if we turn the screws too hard it will just drive him further away.
My husband did say that he would talk to my sons counselor and try to understand what is going on so that he will know how to help him. He really doesn’t understand why if Erik does not understand the work, he can’t just sit there and keep his mouth shut and his body still?

Mary

Your son’s behavior can certainly be tied to his academic performance. It seems unfortunate that his teacher does not think that there is a link since school is where he spends much of his time during the day. It’s hard for anyone to contain frustration, much less in a classroom where he can’t get up and take a walk or get some air or do anything else to change the scenery and his perspective. Your son is only 11 yo. Adults often have a hard time mastering how to handle frustration so why would we expect any 11 yo to appropriately vent frustration. I’m not sure what other areas your son is having trouble with academically, other than math, but i’m wondering if you and hour husband could conference with the teacher and brainstorm to find ways to help him be more successful in the classroom (smaller assignments, etc.) and at home which inturn would help him build some confidence, just some small things that would build up his self esteem. When he starts to experience some success, his behavior will be more positive because he’s thinking more positively about himself. I agree with previous post that the best thing you can do for your son is to be an advocate. Turn every rock over in order to get him the help that he needs—his future depends on it. Sounds like you’re on the right track with the interventions that are underway.

After reading about your situation, I completely agree with you about the fact that your son’s frustration is stemming from the fact that he can’t seem to grasp math. I am a grad student receiving my degree in special ed and have been in many placements where I have seen children from all ranges of ability become uncharacteristically frustrated because they feel “dumb” or “slow” in one aspect of the classroom. I think the best things you can do for your son are boost his confidence and force the school into a situation where they have to deal with this on a learning level rather than a behavior level. Boosting his confidence may be done by working with him on math outside of the classroom that he can do and then slowly scaffolding him towards more difficult problems. I am sure you have confidence in your son so if you show him this it just may rub off on him and allow him to see that he is anything but “dumb” or “stupid”. My suggestion on how to get the school to help follows the previous posts but I was also thinking that if you looked online or in your local library for research on this type of thing that you could take it into the teacher and principal (after really reading over it) and show them that there are professionals out there who agree with you. If this does not work you may have to follow legal procedures, but don’t be intimidated by this because there are laws out there that protect you such as IDEA. Good luck. Lauren

While I am not against proper corporal punishment per se (must be the testosterone in me) I will say that it is ridiculous to spank a blind child because they did not watch where they were walking.

To answer your lead question, is it possible for a frustrated child to act out, the answer is ABSOLUTELY! Heck, even grown adults will act out when the frustration gets to be too high. This is why stress is one of the leading causes of problems like depression, substance abuse, voilence, etc. When we are placed in a situation which makes us feel bad about ourselves and which we have little to no control over, even the best of us face a risk of cracking in some way. Being a child is even worse, because they have less control over their lives.

I am aware of a boy, now high school age, who used to get into trouble deliberately in grade school because it meant a trip to the time-out room (often till the end of the day). For him it was better to sit in a dark room for hours than to stay in the classroom and have the teacher nag him for not doing something he could not do because of his dyslexia. Of course his parents were not informed, because they were “difficult parents” (mom at least) who would have chewed someone’s head from their neck, and knew enough about IDEA to know that more than 10 days worth of removal from the classroom warranted an immediate meeting to discuss change of placement issues, which the school wished to avoid at all costs. Social promotion pushed him along until he finally cracked in middle school (where peer abuse, i.e. “kick the retard” is probably the worst).

It doesn’t take a genius to realize you tell a kid he is bad often enough, he will become bad.

For what it’s worth, my advice is to push as hard as you can for testing to determine if he has an LD. The schools like to stick to the 2 year discrepancy formula because it is cheaper to simply pass along the strugglers than it is to remediate. Your boy may well be bright enough to struggle along in many subjects, and math is simply the one which has little leeway to fudge things (hey in math it is either right or wrong). This is one of the primary reasons I like NCLB - it will indeed effectively kill the gatekeeper we call 2-year discrepancy and end the practice of social promotion, which ahs never been demonstrated to be a bit more effective than retention and does no one any favor with the exception of the teacher who does not have to see the same faces year after year telling him/her she has failed this child.