Kindergarten Mom: Help! My Child is Shutting Down!
Anxiety over your child’s school-based problems can start very early. A mom recently contacted me after reading The Shut-Down Learner.
“My son is drowning in school. Do you think he could be a shut-down learner?”
After asking a few more questions, I was struck by the fact that the child in question was only in kindergarten.
When I wrote the Shut- Down Learner I was envisioning a disconnected, shut-down teenager. However, as I gave more talks to the parents, so many of the concerns being raised were concerning young children. This led me to understand that so much of the concept of the SDL is how can we prevent this from happening as early as possible.
The formula that I created is the following:
Cracks in the Foundation + Time + Lack of Understanding + Widening cracks + Family tensions increasing = Shut Down Learner
As we progress with future blogs, I will break down this formula for you in depth so that you will understand each of the parts and what you may be able to do as the child’s parent.
So, if you are the mom of a kindergarten child who is shutting down, you can bet there are cracks in the foundation. The next step is to know what those cracks are and how to identify them.
Comments
Young children as shut down learners
I am a parent of a 3rd grader and we have been struggling for many years. It's kind of like a switch was thrown at age 5 for our daughter. Kindergarten was just the start, 1st was way worse and 2nd was miserable. I found this book on the bookstore shelf and it practically jumped off and hit me in the head I COULDN'T put this book down!!! Our school was rather helpful in getting our daughter some intervention but we still did not have answers as to her academic slowness. She tests and read very well but can't perform in school. We finally got help in developmental testing and are now our way to some concrete help. I like to think of our phase in life now as "filling in the cracks." My husband and I joke... "say NO to Cracks!" As a early childhood education teacher myself I have seen young children struggle but they move on. This book helped me to go back to her PK years and I saw the signs there too, just not as overt. It's important for us to remember that EVERYONE has cracks in their foundation. It's just that some of us have deeper cracks.
"Saying No to Cracks"
Hi Martha:
Nice to hear from you. Thanks, again, for the kind words on the book.
Maybe we should make a t-shirt for the SDL site..."Say No to Cracks."
For the sake of others who may read this, what are some of the things that the developmental testing is identifying?
Best,
Richard
Developmental testing
Developmental testing looks for benchmarks in learning and looking for gaps or delays. Then a behavorist or a therapist helps the child learn these skills. For instance, if your child gets easily frustrated, therapy will help them identify what frustrates them and then work past it. That's my understanding anyway.As a parent, I feel as if times like the summer, when school is not a stressor is a great time to help children reflect on their frustrations and plan solutions.My 7yr old finally tackled tying her shoes took 2 years and 4 days!!!
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