My daughter, LD, age 11, just started middle school 7th grade. It it a very tough transition. She came home crying, because she was lost in the halls. her locker is very far, confused by all the changing of classes… I talked to her a lot about how she will grow more comfortable with it, takes time, we are getting her locker moved closer to her classes, her girlfriend and I helped her organize her backback… She wants her girlfriend to walk w/ her to all her classes which of course she can’t, they have some different classes. So this morn I went to school w/ her early and we walked the route of her first 3 classes, then at lumch I will do the same with her last 4. In spite of all this, my dau says she wants to go back to elementary, lots of crying last night. Any suggestions??
Re: difficult transition
This is one of my greatest fears for my daughter. It breaks my heart to see this post.
Does your child have any IEP? If so, I would make sure someone was personally responsible for making sure she get didn’t get lost.
My daughter (5th grade) has already told me her biggest fear is getting lost in MS. She will be taken over to the school during the summer. We plan to get her combination lock at the end of 5th so she can practice all summer.
Where are the teachers? Can they help?
Re: difficult transition
With regards to the combo lock, you can go to any Home Depot type store and buy a combo lock where you can make the combo what ever you want. Also, they are ones where you just line up the numbers in a row and do not have to go back and forth from left to right and back again.
Tell her don’t feel bad. These are the kinds of locks I get all the time to lock things up on job sites, including the job sites themselves. I make the combo somewhat simple at work, so when I pass out the code to others it is easy to remember (7777) or something like that. I use the same type at home, and use our anniversary month/day so it’s easy for me to remember :o So I’m guessing she’d have a much easier time if she had to simply line up the numbers of her birthday, or 4 identical numbers etc… Then when she’s ready to lock it, you have to spin the numbers or the lock will not secure itself. If the school has a problem with the different type of lock, get it in the IEP and that should solve it.
Regarding the getting lost, I’m sure much of this is the overwhelming amount of sensory input. She is sure to get accustomed to the route over time.
Good luck to her.
Andy
re-locker locks in middle school
Before you have your daughter spend all summer working on one combo lock, make sure the school will let you use it. In our district (middle and high schools), all lockers have school owned assigned locks (so that they can open them for searches at any time). Any non-assigned school lock will be cut off.
As far as getting used to halls, lockers, new routines, the other thing they do in our district is have parent volunteers in the halls for the first 2 weeks of school specifically to help the 6th graders deal with lockers, and find their classes. Find out if your school has such a program, and if it doesn’t, maybe you can volunteer to start one. For the severly disabled kids (blind, deaf, down syndrome, physically handicapped), the school also had a buddy program, where a few older kids who wanted to help were assigned to help one of the special education kids.
The other thing our middle and high school did was have a leadership program where an 8th or 12th grader is assigned 5-10 6th or 9th graders, and before classes start, they help the new kids find their way around the school. The first day of high school and middle school is just for the new students and their senior mentors, and they figure out where classes are, where lockers are, and meet all the teachers. The mentor also meets with the new students a few more times during the first quarter to make sure things are going OK.
Remind your new middle school students that all the students are a bit nervous and lost the first few weeks of school…it’s not just them! If they ask, teachers and other students will help. In my son’s high school, kids still get lost initially finds classes even after they’ve been their for awhile…because it’s big and a weird spiral design from the mid 1970s.
Good luck,
Kay
Re: difficult transition
Poor kid! 11 is young to be in the 7th grade she must have started school early.
I bet once she has changed classes a few days she will gain confidence. Maybe the school would help you find out the destinations of the kids leaving the classroom and find who she could walk with or even kind of follow to the next class.
thanks- doing better
Thanks for all the replies. My dau is doing better! Her Spec Educ (support) teacher has invited her to go to his office whenever she feels the need.. she did so on the 2nd day. It is a private office very close to her classes with comfy chairs. It helped her calm down and re-group. No surprise- he is now her favorite teacher! Also, we got her locker changed to be near most of her classes. No problem with opening it, fortunately. She is feeling more positive. (In HS, we will definitely scope it out more beforehand.)
Re: difficult transition
I plan to get THE lock she will be assigned in MS for her to practice on. That’s part of the articulation meeting I plan to have (starting to get ready for it in January)
poor kid….
I know how hard it must be on both of you. I would give her worst case scenarios-what if she cannot find her next class and the bell rings? Do you want her to enter the nearest classroom and ask for help? Do you want her to try to muddle her way to the office?
Expect the worse and give her a way to deal with it.
Everyone is nervous-be sure she understands that. Can you go after school and walk and walk and walk the routes with the kids gone? Could you draw out a map if she is a visual kid?
Hows the locker going? She could work on a similar lock at home?
Good luck