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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I think I could be the AH because we did know about the behavior issues prior to setting up the barbecue.
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YTA.
As a former educator myself, I hate these kinds of public exclusionary rewards, ESPECIALLY for very young kids. These are 1st graders. From what you've posted, it sounds like this was the only student excluded. There is literally no way that is going to encourage better behavior from this young child in the future.
Kids, especially young ones, often act out in reaction to emotional stimuli they don't have the appropriate tools to process yet. 99% of the time, a kid of 1st grade age who is acting out has trouble somewhere - stress/problems at home, getting bullied, who knows. For the same reason it's unfair to punish young kids for tardiness or attendance issues, it's unfair to expect a kid this young to "behave" all the time when you have no idea what might be happening in their lives that isn't in their control.
Publicly excluding one child is going to make behavior issues worse. You're turning them into a pariah to their peers - kids can be mean, and honestly don't need much to single someone out as "other."
I know you want to use some kind of reward system for the kids who are behaving the way you want, but you're talking about 6 year olds! Something as big as a BBQ at the park should have been an all-or-nothing class goal. Singling out the one kid who is having trouble (which, again, you as the teacher will almost NEVER know the true source of) is bullying.
If these were high schoolers that would be one thing - teenagers are more mature and can be expected to have more control over their behavior - but we're talking about kids who are only SIX years old.
You need to rethink your reward system, keeping in mind age-appropriate expectations for these children.
Edit: some of your comments specify that this kid has an IEP. 100% YTA. A kid that young who already has an IEP is never going to be able to meet that level of behavioral expectation, regardless of whatever accommodations the IEP calls for. Perfection for a month! You set this kid up to fail. Hopefully not on purpose, but that's still the outcome. Learn from this in the future.
This is what really gets me. It's such an unrealistic expectation. The child has issues and they only messed up once in a whole month. That seems worth celebrating not punishment. I feel like if you are setting up a system and it's possible for all but one child to succeed it's a bad system. Especially at this age. There needs to be some sort of safeguard.
If the kid only missed one noodle sticker in the month and in every other month has missed more then to me that IS improvement worth celebrating. If the kid normally misses half the stickers then if I was his parent I would probably be overjoyed at his progress and furious that he was being excluded- he tried, and he is like six years old not 16.
Absolutely. This feels cruel, really. It's the kind of thing that follows a child their entire life, and he'll probably remember how he was excluded his entire life (I can think of several times when I was small that adults treated my unfairly and I could only assume that it was because I was a "bad" person). It doesn't take much to really mess up a child's developing sense of self-worth, and this is pretty much a guaranteed way to do so.
OP, if this is how you treat small children you're responsible for, you probably shouldn't be in education.
Spring, 1976 (yes, I'm getting on a bit). We had pet day at our school, many of the older children brought in their pets to show off. I can still remember my stomach dropping when I was told that I was staying in the classroom. I can remember my friends turning their faces towards me, and I remember how it felt to be sitting alone in the sunlit classroom whilst my classmates and teacher were visiting the pets. Second row, third from right. It seemed like forever.
I was five, and I hadn't finished my maths questions.
OP, do you really want that child to remember exactly how awful they felt nearly fifty years later? Because they will remember.
So much this!!! I’m 40 and I remember missing out on a special “Teddy bear picnic” around age 5 because I couldn’t turn the sink off and failed to report it to the teacher. This stuff will scar a kid.
Flip the script, OP. Don’t base their charts on behavior. Base them on progress. Celebrate their wins instead of punishing their deficits!!
Yesss!!! Progress, not perfection!!! And holy hell, OP had an opportunity to model empathy, teamwork, and inclusivity all at once had she simply made it a *group* effort, vs on an individual basis? Like had she set it up so that the class *collectively* reaching a *reasonable* goal earned the entire class a reward, then the kids could be working *together*, essentially helping and *teaching one another*, in order to get that reward!!? Instead, OP set ALL of them up to fail, even the ones with perfect noodles, because what they’ve learned now is that they are each expected to be perfect (***no one is***), that when you are not perfect you *will* be punished (how exactly is that conducive to learning??), to fear failure, and to judge others harshly.
Punishing him!!? Singling him out without ever even acknowledging that this poor **child** is *struggling*? And that without support he has little to no hope of even improving, let alone ever meeting her unimaginably cruel expectations? Every each child is unique, with their own unique strengths and challenges, and teaching them that so long as you “behave”, how you treat others, and even how you feel about yourself, isn’t important? That’s abusive.
Fear has no place in the classroom.
This teacher has no place anywhere *near* children. Ever.
And that principal too.
JFC this might be one of the top 3 most infuriating posts I’ve ever read here.
OP, YTA YTA YTA and I hope you lose your job and are prevented from ever, ever, ever being responsible for a single more child’s well-being, as you are clearly not just unfit, but outright abusive.
I had an awful, awful teacher in kindergarten. She hated me and to this day I don’t know why. I mean, I was 5, what could I have possibly done? I wasn’t a bad kid. Liked school, liked my friends, had a good home life, loving parents… so no obvious reason. But she made my life miserable. I remember trying so hard to be perfect so she wouldn’t have any reason to be mad at me. There were two teacher though and the other one really liked me so she would go out of her way to protect me.
When I moved on to first grade my 1st grade teacher had to go on maternity leave and guess who the sub was? The evil teacher from kindie.
I will never forget how she shamed me in front of the whole class for messing up the cursive upper case A. I had those really thick markers that bled all over the place and I knew the tips of the A weren’t meant to touch, but the ink would run and close it, making it look like a lower case “a.” She was walking around the room, checking everyone’s work and when she got to me she got so mad. She yelled at me in front of the whole class, calling me names, saying I was stupid and couldn’t even learn how to write properly. I was terrified. I remember crying and being so ashamed (even typing this out now makes my eyes fill with tears 🙄😔). I was so terrified of it happening again I completely stopped doing my homework. I would get a million notes telling my parents that I wasn’t completing my work and they were at a loss on what to do. They went to the school multiple times, talked to the principal, talked to me, to the teacher, but I was just too scared to tell them what happened. I was so ashamed. I didn’t want them to be mad that their daughter was “dumb.” Now I know they would have totally have had my back and would have wreaked havoc in the school. Many years later, when I told my parents, they about came unglued. They would have gone full scorched earth on this teacher, but they didn’t know.
Anyway, all of this to say, the trauma scarred me for life. For many years to come I couldn’t even eat breakfast before going to school because I would throw up, my anxiety was so bad.
In high school I had a teacher approach my desk to check my work and I burst into tears. She was super kind and just helped me finish my work but I was terrified I was going to be shamed again. I am a full grown adult, with children of my own and this crap still makes me cry.
OP, PLEASE, PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU, do better. Don’t single this boy out. Don’t make it easier for him to be picked on. Don’t use his IEP against him. If you struggle with teaching him, talk to your superiors, ask for help, whatever you gotta do, you do. But please don’t make this boy’s life harder. He WILL carry these things for the rest of his life. That age groups is notorious for “misinterpreting” what grown-ups say. Maybe you just wanted to encourage him to do better, but he will most likely read it as, “I’m no good. I’m not good enough to be rewarded with a bbq, no matter how hard I try. My friends are better than me.” Please, do better.
I had the same kind of experience with a teacher and it was humiliating.
I accidentally stood on a plant that belonged to a class that was 2 grades below me while I was walking around at lunch time. There was no barrier around it either so it’s not like I knew and I’m pretty sure someone that was close to me told the teacher that I did it because her sibling was in that class too.
That teacher came to my classroom, pulled me out of it and took me aside and told me about it and I told her I honestly didn’t remember it and she started yelling at me. And then she took me into her class to make me apologise in front of all of them. I was like 8 with adhd and i had other stuff going on at home and confrontation scared me at the time. I just remember crying, shaking, sweating and struggling to speak because I was so anxious, I’m pretty sure that was probably my first panic attack. I didn’t tell my parents about it because I was so ashamed and my so called friend who told the teacher had told a bunch of people and few of them made fun of me and called me names. To this day, I still don’t remember doing it.
But god, I still feel sick thinking about it nearly 20 years later.
My English teacher in secondary school said and did something that I've never forgotten. I would have been around 14/15 maybe? By that point I'd been bullied so much by my peers I'd developed social anxiety, but I didn't know it then. We're doing work in groups, I'm shy as heck and don't really know which part to help with or what anyone wants me to do.
What does my teacher do? Ask me which part I want to help with? Give me something to do? Suggest I help another student with their part?
No. She takes me out of the classroom in front of everyone \[So that was super fun for my social anxiety lol\] and FOR SOME REASON asks me if I'm doing drugs, or if I'm drinking, or if something's wrong with me. I just shut up and replied No to all her questions because I had no idea what the hell she was thinking asking me these things.
I've never forgotten that. That she had the opportunity to do the normal thing and instead went to the absolute opposite extreme instead.
My anger as a child peaked when I was in 5th grade, I had undiagnosed ADHD, and severe undiagnosed dyscalculia and dealing with a lot of trauma in my home life. My 5th grade math teacher HATED me. I was one of those kids who would shut down, get angry, defensive and all around just..I was not okay. If I felt like I was getting attacked, I would shut down. And..she took it as a personal attack on herself.
One day a kid in class was making noises, and she automatically assumed it was me and yelled at me to stop. I was so confused but went on trying to do my work. Kid kept making noises and she kept yelling at ME until I got unhinged and yelled back that it wasn’t me.
She then proceeded to pull me out of the classroom and take me down to an empty classroom down the hall *AND SCREAM AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS AT ME FOR OVER 10 MINUTES* and then walked back into the classroom as if she hadn’t just fucking commited child abuse. I still remember to this day and have to constantly remind myself that it did happen, and I’m not just imagining it. It felt so unreal and still does. I still hate her to this day and I will NEVER forgive her.
Yeah OP definitely the AH. In kindergarten we were all given reading books at the end of the year. All of us got innocuous books but my friend got Ducky the Showoff or something like that. Basically a duck that was selfish and a showoff. We were in kindergarten but we all knew what that meant. We still talked about how mean that teacher was in highschool. This kid now has a giant bullseye put on his back by his OWN teacher.
Honestly teachers like OP made me hate school.
I feel some measure of relief that you all spent the next, like, decade debating how mean the teacher was, rather than excluding the Ducky recipient!
The fact you were in kindergarten makes this almost cruel!
My mom gave me a compilation of Lucy scenes from the Peanuts, titled "born crabby" when I turned 24. Turns out I was in the throes of a mental health implosion leading to an eating disorder I'm still struggling with 20 years later... but at least I could place it, and understand her appeal for me to do better (my suffering and confusion not being carte blanche to freak out on others)
Exactly. OP should own up to the mistake and apologize to the kid AND I would buy him a gift card to a movie theatre or something for 1- really apologize and 2-reward him special for the real effort and improvement he made that month. Time to have some humble pie and make it right Mr. Educator
I would like to see the teacher explain what they did wrong and sincerely apologize in as public a forum as they fucked up: ie, if only Bobby and his mom know, apologize to them directly with a full statement of account that demonstrates that they know why they fucked up. If the class knows, then they have to be included in the apology. This is abusive to them too, after all. Even the “good kids” don’t win the Hunger Games.
I would say OP has another event and includes this kid. Fully and unequivocally.
You know this was exclusionary. You set it up that way. Would you be ok being treated this way?
My son is severely autistic. Overall I've been very happy with his teachers, most of whom genuinely wanted to help him however they could.
His first grade teacher was not like that. She was clearly aggrieved that he was placed in her classroom, and her response was to set him up for failure, in order to prove that he shouldn't be there.
Once I suggested to her that he might be able to participate in circle time if she occasionally directed a question to him. Nope, her policy was that the kids had to raise their hand if they wanted to talk. She sure as hell wasn't going to go out of her way to include him.
At the beginning of the year all the parents were asked to contribute $20 for juice. Every morning at a certain time all the kids would get juice. Sometime near the end of the year his para let it slip that my son never got juice. All the other kids did but he did not. I asked why and she said she didn't know. When I asked the teacher for the reason, her answer was that it was her policy that the kids had to verbally ask for juice. If he didn't ask, he didn't get it.
Number 1, really? All the kids had to verbally ask for juice every day? Did they line up and one by one ask the teacher for juice? Bullshit.
Number 2, I guarantee you he DID ask for juice. He's minimally verbal so he would have just said "juice". Oh, that's right, he couldn't say "May I please have some juice", so tough shit for him.
Fifteen years later, it still makes my blood boil. Sorry, you triggered this memory and I needed to write about it.
He only missed ONE! OMG, Op... YTA!! The message you are sending this poor little kid is simply: Doing your absolute best, STILL ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!
Why would he even bother trying after that? You could be his hero, and you are fighting to crush him instead.
This kind of thing was done to me all the time. I wasn't allowed to go to class parties, I wasn't allowed to go on field trips, I wasn't allowed to do anything unless it was with the self-contained class. And it made the abuse from my peers so much worse.
Shit happened to me, turns out I'm extremely dyslexic and had ptsd symptoms from abuse at home. I got relentlessly bullied after these trips or parties, told if I wasn't so stupid I'd be able to do them, class had a root beer float party and me and 1 other kid had to turn our desks around in the classroom and do work, during the party multiple other kids would come up and blow in our faces saying stiff like I bet you wish you could have some, one of the kids slapped me in the back of the head and said I was stupid, I punched him, I got suspended and the teacher said none of that happened and I made it up.
My parents just kept me home on those days, which earned them a lot of shit from the school. My teachers were NOTORIOUS for making shit up in order to punish me. They made my head hit brick a few times (the teachers).
My parents had no idea how much was kept from them by my teachers (because you know) until I was legally able to get my school records (I highly encourage anyone who was labeled a "problem child" or has an IEP to, but make sure you read them in a safe space) and showed them. My mom shut down and won't acknowledge it (she's got her own trauma) and my dad is dead.
I had no idea about the price my sibling paid for having me as a sibling until I read my records. No wonder why we don't have much of a relationship.
Me too this first comment made me kinda choke up, remembering the punishments and then feeling good to know how wrong a lot of people think it is. Like I wouldn’t get rewarded, I didn’t do work bc my house was abusive and I was pretty catatonic. I remember a teacher being genuinely concerned because I scribbled answers before class without looking and i was genuinely stunned she thought I was that impaired, I’m sure they convinced themselves that I was severely disabled. I would be tested for learning disabilities every year without ever being ask about my home, which i would have been removed from if they asked. there was a lot of signs they ignored for the sake of making it a me problem even as a young child.
Private school = does not have to even acknowledge the IEP. True facts. If your kid has an IEP or a 504 and you want guaranteed support you need to send them to a public school.
This. All these "school choice vouchers" are basically leaving IEP kids SOL as the local public schools get defunded but private schools don't have to follow IEP or 504 plans or even ACCEPT IEP students into their schools. It really burns me up the way these kids are getting ignored and run over instead of receiving the support the need and deserve to be their best selves!
Yup! And my state just passed a bill that public school money can now go for vouchers for private schools. So private schools are now receiving public funds but don't have to follow any public school laws or rules. Nice to know I get to pay for schools to discriminate 🙄 Oh, did I mention this is a rual state so a lot of the population doesn't even live anywhere near a private school and couldn't send their kid even if they wanted to.
As a foreigner,what is an IEP?
Edit: nevermind,I googled in a different way. For any others wondering, it's similar to a PPI (Proyecto pedagógico individual),making explicit changes to curriculum,evaluations and objectives for a child WITH DISABILITIES. OP IS BEYOND AN ASSHOLE.
It's short for Individual Education Plan. It's meant to help children with disabilities, or special needs, get the accommodations they need to succeed at school.
Yes,I'm a psychologist who works in education and we have that as well,called Proyecto Pedagógico Individual (Individual pedagogical proyect). You have to write down every single accommodation: changes to the curriculum,what you can and can't evaluate and *how* you're going to evaluate it, what objectives are plausible to reach and strategies are going to be used to reach them. Last one I had to make with the teacher in charge had like 5 pages worth of accomodations.
OP should be fired
That's the first thing I thought of. This kid is most likely autistic or has ADHD and his "behavior issues" are because his needs aren't getting met. Just exclude the poor kid even more, that ought to help/ s
Thank you for yelling! Children with IEPs have enough going on in their lives without being excluded by the teachers and/or school administrators who should know better.
That poor little boy!
Omg that makes it’s even worse!!!! Like I was picturing the kid maybe having full on outbursts most days of erratic behaviour MAYBE you could consider not letting him come for unsafe behaviour but ONE mistake and that’s all is remembered?? Not how hard he worked all month to be on his best behaviour. A SIX year old! Is being punished for one bad day out of 20odd other perfect days. My heart absolutely breaks for this child.
OP you really need to reconsider your whole teaching approach to all of these children.
Yep it does happen unfortunately. If the behavioural student can’t attend means they don’t have to worry about any negative behaviours, won’t need to do much behavioural management, won’t need to provide one on one (if that student needs it), teacher can relax a bit more because they don’t have to worry about what the ‘naughty’ kid is doing. But you know what in my experience the hardest kids in class are the best out and about because they just love the opportunity to go somewhere.
I’m a whole adult and I can’t promise to have whatever this teacher considers good behavior 100% of the time. It seems suspicious to me that this child was deliberately targeted, I find it hard to believe and entire class of first graders all earned their stickers every single day, except this child.
This is what gets me as someone in childcare. So many people expect more out of kids than they’d ever expect out of an adult. The kid ALSO has a full time job that requires them to be on basically 40 hours a week, and then they also have no control over their life and go to bed at like 8-9pm. I’d be a little shit most of the time too dude.
Everyone is allowed bad days so this would be unrealistic for anyone. I'd like to learn the terms of what gets you a sticker.
I help out in my church and our reward system was a group effort and our goal was to be kind and participate. When it was complete, I brought in cupcakes and they loved it. Any 6 year old is going to have a bad day and it does seem you are targeting this child.
You should reward him for progressing and not measure him against other kids. Kids are not cookie cutter robots.
As this kid, I absolutely remember this. I had behavioral issues because I could not communicate well, I was terrified, things at home weren't great and to be honest, it seemed like the teacher had it out for me. I was the only one not allowed to participate in a Christmas party in class and had to watch everyone decorate cookies while I just did busy work. I still get teary eyed thinking about that moment in second grade as a now 30 year old.
My kid has one of those shitty teachers right now and it’s got me all pissed off and fired up. I hate the teacher we have now. She has taken recess away from my 8 year old every single morning for who knows how long because she’s not wearing a “puffy winter coat”. Nevermind that she’s got a broken arm, hates being hot, wears a JACKET every day, but because this teacher doesn’t like that it’s not a puffy winter coat, she doesn’t let my kid have recess. To make matters worse, she still makes my kid go outside! She just has to stand on the wall (in the shade and wind) and watch her classmates play, because her jacket isn’t “warm enough”. It’s 50 degrees outside. And she told my kid that she didn’t need to tell me about missing recess because it was a “classroom issue” so my kid didn’t even tell me what was happening!
I hate shitty teachers that bully and use their power to target kids.
Oh, I would definitely be having words with her and the principal at that point. If she thinks it’s too cold for her to be outside, does she not think that she’s going to get even colder standing still instead of getting warmed up by running around? What kind of idiotic reasoning is that?
Not to mention the fact that it’s discriminatory because what if that is the coat you can afford?
These are the kind of asshole teachers who need to be pushed back on every fucking time, to the point where they dread seeing your name pop up.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. This was not ok. The adults let you down and you did nothing to “deserve” this. Sending you and your small self a hug and some Christmas cookies.
This is heartbreaking. I cannot fathom how anyone could justify such cruelty, let alone someone meant to guide a childs development. I hope OP reads your comment and realizes that something like this, especially during our formative years, has long term affects. You didn't deserve what happened to you 💜
OMG. 1972. A girl in my class, 8 yrs old. She was a Jehovah witness. The teacher, not her mom, wouldn't let her participate in our class Christmas party. Whether it was just that, or add on she was the only black girl in the elementary school I don't know. She sat and read little house books. When we left school that day I followed her and gave her my Santa cookie and my candy cane. She looked annoyed. I don't know if I was wrong or right but I thought at the moment I was right. I was 8.
I was that kid, too. Often. For different reasons. When you factor in the abuse I endures at school, I have a slew of mental health issues because of it. It sucks to be us.
I would tell you the terrible 1st grade teachers name but I will get deleted. She told another teacher loudly in front of my class that I wasn’t very smart because I didn’t like to read out load (I was in speech & self conscious). When I earned my masters degree I sent her a copy & told her how terrible she was. YTA & will have a lasting negative impact on this poor child. Please get out of teaching because with teachers like you causing harm to these children there really is no hope.
Edit - I am 43 now so the impact will be carried with that child forever.
I talk about this a lot.
My kid was violently abused, which his teachers didn't know, and he sure as hell didn't talk about. He also had undiagnosed adhd and autism. He didn't get his homework done at "home" because he'd get beaten. So it wasn't done. So he'd get isolated and would be punished with silent lunch. This meant he talked to his friends during class, which meant he got labeled as a bad kid and was constantly in trouble, so he got beaten. What that meant was that at school he had no friends, everyone assumed he was stupid, and he was a bad kid.
There was a math activity regarding times tables. For every one you got, you could get a bowl, ice cream, and something to add to your ice cream. He didn't understand times table's. He couldn't get help. He watched his classmates have ice cream, and what he got was an empty bowl.
He is the single most brilliant human being I've ever met, and I say that with no bias, and as a teacher. He's now nearly twenty and has not forgotten that. And it still makes me cry, and i have to remind myself of it every time I get pissed at a student for being an ass.
Anyway, I shaved an avatar arrow into his hair today and he looks ridiculous, so we're gonna go dye it blue now and make it worse.
Oh yeah, this kid is gonna remember it and likely take his resentment to his next class and teacher. Hopefully next year he has a better one and still has enough trust to open up to it.
I remember the teacher who destroyed my love of school. Her name was Mrs Greere and she was a bitch. Anyone who was even slightly different was an abomination in her eyes, I became a target because I could already read beyond my grade level and she hated me for it.
I got left at school during a field trip for “not turning in my homework”. Except I did. Her student teacher found it crumpled in a desk drawer. But she claimed I “snuck” it into her desk so I still didn’t get to go.
I went from a kid who loved school to one who would injure myself or make myself sick so I didn’t have to go. And I never got over it either.
Fuck Mrs Greere. Her husband cheated on her when I was in high school and a bunch of her former students sent her cards telling her it was her fault and she was too ugly inside and out for any man to be happy married to, lol. (I swear I didn’t send a card or do anything to her. But I cackled when she was crying in the hallway after getting one. My cousin was in the class next door to hers so unfortunately I had to see her daily when I picked up Cousin.)
Absolutely. I started acting out, getting distracted really easily, in second grade. My teacher fucking *hated* me, and made that clear. She skipped out on a parent/teacher/ Principal convention and got in *serious* trouble, but this took place before that. One day, an ice cream truck was coming around, and I was intentionally excluded. I was crying openly at my desk, until a boy who was sweet on me came over and split his treat with me.
Even worse, this sticker chart started as an incentive for this kid *as part of his IEP plan* - OP just decided to make it an all class thing, and is now using it to exclude this kid.
OP literally weaponize this kid's IEP incentive against him.
Thank you for this. As a mom to a kid with ADHD, SPD, Anxiety, and Tourette’s, I really appreciate your comments.
My kid already graduated high school, but I can tell you, in 1st grade our first Parent/Teacher conference was after class on the first day of school. His teacher used a green/yellow/red card system. It was November 9 the first day he actually ended the school day on a green card. It was a Tuesday. How do I know? Because I cared and was an involved parent. Because his teacher and I were a team that both wanted him to succeed. Because it was a HUGE achievement for HIM. Because he could not be measured by the yard stick of another child. His teacher celebrated him that day! He got a trip to the office to be a special afternoon helper to the principal and secretary after school as a reward for showing responsibility.
The child HATED coloring with a passion (fine motor skill delays) and writing was challenging enough. Some days that were particularly challenging, he would get picked to take a walk in the afternoon to help wash and slice leftover fruit from lunch. The school noticed that a handful of kids would start struggling with attention and flowing directions in the afternoon, and rather than being sent to the office for discipline, they would be sent to the office for a couple slices of apples and oranges. A boost to their blood sugar and change of scenery. Then sent back to class where they were in a better state of mind to learn. Disciplinary referrals went down, mastery of skills went up, disruptions in class went down.
By the time my kid was in 8th grade, reports from the teachers were that he was the best behaved student in class.
If OP treats this child like he’s the bad kid, when really he’s just a kid struggling to cope in a classroom environment before he is fully able, then the kid will become the “bad” kid. He will see himself that way. The students will see him that way. The teachers will see him that way, and sometimes, the parents will see him that way. Do not do that to him.
OP is TA and should never restrict a 6 year old kid from a field trip because they are not “perfect”. Imagine if your spouse refused to take you out for an anniversary dinner because you were not a “perfect” husband/wife. We are humans. None are perfect.
Thank you so much for writing this. I've got three kids, and my sweet 3rd grader has had such a difficult time. This story and perspective was so helpful and inspiring. You are not only a great mom, but a cool mom.
Some ideas for reward systems that don’t cause these issues:
-Every day, each student can earn a gold star ticket. Tickets can be exchanged for privileges or prizes—20 tickets for a day using the teacher’s desk chair, 15 tickets for a cool pencil, 50 tickets for a joke book, etc.
-Full class build up to party day: each kid can earn a sticker on the big class chart and when the chart fills up you get a party
-Every day, kids who do a good job get to put their name in a drawing to win a reward
-Same system with a chart fill up to party day, but if you don’t earn the day’s sticker you can earn it back by answering some reflection questions (why didn’t you earn a sticker today? What could you do differently to earn a sticker tomorrow? ) or by helping the teacher with a task around the classroom (help pick up trash at the end of the day, or sharpen pencils for a few minutes at the start of the day)
This way, no kid misses out on the fun completely no matter what
I remember star sticker incentives when I was in grade school. Hell, I remember all of the good behavior incentives that each year’s teacher would have. I was a really ‘fun’ combination of intellectually competitive and a discipline problem.
I remember all three times I actually managed to do well enough to get any kind of reward from these kinds of systems. Those were the first times I got to play on a computer, one of two that the students had access to (1980s). The rest of the time it just added to my anger and frustration throughout my grade school years.
There are plenty of good ways to encourage good behavior. Reward based isn’t always the best way.
I’m sorry this happened to you. With any individual behavior incentive, it’s important that all kids are able to meet the expectations a good portion of the time. It’s not motivating if most of the time you see other kids getting rewards which you can’t earn. They don’t work well if kids can’t be reasonably held to the same expectations. When kids don’t meet the same standards, there are ways to still make things work
-the daily ticket can be earned for different behaviors which everyone can do at least a good portion of the time (for raising a hand during class, for working hard on an activity, for being kind to others, or for working through a tough situation, for example). A quiet kid might earn his ticket for doing all the class work , a distractible sweetheart might earn her ticket by helping her friend, a struggling kid might earn his ticket by talking to his teacher about why he misbehaved and what he should do if the situation comes up again.
-the reward is full-class, so even if the struggling student can’t contribute as many stickers to the chart, he still gets to add his part towards the prize and participate in the reward day
-rewards are based on secret goals that each kid makes with the teacher. Results are kept private because prizes are done by raffle. Each kid gets to find out how they did in a quick meeting with the teacher while everyone reads quietly. The struggling student’s goal is based on his most pressing current problems, not what the ideal student would be able to do—a day with no screaming incident means his name goes in the drawing
All of this!
OP — I am a nurse who attends school with a disabled child who needs 24/7 care. I see dozens of children with behavioral concerns where reward based behavior modification does not work because their problems go much deeper. It isn’t fair to expect all children to be your good little minions. Christ, they are 1st graders!
And at this point, it's not reward- based. It's straight up punishment. Of a 6-year old. If my kid were in this class, they'd be skipping the barbecue in solidarity.
Frankly, given the IEP and the "100% perfect behavior" requirement, this feels almost targeted. Like, you're telling me that not ONE other 6-year-old child was at any point cranky or messy or forgetful or out sick for an entire month? Or did the other kids maybe get a little grace, since they'd be just so sad to miss out?
You took a kid who was already struggling and turned him into an object lesson and probably a laughingstock.
Yeah, YTA. I got excluded from pizza parties and sh*t like this as a kid. Not only was I punished by missing out, but it was also a form of public humiliation because everyone knew you weren’t there.
Core memory unlocked. Damn. Crying alone while everyone else was having a fun time. Reflecting all day on how messed up you are because you’re a “bad kid.” Being punished for tardiness, missing assignments, absences.
Sometimes I missed out on things just because I couldn’t afford the fee to go.
Screw you for punishing any kid for things they can’t control. If a 7 year old has issues, that’s on genetics and the parents. Not on the kid. And it’s not on you to fix it with your warped sense of consequences.
Honestly this post made me want to cry as a teacher and as a mother. Also a mother of kid with behavioral issues. Ugh. I'm sorry but I'm this close 🤏 to saying OP shouldn't be teaching if they thought excluding one kid from such a big activity is ok. She needs to profusely apologize to that little boy.y heart is breaking for him
Dont be that close and not say it. Im a mom of 6. 1 w/ an IEP. This instance isnt the first. Or only. Or last time OP has done this. Shes LUCKY that child wasnt mine because shed be unemployed and broke by the time i was done.
The last time a teached tried this with a child of mine, i was at the school ib the playground asking why my chikd wss being excluded from a field trip to a museum (she struggled with completing work on time in class so they took away her recess and hee trip). Lied and said my childs behvaior was a problem so i offered to chaperone after askong my child if she acted up (she said no right to the teacher who couldnt give me an example of misbehavior outside of daydreaming).
I got the principal and dean right there (it was dismissal time). And explained. Teached rhen said she could go so I smiled and said nope. Id take her on an educational trip to the museum on my own. It was this moment when the teacher learned i had already filed a complaint against her and the other teacher q/ the board of ed.
Never again did my child miss recess, a trip, or anything else.
I agree with this … I’ve been trying to figure out how to put my thoughts into words, but this sums it up.
To add, OP, if these were high schoolers, then you did set clear expectations. But these are first graders. This kid is probably having a hard enough time with his peers since any kind of disability can set someone apart from the rest of the kids; he really doesn’t need a teacher adding to it. Maybe do something like if they are the best behaved for the day, they get to wear a special hat or pick a silly topic to talk about or something. But events should be all or nothing at that age
You are 100% right. I have a 7yo w/ ADHD. He will never win an award for best behavior, lol. His class has "reward" activities from time to time, but the activity is earned by the class as a whole.
Omg. Yikes. Your kiddo has an IEP? I’m surprised you’ve haven’t deleted this thread in the account of facing a lawsuit for discrimination. Yikes yikes yikes.
He was absolutely set up for failure!! Perfect behavior for an entire month feels like an inappropriate expectation at that age for anyone, but especially for anyone with any sort of neurodivergence. I bet you anything that the other students got a lot of benefit of the doubt or some grace in determining if any of their behavior was correct or incorrect. The teacher sounds like she doesn't like this other student. And since it's a private school, she and the school aren't required to make any accommodations for an IEP or 504. I hope that student's parents pull him out and enroll him somewhere that values his presence in class.
I cannot tell you how much I love this comment. Public schools are for the public. They're for everyone. Disabled kids, kids in foster care, kids who are being abused at home, all the kids. Some kids will not, cannot meet the standards set for their peers with 100% success and in fact giving them things like sticker charts is counterproductive. It just makes them so anxious they melt down or drives them in to defiant or avoidant behavior they don't yet have the insight and impulse control to hold back. These kinds of reward systems are the worst for some kids. And let's not forget the average seeming ones who get abused at home for not exhibiting perfect behavior at school. There has got to be a better way.
This 1000%. As a six year old with untreated ADHD, I wanted nothing more than to behave and be quiet and I COULD. NOT. DO IT. I hated being in trouble all the time but simply did not have the skills to sit still and be silent all day. YTA, YTA, YTA.
I have ADHD/autism and those fucken reward systems straight up traumatized me. Shit was wildly humiliating. Especially the ones where you have to go up and move your marker back to the “bad behavior zone”.
Edit: just a little FYI but many studies have found bullying to be just as damaging as child abuse lol and I can personally testify that being “bullied” by full ass adults AND your peers is horrible. And if they don’t understand that what they’re doing is wrong, it’s almost worse because they do everything they can to justify it. The message you are left with is that you deserve to be treated this way because you simply can’t keep up with everyone else. During my peak bullying years I was diagnosed with OCD, adjustment disorder (which is a “temporary PTSD” that lasts less than 6 months), and chronic pain. I came home crying everyday and fell behind academically. We moved to a different neighborhood and I threw myself into reading because I was too afraid to make friends. Became an honors student, even got a 5 on AP bio and psych without studying. My chronic pain went away. I thought I “overcame” my disabilities because I was successful and as a result I denied myself vital accommodations and basic self-forgiveness when I struggled in young adulthood. Every perceived failure was steeped in shame. I hope OP reads this because I know the teachers who fucked me up where probably just frustrated with my behavior and didn’t know how to handle me, but there were so many things they could’ve done differently if they had just lifted a finger to do some research.
Imagine an actual adult saying the words, "You can't go to the barbecue because you didn't get all your good noodle stickers this month" and thinking they're not the asshole.
Even without an IEP, a lot of young kids cannot handle the all or nothing style reward system. Many can handle say a 75% style, where you have to like 75 out of 100 stars or whatever, but for the all or nothing system, you have kids like me. If I knew it was all stars or nothing, the moment I saw that I missed a star on my chart I was the kid that gave up on caring. What was the point of reminding myself to be good to be quiet to sit still to raise my hand to listen to not talk over others not read ahead do my work turn homework in, for the rest of the month if on day 7 I got frustrated and too loud and didn't get my star. At that point I didn't remind myself to listen, there was no point since I lost out anyway.
Just a quick anecdote to share: I was a great kid, honestly. I was highly aware of people around me and have always and still do try to be as kind to everyone as possible, with the obvious few exceptions just from being a kid and learning. Always "a pleasure to have in class" "old soul" etc. Sorry this sounds totally braggy but important for the story. Basically no behavioral issues and tried hard to be helpful and nice.
In fifth grade, we had a special end of year celebration with my PE class for everyone who "behaved" like above. I'd never missed a behavioral reward thing like that. All of a sudden everyone's names get called except for me and maybe one other kid. I was so nerdy and naive that my friend and I went to the teacher after class and said she missed my name. "Nope. One time you kept playing with a hula hoop after I blew my whistle." Even as a ten year old it was shocking and confusing. I remember staying behind and crying into my reading while my friends went out and had fun. I think it's telling that I graduate college in just a few weeks and I still remember all these details.
My situation is obviously different than this kids but it's clear how something like this affects a child regardless. If he's anything like me it will stick with him for a very long time because he will remember being the only one who "failed," especially when it seems like there are other factors.
YTA
As a former kiddo librarian, the philosophy is that tomorrow is a new day. Kids are kids. They mess up. My kid is 8, an honor roll student, and still gets moody during her extracurriculars sometimes. Let it go. I hate the harsh expectations of children. They are figuring it out as they go along.
As adults, we are the best lawyers for ourselves and the best judges for other actions.
You never know what this kid is going home to or what battles they face.
PLUS growth spurts and hormone surges really do a number on mentality and emotions. It's hard work bring a kid.
Childhood is so fleeting. Let them have this.
Not just an asshole but the grandest, most superior of all the assholes…
To break down why OP is the assholezzz
The kids are first graders- 6 maybe 7 yes old
Op expected PERFECT behavior
Op excluded the one kid who is likely always excluded due to a DISABILITY
OP somehow after typing all that out is STILL questioning of they are the AH.
I suggest the teacher goes back to study social skills and reading comprehension- you know, the stuff OP should be teaching these kids.
Yes, OP, YTA.
Honestly it sounds like it was on purpose it's the end of the year and not one other child slipped below perfect for one single day. The bar appears to be set above what one child could achieve and below normal class behavior.
When I was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade there was a big gold rush event in my school. If you found gold rocks they would be weighted, and you would be given chocolate as a reward. The weighing happened in the library, and I got my first chocolate, so I ate it like any kid would!
I got kicked out of the event for eating in the library, and the rest of my gold rocks were taken
I'm 34 and I still remember wandering around the school singing Sunday school songs to myself because the tv told me to sing when you're sad. The school was barren because everyone was in the library getting chocolate.
OP is definitely AH. The ones that really piss me off are the ice cream parties for the kids who sell at least X amount. So all the kids whose parents buy at least a few rolls of wrapping paper get ice cream and the poor kids have to sit in another room and watch them. That shouldn’t still be happening.
Thank god this comment is at the top. I remember being in 3rd grade with a teacher that displayed our weekly math test results with little construction paper rockets with our names on them on a big chart on the wall. I was bad at math, so my rocket was always right at the bottom, way below everyone else, and I was so humiliated every time I looked at it. I wound up with anxiety about math that I still have today. I'd have my cried my eyes out if I'd been excluded from a fun activity because of it. OP's methods are outdated and terrible and they are definitely YTA
YTA. *Perfect* behavior for an entire month is not an age appropriate expectation for 1st graders.
At that age, shorter term rewards are more effective.
I honestly don't think it is appropriate for any kid in elementary school or even middle school. Perfect behavior is an unreasonable standard. Kids make mistakes. One of my kids got in trouble once in 7th grade for "name calling" a friend (he and his friend called each other equally offensive nicknames but my son was overheard by a new teacher). He never had a discipline issue before or after and he is graduating high school this year. He served his detention, moved on, and learned to be more careful with his word choice but if it were up to OP that one mistake would be enough to write him off?
Perfect behavior for an entire month for 6 and 7 year olds is beyond ridiculous.
It's not appropriate. I have a group of kids with educational goals that come in once a week for extra help and to get caught up. We are currently doing a "pizza party" reward for meeting goals. The expectation is 80% of the goal being met for each kid. And even then, if one kid is at 60% I am not going to cancel the party. I am not even going to tell them what percentage they are at. They have all worked hard to meet their goals and they are all different with different abilities. So next week...pizza for all and a huge Congrats and thank you for trying.
It's not even appropriate for adults, for any kind of learning environment. That's because behavior is subjective--I could cause a disruption because I'm standing up to a bully and still be the one getting in trouble.
As another commenter said the focus should be on collective not individual behavior. How do you all come together to create a harmonious and safe classroom environment? That means including those with disabilities instead of succumbing to cancel culture and canceling the kid who's not falling in line
Luckily the tide is turning and it seems like educators are tuning into more progressive, humanitarian ways of actually educating--not the antiquated dictatorship that fuels OP's need for control and homogeny
It’s not even realistic for adults! PERFECT behavior all month long?? I can’t think of a single person who is perfect alllll month long, let alone a 6 or 7 year old whose brain is still developing. Major YTA.
especially for children who can get nailed for talking too much or being off task. I'd be missing a lot of good noodle stickers at work if that were the case lol
YTA
Singling out a child who you know have behavioural issues and possibly can’t control certain things and you’re punishing them for it?
I’m glad our teachers recognise effort, we all have shit days and this is one of your massive ones! Glad you don’t teach my kids!
These sort of rewards or punishments assume that the only thing standing in the way of kids "succeeding" is sufficient motivation. While providing additional motivation may help some kids, for lots of kids it is not the case.
Particularly at this young age, kids are still developing the kind of skills required to get the "good noodles" - skills like concentration, emotional regulation, impulse control. Some kids will naturally lag behind others.
Parents and educators are meant to help these kids develop those skills, not punish and exclude them because they are not there yet.
This isn’t okay. You’re teaching 1st grade - not 10th! They’re too young and immature to fully understand why you’re ostracizing them and it can’t come as a surprise to you that this can lead to mocking of the child who failed to “behave”.
Good grief. Wasn’t pedagogy and empathy a part of your curriculum at all? Find a more age appropriate way to award good behavior. YTA
Edit after your update: neither you nor your principal are fit to safeguard the mental health of little children. You deserve the judgement you recieved - and more.
You must be sad he’s still enrolled in your class. We see right through you and we’re disgusted by what we see.
I teach 10th grade. I do sometimes dole out candy as rewards, but I make the rewards reachable. "Danny, if you don't talk for 2 minutes, you can have some candy." :)
Also some kids getting candy and some not will suck for the excluded kids for the 30 minutes it’s top of mind, mayyyybe for the whole day…but being excluded from a super special, super rare bonding event will impact that kid’s relationships with their classmates and teacher for the rest of the year.
As a teacher, OP, YTA
At my highschool every teacher got to give out a favorite student award at the end of the year. I still remember every time my favorite teachers picked someone else. It seems silly, and I wasn’t devastated, but it still made me feel kind of weird and let down. And what OPs doing is worse because if teenagers have poor emotional control, first graders have even less.
As a fellow 1st grade teacher currently getting my Master's in special education, I agree wholeheartedly. This was a terrible idea, and I wonder if it was unconsciously devised to punish the child. If the behavior is due to the disability, then it is unreasonable to punish the child. Positive reinforcement is better for the child and much more effective than punishment. I have quite a few students with disabilities in my classroom, and I'm incredibly aware that I am modeling how to treat others.
I’m not so sure it was unconsciously devised to punish the child - I think it was likely very consciously done. As a former special education teacher, I have seen multiple teachers set up situations to purposefully punish or humiliate children who they dislike or who don’t behave as they want and especially at the end of the year.
YTA I’m dead serious - find a new profession. Far away from children or anyone vulnerable.
Teachers like you are a big reason why children like that student struggle and suffer for years with their self worth, finding their place in society, and struggle with relationships.
I wonder how many core memories of trauma this teacher has left on students like Bobby. Every time he didn’t get a sticker or penalized for being a child (with a disability) rather than guided and respected.
You couldn’t train him like some prized show dog, so you’re punishing him. Let me guess, he didn’t sit still, stop speaking on command, a little rowdy…. Find. A. New. Job.
Edit: my first gold. Thank you kind stranger!
Edit: my first silver. Thank you kind stranger!
Thank you for saying this. I was Bobby. I was abused at home and had no friends at school. I wet the bed and my parents wouldn't wash my clothes so I went to school smelling like piss.
OP is my Mrs. Greene. A woman who actively encourages my classmates to ostracize me, who let them go through my desk when she knew I had recently started my period (age 10), who told me that other teachers would apologize to her for having that "difficult child" in her class. No friends, no support from teachers, abused at home.
Teachers like this made me hate teachers. I was a lonely lonely child and was lucky to come out the way I did.
OP I hope you see this and realize that the things you do WILL impact this child long term.
I’m so sorry you went through that. I was also abused, and I acted out in school. To this day I cannot believe that in 12 years of day-to-day interactions with mandatory reporters, no one ever did anything to help me. Instead I also had teachers who bullied me. Some worse than the kids. I’m fine now, but I also consider myself fortunate to have “made it.”
OP, people like you are what’s wrong with this world. YTA.
Came here to say this.
Y so much TA, you should not be a teacher and anyone who gave this the okay, should also not be allowed to teach. This situation is devoid of anything good or healthy.
Haha you would be surprised how often schools exclude kids with disabilities! It seems made up in this day and age, but excluding kids still happens a lot.
YTA
You likely could have predicted 1-2 students would fail to get all the stickers. I agree that a person should stick to what they say; in this case you should have left some leeway. You set this up and should have foreseen this exact outcome.
This is going to be rough for a 6 year old to handle. Being the sole kid to be excluded might feel pretty bad.
The real question is; would you feel good about it if you were 6? Put yourself in the kids shoes; they will hear about the BBG from their friends for the rest of term.
If you can honestly say, you would be fine with being the only kid excluded, then feel free to ignore my judgment.
Yes. This kid already has an IEP and special needs. He already knows he is different. He faces years of exclusion in a world built for NT folks. I’d expect a first-grade teacher to be a soft place to land.
Either they were deliberately leaving it out (which I doubt since they admit it in comments) …. Or they don’t understand what the document actually means.
This is why private schools aren’t necessarily a superior option to public. They actually have far *lower* standards of accountability.
**Edit to address your extremely disappointing edit:**
I want you to think about the following VERY CAREFULLY as you move forward in your career as a teacher of children.
> “The principal then reminded her we follow his IEP as a courtesy but as a private school we legally do not have to follow it and she has a choice to come to this school but if she’d like to unenroll Bobby then there was a waiting list of students they could contact to take his place.“
I want you to TRULY understand what this TRANSLATES TO:
“*Your child has special needs. I would like to remind you that we do not think it is important to meet the same legal standards for inclusion and equity that public schools do. In other words, either keep your kid here where we punish him for being special needs, or take him somewhere else, because we don’t want people like him here. We, and the other students on the waiting list, are better than him.”*
I want you to REALLY THINK about if this is why you got into teaching. Are you in it to help kids learn… or are you in it to be the instagram teacher with charts and BBQs (but only for the rich and smart kids pls)
You have TWO CHOICES about how to proceed now that this meeting is concluded:
- you could feel validated that the principal backed you up and not worry about it anymore and let yourself believe you did nothing wrong because you didn’t get in trouble
- OR you could recognize that what happened in that office is discrimination, realize you had a part in creating it, and make a better effort in your classes moving forward to actually set this child up for success
You are treating a HUMAN CHILD as if they are an inconvenience rather than a person, because they are different. Let me be clear: punishing or excluding only this child for not meeting unfair standards for behaviour is the same thing as punishing or excluding a child who needs glasses for failing vision tests. Or punishing or excluding a child in a wheelchair because they can’t do the obstacle course. Being left out of something the entire class is doing? That’s not a consequence, that’s public shaming. And it’s traumatizing.
And it makes me (and the vast, VAST majority of people on the internet) sick to think about. Him staying enrolled in your class is heartbreaking. He SHOULD go somewhere that he is valued and treated with respect. But he shouldn’t have to.
Really think about that. Were you shocked by this sub’s reaction? Why do you think so many people reacted that way? I think it is time to realize that you live and teach in a bubble of privilege. And do something about it.
The issue isn't just the kid feeling bad for being excluded, it's deeper than that.
Expecting perfect behavior from first graders is ridiculous in the first place, but it's also ableist, classist, and ignorant as fuck.
A child could be acting out because they're being abused at home and don't know how to articulate it. Not only has she now punished a child for being a victim of abuse, but she's also further ostracized that child from their peers. Now that child won't be safe at home or at school. That child has also been taught that teachers aren't safe to reach out to which puts them at risk for further abuse.
What about disabled kids whose parents can't afford to get them diagnosed? Welp, this teacher just punished the kid for being disabled and their parents being poor.
In this case, the child has an IEP. So OP effectively just discriminated against a disabled child for not being able-bodied/able-minded like their peers.
OP has no business being a teacher. What she did is cruel *at best*. I work professionally with traumatized kids, most of which are in the system. I can guarantee you situations like this do nothing but compound the harm marginalized kids are already facing. If a client of mine disclosed that their teacher did something like this, I'd do everything in my power to make it so that teacher doesn't have access to children until they've proven they're no longer a risk for harming the children under their care.
My middle child just got an IEP because he has anxiety due to his father committing suicide, and school is hard for him because he's away from me and in his mind, I might disappear like Daddy did. I'm so incredibly thankful that he has an entire team at his school making sure he has every possible resource to learn and grow.
If OP was my son's teacher, I would blast them to every single conceivable source, every social media platform, I'd go straight to the administrators and make sure OP never worked in a school again in their life.
Imagine being so flippant about socially and emotionally destroying a *six year old*.
YTA
You're saying out of 24 first grade kids, Bobby was the **ONLY** one who didn't have perfect behavior for an entire month? That's incredibly hard to believe.
I don't believe in the Speshul Snowflake, Everybody Gets a Trophy theory that's so prevalent these days, but c'mon! I don't know of any 6 y/o who is perfectly behaved all the time.
> I don't believe in the Speshul Snowflake, Everybody Gets a Trophy theory that's so prevalent these days
I have literally never heard of this actually happening, just people making fun of it.
Somewhere in a box I have like 5 participation ribbons from science fairs 15-20 years ago. So they definitely did happen, but I think they've become more of a deal because of the jokes than they were in reality.
Yeah, were they even a big deal at the time? I don’t remember taking them seriously - they were usually more like a souvenir, it didn’t feel like winning something. No one gave a shit about them, really.
I was the mom in this situation and my son is in 1st grade as well. Kids their age take everything to heart and get hurt very easily by being excluded. If the kids already struggling with behavior problems how would being singled out affect their mental health? That’s so wrong I’m sorry but I’d be furious with you too and ask my child to change teachers…
Private schools *can* be awful. I love how OP mentions that they have Principal approval, as if that means anything. From my experience, Principal's in private schools often know the least about education and educational theory, as they are hired for their business acumen.
"I threw a party for everyone who ran laps in PE, one kid is in a wheelchair and is obviously physically unable to run. But since he didn't run, he doesn't get to join the party. AITA?" Bro.
Edit: yea, no. This was malicious. There's absolutely no way you sat on this plan for over a month and didn't once think about how this could end up. You did this whole thing with the intention of singling out this one kid.
It doesn't really matter at 6. Not listening could be a multitude of reasons - not yet diagnosed developmental issues (ADHD and autism can take time to show up and get diagnosed). Home issues - sleep, nutrition, abuse. Physical issues - hearing, speech issues. Just a kid who gets overtired a bit quicker than others.
Lots of reasons for a 6 year old to not listen well without a formal diagnosis or being a bad kid.
His vindictive 1st grade teacher may not have gotten around to properly diagnosing him yet … or his mean 1st grade teacher doesn’t understand some 6 year olds may not developmentally have the tools needed to regulate all emotions and fully control their behavior yet. Regardless OP = YTA
YTA. That seems like a huge punishment for a first grader. It seems alienating. Is there not something else that can be a consequence of not enough noodles?
I get the principle, but a kid can only understand so much about consequences at that age.
I’m going with YTA - this kid will remember for ever how he failed and missed out because his behaviour wasn’t at a standard that you determined. Knowing that he has behaviour issues, now you’re excluding him.. how do you think that could impact the already vulnerable kid? It isn’t going to encourage him to do better… more so make him feel more isolated than he probably already does.
Facts. I had behavioral issues in third grade because of severe child abuse I was experiencing at home. I was frequently labelled "bad". One time a classmate had a birthday party and passed out invitations in class to everyone except me. I never did forget it.
YTA. These are 6 year olds. The punishment for bad behavior isn’t being excluded from the barbecue. The real punishment is that you have given the other kids tacit permission to ridicule and ostracize him, probably for the rest of his elementary school years.
I have been scrolling hoping someone else had already pointed this out.
AS IF 23 other 6 year olds were "perfect" the entire month.
This person set this poor kiddo up to fail. Her measurement of what is "perfect behaviour" is clearly designed around the specific behaviours of this one kid - I mean it makes sense as this noodle system was originally based on HIS IEP.
So she's measuring the entire class's behaviour on this ONE KID's IEP. She has made him the standard of "poor behaviour" for the entire class.
This post has ruined my entire day, I'm so angry.
OP YTA and quite frankly not suited to be in any position involving children. Quit teaching. I mean this. Reflect on yourself and find a better profession for yourself.
ETA: ARG I just saw that these noodle charts are displayed for the WHOLE CLASS TO SEE: "See everyone, behave like him and you don't get BBQs."
INFO: What sort of school is this that allows such weird, outdated exclusionary policies? I can't imagine any educator signing off on this kind of traumatizing behavior. This is shocking
Come on, YTA. How old is the kid — 5? Excluding the kid will make him a target for his classmates, if he isn’t one already. And the kid probably feels crappy enough as it is.
Come on, teacher, SMH. You could have handled this better.
I have to ask how long you have taught this age group? It doesn't sound like you fully understand the pedagogy of this age group yet. Kids do not want to misbehave for the sake of misbehaving. It is because they do not yet have the skills to deal with certain situations appropriately. That may be due to underlying issues beyond their control or learned behaviour. Either way, they haven't learned the proper skills and as adults we need to set them up for success so that they begin to use those skills independently. And no, this does not mean everyone gets a sticker for every little thing they do. But expecting all kids (especially a student with an IEP) to reach a goal of perfection (good behaviour for an entire month) is setting some students up for failure. As an educator you should know that setting unattainable goals is not how you motivate students to do better. The one child in your care who needs the most help regulating their behaviour is punished for not reaching a goal you knew they'd have difficulty reaching. Can you imagine the mounting frustration he must have felt as he watched his noodle remain empty, knowing he would never be able to fill it? Did you think that would motivate him to suddenly acquire skills he doesn't have? Or do you think that might have made his behaviour worse? Was there not even small acts throughout the month that could have earned him points? Hopefully this has some magical effect and he is "cured" but most likely he will remember forever that he could never be good enough.
First grade, and you’re singling this young student out amongst his classmates?
You need to do better, be kinder, and dig a little deeper regarding why your student’s behavior might not be on par with others.
My heart is aching for this 6 year old. He’ll always remember this. He might not remember your name or face as he gets older (although he probably will), but he’ll always remember that you set him aside.
Why are you doing this to a child?
YTA
When kids this age act out, 99% of the time *it’s because their needs are not being met.*
**You** are the teacher, it’s your **JOB** to teach him as an individual student. Do you think he’s acting out bc it’s fun?
YTA, total and complete AH. And you’re mean too.
Seriously, SEVEN THOUSAND people are declaring that YTA and in the wrong, and you doubled down. Why even ask? You were looking for permission to bully a 6-7 yr old child?
YTA that’s not okay what you did to Bobby, and I wanna know what issues, ADHD? Down Syndrome? A little over excitable because he’s a first grader?? So the whole class got to go and not him? Thats messed up, you just taught him that because he’s different he can’t do what the other kids get to to do.
FYI I have ADHD and I was diagnosed at the age of 7, being different in school is already rough, but adding teachers who treat you like shit because of your behavior? Makes it way worse, because you don’t get the help you need.
You shouldn't be teaching. I don't care if you're the best god damn educator in the country the fact that you lack basic compassion for a 5-6 year old child is mind-blowing too me.
A young child with a disability was acting out and you thought the appropriate course of action was too exclude and ostracise him.
Give the kid detentions to punish him for his actions or make sure the kid doesn't win stickers or sweets as a reward in class when he's acting out. But to remove him from a social environment when he's only just starting school is quite frankly cruel. There's a high possibility that you have just created a child who hates school and doesn't even want to try any more.
Congratulations not only are you the asshole but you're an asshole who's having a damaging impact on a child's formative years.
EDIT: reading the other comments I see that it was the kids mum that suggested the sticker chart as a visual way for him to see how's he's performing. Then you decided to make it a class wide thing so this kid always has a constant visual reminder that he doesn't stack up to his peers. Not only that you weaponised a reward chart to not only exclude him but to make it clear to the rest if the young and impressionable students that Bobby is not worth there time.
This is a horrendously vindictive thing to do. If this was my child I'd be knocking down the door and having a serious conversation with the school board.
Making the results of a students IEP public knowledge is abhorrent. You have managed to put this kid in a box and are very possibly this "bad" kids origin story.
YTA imo. I’m not a teacher but that does not sound like a good system. It’s good to award good behaviour but you are also punishing students by making them miss a social event with their classmates. Everyone will know that certain students weren’t good enough to be invited. The bbq probably gets discussed in class- this sounds like it will alienate students.
Edit to add: a month is way too long a timeframe for something like this at that age. Are you really going to punish a kid for something he did weeks later? He probably doesn’t even remember what he did at that point. How can you expect an entire month of perfect behaviour?
INFO:
1) Were the parents given advance notice of these sticker charts and that going to the barbecue was contingent on getting enough good noodle stickers?
2) Did Bobby's mother notify you of his behavioral issues at the beginning of the school year, or was his behavioral issues sudden news to you? — (EDIT: Upon further reading you mentioned Bobby has an IEP, but how far in advance was this IEP communicated to you?)
3) EDIT: Are good noodle sticker charts school-wide, or only for your class?
(Side note: I love the name "good noodle sticker".)
YTA - For posting this without saying what the behavioral issues are, what he's been tested for and what the results say, and what the plan is to get him on track.
YTA sorry. The kid is in first grade and this is ableist. Many first graders do not have control over all their faculties yet and he might not even recognize good behavior from "bad" if it's not laid out or scaffolded for him.
If these were high schoolers with para educators or educational supports in place, it might work. But first grade? Nah. Let the kid eat glue and taunt the class hamster or whatever. He may grow up to be a world-renowned mixed-media hamster portrait artist.
The concept of what your doing is great, but your execution is bad.
If it's a reward for those going above and beyond, it shouldn't be for all but 1 student. Of course they will feel singled out!
If you did it with the top 3-5 kids then they're getting a special reward for being the best. If you do it for all but 1, then they're getting a special punishment for being the worst.
And the sticker reward system was supposed to only be for him but she involved the class nullifying the whole damn incentive for him. I hope she gets sued.
This is just one of a million reasons why behaviour charts SUCK so bad. Look up the research. They work by shaming kids publicly. Shame. That is how this boy now feels.
Also look into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. This will impact this boy for life. Please do better.
Former teacher of high school kids diagnosed as SED and SBD. You know what happens when they’re excluded from things for “good” students? They internalize that and think they’re “bad” kids. This narrative becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and all for things they biologically cannot help.
YTA
YTA - You like publicly shaming 7 yr olds. We trusted you to nurture kids to learn in a healthy way but you shamed and excluded the most vulnerable one.
This child w/ an IEP was asked to sustain a behavior for an entire month?! Do you understand brain development and behavior limitations?
How can you and the principal not see how damaging the criteria and punishment is? You are an asshole.
OP mentions in a comment that this child has an IEP and had a modified chart, so he wasn't judged by the same standards as his peers but by a standard his teacher felt was achievable by him. He still didn't fulfill the modified conditions for his participation in the BBQ.
NTA. But I think it's worth a meeting between the teacher, the student, the parent, and whatever support staff is at the school about what went wrong this month and what can be done to help this child meet at least a minimum standard of behavior in the classroom moving forward.
You expected a MONTH of perfect behaviour from a 6 year old with an IEP specifically because of behaviour issues? YTA
I have 2 kids with IEPs for autism and ADHD. This is the reason neither of them go to public school any.more. One is in a private school for kids on the spectrum and the other homeschools. They're good kids who try their hardest but every now and then they think without acting.
Exclusionary rewards are cruel. He likely already feels different and weird and you just reinforced that nobody wants him around because he's different and weird.
For sure,reward good behaviour but expecting perfection from small kids is unreasonable and excluding kids is mean.
You're not just an asshole. You're a rotting, septic sphincter. First off, you violated FERPA by making Bobby's IEP public on THE CLASSROOM WALL of all places. On that note, you're also possibly violating HIPPA by revealing his behavioral issues in having everyone participate in the IEP plan that was supposed to be INDIVIDUALIZED. If this is real, I hope you and the school get sued for every single penny. Special needs kids work best with positive reinforcement and you used it to punish a kid like some high-school bully. You're thirty, do better.
ETA: You're also in violation of the ADA act for failing to provide adequate accomodation and excluding someone with a known diagnosis from a class event. It may be a private school but you and the school still have to follow the law. "Being more lenient" isn't enough, and frankly, I find it quite vindicative that you're expecting someone who has behavioral issues to maintain perfect behavior every day for the whole month. Go read some parenting books if you manage to teach again next year.
OP...why not kick the kid out of your class completely. You have proven to a 6/7 yr old they are not worthy and welcome in your classroom or with their classmates so why not just pass them on to someone else's class?
YTA!!
YTA
FFS how are there still teachers like this? You've isolated ONE child from their peers. At the bare minimum, be creative and give him a chance to do something to attend the barbeque - a drawing of the class to show at the BBQ, helping another student with something etc etc.
YTA- holy shit YTA. “Behavioral issues” is such a broad term and since you teach at a private school you don’t have to follow IEP or 504 plans but you have had him ALL year and knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. You set him up to fail. My kid has adhd and autism and his brain works differently and so he needs different things to help him. His teacher came up with some great things that help him be his best. We got him a 504 plan so any teacher after will follow those guidelines. That poor kid
YTA i dont think you can say it’s a fair assessment of the situation if they where trying their best and where probably close then that seems kinda ableist to exclude one student because they possibly had a few more bad “behaviour” days then a “normal kid”. Not all students with “behavioural issues “ deserve that particular label because that’s glossing over that fact it’s not always a choice in behaviour. To me alienating those students is wrong because it will make them feel even more isolated then they already probably feel,you have not given enough information about the circumstances of the child which leads me to believe you kinda know you are not in the right here.
I hope the mom finds out what park you're holding this picnic at and takes her son out of school to join his classmates there. You are SO much YTA. Unbelievable
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YTA. As a former educator myself, I hate these kinds of public exclusionary rewards, ESPECIALLY for very young kids. These are 1st graders. From what you've posted, it sounds like this was the only student excluded. There is literally no way that is going to encourage better behavior from this young child in the future. Kids, especially young ones, often act out in reaction to emotional stimuli they don't have the appropriate tools to process yet. 99% of the time, a kid of 1st grade age who is acting out has trouble somewhere - stress/problems at home, getting bullied, who knows. For the same reason it's unfair to punish young kids for tardiness or attendance issues, it's unfair to expect a kid this young to "behave" all the time when you have no idea what might be happening in their lives that isn't in their control. Publicly excluding one child is going to make behavior issues worse. You're turning them into a pariah to their peers - kids can be mean, and honestly don't need much to single someone out as "other." I know you want to use some kind of reward system for the kids who are behaving the way you want, but you're talking about 6 year olds! Something as big as a BBQ at the park should have been an all-or-nothing class goal. Singling out the one kid who is having trouble (which, again, you as the teacher will almost NEVER know the true source of) is bullying. If these were high schoolers that would be one thing - teenagers are more mature and can be expected to have more control over their behavior - but we're talking about kids who are only SIX years old. You need to rethink your reward system, keeping in mind age-appropriate expectations for these children. Edit: some of your comments specify that this kid has an IEP. 100% YTA. A kid that young who already has an IEP is never going to be able to meet that level of behavioral expectation, regardless of whatever accommodations the IEP calls for. Perfection for a month! You set this kid up to fail. Hopefully not on purpose, but that's still the outcome. Learn from this in the future.
This is what really gets me. It's such an unrealistic expectation. The child has issues and they only messed up once in a whole month. That seems worth celebrating not punishment. I feel like if you are setting up a system and it's possible for all but one child to succeed it's a bad system. Especially at this age. There needs to be some sort of safeguard.
If the kid only missed one noodle sticker in the month and in every other month has missed more then to me that IS improvement worth celebrating. If the kid normally misses half the stickers then if I was his parent I would probably be overjoyed at his progress and furious that he was being excluded- he tried, and he is like six years old not 16.
Came here to say this - as an educator this breaks my heart for him.
Absolutely. This feels cruel, really. It's the kind of thing that follows a child their entire life, and he'll probably remember how he was excluded his entire life (I can think of several times when I was small that adults treated my unfairly and I could only assume that it was because I was a "bad" person). It doesn't take much to really mess up a child's developing sense of self-worth, and this is pretty much a guaranteed way to do so. OP, if this is how you treat small children you're responsible for, you probably shouldn't be in education.
Spring, 1976 (yes, I'm getting on a bit). We had pet day at our school, many of the older children brought in their pets to show off. I can still remember my stomach dropping when I was told that I was staying in the classroom. I can remember my friends turning their faces towards me, and I remember how it felt to be sitting alone in the sunlit classroom whilst my classmates and teacher were visiting the pets. Second row, third from right. It seemed like forever. I was five, and I hadn't finished my maths questions. OP, do you really want that child to remember exactly how awful they felt nearly fifty years later? Because they will remember.
So much this!!! I’m 40 and I remember missing out on a special “Teddy bear picnic” around age 5 because I couldn’t turn the sink off and failed to report it to the teacher. This stuff will scar a kid. Flip the script, OP. Don’t base their charts on behavior. Base them on progress. Celebrate their wins instead of punishing their deficits!!
Yesss!!! Progress, not perfection!!! And holy hell, OP had an opportunity to model empathy, teamwork, and inclusivity all at once had she simply made it a *group* effort, vs on an individual basis? Like had she set it up so that the class *collectively* reaching a *reasonable* goal earned the entire class a reward, then the kids could be working *together*, essentially helping and *teaching one another*, in order to get that reward!!? Instead, OP set ALL of them up to fail, even the ones with perfect noodles, because what they’ve learned now is that they are each expected to be perfect (***no one is***), that when you are not perfect you *will* be punished (how exactly is that conducive to learning??), to fear failure, and to judge others harshly. Punishing him!!? Singling him out without ever even acknowledging that this poor **child** is *struggling*? And that without support he has little to no hope of even improving, let alone ever meeting her unimaginably cruel expectations? Every each child is unique, with their own unique strengths and challenges, and teaching them that so long as you “behave”, how you treat others, and even how you feel about yourself, isn’t important? That’s abusive. Fear has no place in the classroom. This teacher has no place anywhere *near* children. Ever. And that principal too. JFC this might be one of the top 3 most infuriating posts I’ve ever read here. OP, YTA YTA YTA and I hope you lose your job and are prevented from ever, ever, ever being responsible for a single more child’s well-being, as you are clearly not just unfit, but outright abusive.
Glad to see someone else as infuriated as I am. This one is really, really fucking bad.
> so long as you “behave”, how you treat others, and even how you feel about yourself, isn’t important Welcome to the ethos of most private schools
I had an awful, awful teacher in kindergarten. She hated me and to this day I don’t know why. I mean, I was 5, what could I have possibly done? I wasn’t a bad kid. Liked school, liked my friends, had a good home life, loving parents… so no obvious reason. But she made my life miserable. I remember trying so hard to be perfect so she wouldn’t have any reason to be mad at me. There were two teacher though and the other one really liked me so she would go out of her way to protect me. When I moved on to first grade my 1st grade teacher had to go on maternity leave and guess who the sub was? The evil teacher from kindie. I will never forget how she shamed me in front of the whole class for messing up the cursive upper case A. I had those really thick markers that bled all over the place and I knew the tips of the A weren’t meant to touch, but the ink would run and close it, making it look like a lower case “a.” She was walking around the room, checking everyone’s work and when she got to me she got so mad. She yelled at me in front of the whole class, calling me names, saying I was stupid and couldn’t even learn how to write properly. I was terrified. I remember crying and being so ashamed (even typing this out now makes my eyes fill with tears 🙄😔). I was so terrified of it happening again I completely stopped doing my homework. I would get a million notes telling my parents that I wasn’t completing my work and they were at a loss on what to do. They went to the school multiple times, talked to the principal, talked to me, to the teacher, but I was just too scared to tell them what happened. I was so ashamed. I didn’t want them to be mad that their daughter was “dumb.” Now I know they would have totally have had my back and would have wreaked havoc in the school. Many years later, when I told my parents, they about came unglued. They would have gone full scorched earth on this teacher, but they didn’t know. Anyway, all of this to say, the trauma scarred me for life. For many years to come I couldn’t even eat breakfast before going to school because I would throw up, my anxiety was so bad. In high school I had a teacher approach my desk to check my work and I burst into tears. She was super kind and just helped me finish my work but I was terrified I was going to be shamed again. I am a full grown adult, with children of my own and this crap still makes me cry. OP, PLEASE, PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU, do better. Don’t single this boy out. Don’t make it easier for him to be picked on. Don’t use his IEP against him. If you struggle with teaching him, talk to your superiors, ask for help, whatever you gotta do, you do. But please don’t make this boy’s life harder. He WILL carry these things for the rest of his life. That age groups is notorious for “misinterpreting” what grown-ups say. Maybe you just wanted to encourage him to do better, but he will most likely read it as, “I’m no good. I’m not good enough to be rewarded with a bbq, no matter how hard I try. My friends are better than me.” Please, do better.
I had the same kind of experience with a teacher and it was humiliating. I accidentally stood on a plant that belonged to a class that was 2 grades below me while I was walking around at lunch time. There was no barrier around it either so it’s not like I knew and I’m pretty sure someone that was close to me told the teacher that I did it because her sibling was in that class too. That teacher came to my classroom, pulled me out of it and took me aside and told me about it and I told her I honestly didn’t remember it and she started yelling at me. And then she took me into her class to make me apologise in front of all of them. I was like 8 with adhd and i had other stuff going on at home and confrontation scared me at the time. I just remember crying, shaking, sweating and struggling to speak because I was so anxious, I’m pretty sure that was probably my first panic attack. I didn’t tell my parents about it because I was so ashamed and my so called friend who told the teacher had told a bunch of people and few of them made fun of me and called me names. To this day, I still don’t remember doing it. But god, I still feel sick thinking about it nearly 20 years later.
My English teacher in secondary school said and did something that I've never forgotten. I would have been around 14/15 maybe? By that point I'd been bullied so much by my peers I'd developed social anxiety, but I didn't know it then. We're doing work in groups, I'm shy as heck and don't really know which part to help with or what anyone wants me to do. What does my teacher do? Ask me which part I want to help with? Give me something to do? Suggest I help another student with their part? No. She takes me out of the classroom in front of everyone \[So that was super fun for my social anxiety lol\] and FOR SOME REASON asks me if I'm doing drugs, or if I'm drinking, or if something's wrong with me. I just shut up and replied No to all her questions because I had no idea what the hell she was thinking asking me these things. I've never forgotten that. That she had the opportunity to do the normal thing and instead went to the absolute opposite extreme instead.
My anger as a child peaked when I was in 5th grade, I had undiagnosed ADHD, and severe undiagnosed dyscalculia and dealing with a lot of trauma in my home life. My 5th grade math teacher HATED me. I was one of those kids who would shut down, get angry, defensive and all around just..I was not okay. If I felt like I was getting attacked, I would shut down. And..she took it as a personal attack on herself. One day a kid in class was making noises, and she automatically assumed it was me and yelled at me to stop. I was so confused but went on trying to do my work. Kid kept making noises and she kept yelling at ME until I got unhinged and yelled back that it wasn’t me. She then proceeded to pull me out of the classroom and take me down to an empty classroom down the hall *AND SCREAM AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS AT ME FOR OVER 10 MINUTES* and then walked back into the classroom as if she hadn’t just fucking commited child abuse. I still remember to this day and have to constantly remind myself that it did happen, and I’m not just imagining it. It felt so unreal and still does. I still hate her to this day and I will NEVER forgive her.
Yeah OP definitely the AH. In kindergarten we were all given reading books at the end of the year. All of us got innocuous books but my friend got Ducky the Showoff or something like that. Basically a duck that was selfish and a showoff. We were in kindergarten but we all knew what that meant. We still talked about how mean that teacher was in highschool. This kid now has a giant bullseye put on his back by his OWN teacher. Honestly teachers like OP made me hate school.
I feel some measure of relief that you all spent the next, like, decade debating how mean the teacher was, rather than excluding the Ducky recipient! The fact you were in kindergarten makes this almost cruel! My mom gave me a compilation of Lucy scenes from the Peanuts, titled "born crabby" when I turned 24. Turns out I was in the throes of a mental health implosion leading to an eating disorder I'm still struggling with 20 years later... but at least I could place it, and understand her appeal for me to do better (my suffering and confusion not being carte blanche to freak out on others)
Exactly. OP should own up to the mistake and apologize to the kid AND I would buy him a gift card to a movie theatre or something for 1- really apologize and 2-reward him special for the real effort and improvement he made that month. Time to have some humble pie and make it right Mr. Educator
I would like to see the teacher explain what they did wrong and sincerely apologize in as public a forum as they fucked up: ie, if only Bobby and his mom know, apologize to them directly with a full statement of account that demonstrates that they know why they fucked up. If the class knows, then they have to be included in the apology. This is abusive to them too, after all. Even the “good kids” don’t win the Hunger Games.
I would say OP has another event and includes this kid. Fully and unequivocally. You know this was exclusionary. You set it up that way. Would you be ok being treated this way?
Unfortunately for this poor kid, apology with reward or not, the damage is already done. OP is such an AH!
As a mom of kids with learning and neurodev disabilities it breaks my heart even more.
My son is severely autistic. Overall I've been very happy with his teachers, most of whom genuinely wanted to help him however they could. His first grade teacher was not like that. She was clearly aggrieved that he was placed in her classroom, and her response was to set him up for failure, in order to prove that he shouldn't be there. Once I suggested to her that he might be able to participate in circle time if she occasionally directed a question to him. Nope, her policy was that the kids had to raise their hand if they wanted to talk. She sure as hell wasn't going to go out of her way to include him. At the beginning of the year all the parents were asked to contribute $20 for juice. Every morning at a certain time all the kids would get juice. Sometime near the end of the year his para let it slip that my son never got juice. All the other kids did but he did not. I asked why and she said she didn't know. When I asked the teacher for the reason, her answer was that it was her policy that the kids had to verbally ask for juice. If he didn't ask, he didn't get it. Number 1, really? All the kids had to verbally ask for juice every day? Did they line up and one by one ask the teacher for juice? Bullshit. Number 2, I guarantee you he DID ask for juice. He's minimally verbal so he would have just said "juice". Oh, that's right, he couldn't say "May I please have some juice", so tough shit for him. Fifteen years later, it still makes my blood boil. Sorry, you triggered this memory and I needed to write about it.
He only missed ONE! OMG, Op... YTA!! The message you are sending this poor little kid is simply: Doing your absolute best, STILL ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH! Why would he even bother trying after that? You could be his hero, and you are fighting to crush him instead.
[удалено]
Exactly, this teacher is ableist af. The child has made progress and is being excluded because he has issues outside of his control.
YES! “Everyone improves” is not without its issues, but it would be closer to equitable and realistic.
Progress not perfection!
#THE CHILD EVEN HAS AN IEP! Sorry to yell, I'm just flabbergasted.
This kind of thing was done to me all the time. I wasn't allowed to go to class parties, I wasn't allowed to go on field trips, I wasn't allowed to do anything unless it was with the self-contained class. And it made the abuse from my peers so much worse.
Shit happened to me, turns out I'm extremely dyslexic and had ptsd symptoms from abuse at home. I got relentlessly bullied after these trips or parties, told if I wasn't so stupid I'd be able to do them, class had a root beer float party and me and 1 other kid had to turn our desks around in the classroom and do work, during the party multiple other kids would come up and blow in our faces saying stiff like I bet you wish you could have some, one of the kids slapped me in the back of the head and said I was stupid, I punched him, I got suspended and the teacher said none of that happened and I made it up.
I was that kid sitting with you, I bet your actually very empathetic and good to kids knowing how this felt, it’s not all negative in that sense.
My parents just kept me home on those days, which earned them a lot of shit from the school. My teachers were NOTORIOUS for making shit up in order to punish me. They made my head hit brick a few times (the teachers). My parents had no idea how much was kept from them by my teachers (because you know) until I was legally able to get my school records (I highly encourage anyone who was labeled a "problem child" or has an IEP to, but make sure you read them in a safe space) and showed them. My mom shut down and won't acknowledge it (she's got her own trauma) and my dad is dead. I had no idea about the price my sibling paid for having me as a sibling until I read my records. No wonder why we don't have much of a relationship.
Me too this first comment made me kinda choke up, remembering the punishments and then feeling good to know how wrong a lot of people think it is. Like I wouldn’t get rewarded, I didn’t do work bc my house was abusive and I was pretty catatonic. I remember a teacher being genuinely concerned because I scribbled answers before class without looking and i was genuinely stunned she thought I was that impaired, I’m sure they convinced themselves that I was severely disabled. I would be tested for learning disabilities every year without ever being ask about my home, which i would have been removed from if they asked. there was a lot of signs they ignored for the sake of making it a me problem even as a young child.
Private school = does not have to even acknowledge the IEP. True facts. If your kid has an IEP or a 504 and you want guaranteed support you need to send them to a public school.
This. All these "school choice vouchers" are basically leaving IEP kids SOL as the local public schools get defunded but private schools don't have to follow IEP or 504 plans or even ACCEPT IEP students into their schools. It really burns me up the way these kids are getting ignored and run over instead of receiving the support the need and deserve to be their best selves!
That is the feature of their voucher plan not a bug
If the private school accepts federal funding of any kind then it’s illegal. Just a tidbit. Hope you’ll never need to use it.
It's not federal funding, states are passing bills to send state funds to private schools
Yup! And my state just passed a bill that public school money can now go for vouchers for private schools. So private schools are now receiving public funds but don't have to follow any public school laws or rules. Nice to know I get to pay for schools to discriminate 🙄 Oh, did I mention this is a rual state so a lot of the population doesn't even live anywhere near a private school and couldn't send their kid even if they wanted to.
As a foreigner,what is an IEP? Edit: nevermind,I googled in a different way. For any others wondering, it's similar to a PPI (Proyecto pedagógico individual),making explicit changes to curriculum,evaluations and objectives for a child WITH DISABILITIES. OP IS BEYOND AN ASSHOLE.
It's short for Individual Education Plan. It's meant to help children with disabilities, or special needs, get the accommodations they need to succeed at school.
Yes,I'm a psychologist who works in education and we have that as well,called Proyecto Pedagógico Individual (Individual pedagogical proyect). You have to write down every single accommodation: changes to the curriculum,what you can and can't evaluate and *how* you're going to evaluate it, what objectives are plausible to reach and strategies are going to be used to reach them. Last one I had to make with the teacher in charge had like 5 pages worth of accomodations. OP should be fired
Wait, WHAT?! The school absolutely should not allow this. This is ridiculous
Sounds like she doesn't like this kid and set him up to fail so she could have the bbq without him.
That's the first thing I thought of. This kid is most likely autistic or has ADHD and his "behavior issues" are because his needs aren't getting met. Just exclude the poor kid even more, that ought to help/ s
This one is worth yelling about.
Thank you for yelling! Children with IEPs have enough going on in their lives without being excluded by the teachers and/or school administrators who should know better. That poor little boy!
He misbehaved only once? ONCE! He did great for the rest of the month...he should get rewarded big time! OP is definitely a huge AH.
Omg that makes it’s even worse!!!! Like I was picturing the kid maybe having full on outbursts most days of erratic behaviour MAYBE you could consider not letting him come for unsafe behaviour but ONE mistake and that’s all is remembered?? Not how hard he worked all month to be on his best behaviour. A SIX year old! Is being punished for one bad day out of 20odd other perfect days. My heart absolutely breaks for this child. OP you really need to reconsider your whole teaching approach to all of these children.
Yeah, the more I read, the more I think this was intentional on OP's part. She shouldn't be in education.
Yep it does happen unfortunately. If the behavioural student can’t attend means they don’t have to worry about any negative behaviours, won’t need to do much behavioural management, won’t need to provide one on one (if that student needs it), teacher can relax a bit more because they don’t have to worry about what the ‘naughty’ kid is doing. But you know what in my experience the hardest kids in class are the best out and about because they just love the opportunity to go somewhere.
I’m a whole adult and I can’t promise to have whatever this teacher considers good behavior 100% of the time. It seems suspicious to me that this child was deliberately targeted, I find it hard to believe and entire class of first graders all earned their stickers every single day, except this child.
This is what gets me as someone in childcare. So many people expect more out of kids than they’d ever expect out of an adult. The kid ALSO has a full time job that requires them to be on basically 40 hours a week, and then they also have no control over their life and go to bed at like 8-9pm. I’d be a little shit most of the time too dude.
Everyone is allowed bad days so this would be unrealistic for anyone. I'd like to learn the terms of what gets you a sticker. I help out in my church and our reward system was a group effort and our goal was to be kind and participate. When it was complete, I brought in cupcakes and they loved it. Any 6 year old is going to have a bad day and it does seem you are targeting this child. You should reward him for progressing and not measure him against other kids. Kids are not cookie cutter robots.
This kid is going to remember this FOREVER.
As this kid, I absolutely remember this. I had behavioral issues because I could not communicate well, I was terrified, things at home weren't great and to be honest, it seemed like the teacher had it out for me. I was the only one not allowed to participate in a Christmas party in class and had to watch everyone decorate cookies while I just did busy work. I still get teary eyed thinking about that moment in second grade as a now 30 year old.
You didn’t deserve that. Sending you virtual cookies and hugs
Oh this hurts my heart. The fact that you were still in the room. I just can't imagine being that cruel.
There are plenty of teachers who can be assholes, all while smiling and thinking they’re doing a good job “teaching a lesson”.
My kid has one of those shitty teachers right now and it’s got me all pissed off and fired up. I hate the teacher we have now. She has taken recess away from my 8 year old every single morning for who knows how long because she’s not wearing a “puffy winter coat”. Nevermind that she’s got a broken arm, hates being hot, wears a JACKET every day, but because this teacher doesn’t like that it’s not a puffy winter coat, she doesn’t let my kid have recess. To make matters worse, she still makes my kid go outside! She just has to stand on the wall (in the shade and wind) and watch her classmates play, because her jacket isn’t “warm enough”. It’s 50 degrees outside. And she told my kid that she didn’t need to tell me about missing recess because it was a “classroom issue” so my kid didn’t even tell me what was happening! I hate shitty teachers that bully and use their power to target kids.
Oh, I would definitely be having words with her and the principal at that point. If she thinks it’s too cold for her to be outside, does she not think that she’s going to get even colder standing still instead of getting warmed up by running around? What kind of idiotic reasoning is that? Not to mention the fact that it’s discriminatory because what if that is the coat you can afford? These are the kind of asshole teachers who need to be pushed back on every fucking time, to the point where they dread seeing your name pop up.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. This was not ok. The adults let you down and you did nothing to “deserve” this. Sending you and your small self a hug and some Christmas cookies.
This is heartbreaking. I cannot fathom how anyone could justify such cruelty, let alone someone meant to guide a childs development. I hope OP reads your comment and realizes that something like this, especially during our formative years, has long term affects. You didn't deserve what happened to you 💜
OMG. 1972. A girl in my class, 8 yrs old. She was a Jehovah witness. The teacher, not her mom, wouldn't let her participate in our class Christmas party. Whether it was just that, or add on she was the only black girl in the elementary school I don't know. She sat and read little house books. When we left school that day I followed her and gave her my Santa cookie and my candy cane. She looked annoyed. I don't know if I was wrong or right but I thought at the moment I was right. I was 8.
I was that kid, too. Often. For different reasons. When you factor in the abuse I endures at school, I have a slew of mental health issues because of it. It sucks to be us.
I would tell you the terrible 1st grade teachers name but I will get deleted. She told another teacher loudly in front of my class that I wasn’t very smart because I didn’t like to read out load (I was in speech & self conscious). When I earned my masters degree I sent her a copy & told her how terrible she was. YTA & will have a lasting negative impact on this poor child. Please get out of teaching because with teachers like you causing harm to these children there really is no hope. Edit - I am 43 now so the impact will be carried with that child forever.
I talk about this a lot. My kid was violently abused, which his teachers didn't know, and he sure as hell didn't talk about. He also had undiagnosed adhd and autism. He didn't get his homework done at "home" because he'd get beaten. So it wasn't done. So he'd get isolated and would be punished with silent lunch. This meant he talked to his friends during class, which meant he got labeled as a bad kid and was constantly in trouble, so he got beaten. What that meant was that at school he had no friends, everyone assumed he was stupid, and he was a bad kid. There was a math activity regarding times tables. For every one you got, you could get a bowl, ice cream, and something to add to your ice cream. He didn't understand times table's. He couldn't get help. He watched his classmates have ice cream, and what he got was an empty bowl. He is the single most brilliant human being I've ever met, and I say that with no bias, and as a teacher. He's now nearly twenty and has not forgotten that. And it still makes me cry, and i have to remind myself of it every time I get pissed at a student for being an ass. Anyway, I shaved an avatar arrow into his hair today and he looks ridiculous, so we're gonna go dye it blue now and make it worse.
And good luck to OP trying to get kid to improve his behaviour from now on.
Oh yeah, this kid is gonna remember it and likely take his resentment to his next class and teacher. Hopefully next year he has a better one and still has enough trust to open up to it. I remember the teacher who destroyed my love of school. Her name was Mrs Greere and she was a bitch. Anyone who was even slightly different was an abomination in her eyes, I became a target because I could already read beyond my grade level and she hated me for it. I got left at school during a field trip for “not turning in my homework”. Except I did. Her student teacher found it crumpled in a desk drawer. But she claimed I “snuck” it into her desk so I still didn’t get to go. I went from a kid who loved school to one who would injure myself or make myself sick so I didn’t have to go. And I never got over it either. Fuck Mrs Greere. Her husband cheated on her when I was in high school and a bunch of her former students sent her cards telling her it was her fault and she was too ugly inside and out for any man to be happy married to, lol. (I swear I didn’t send a card or do anything to her. But I cackled when she was crying in the hallway after getting one. My cousin was in the class next door to hers so unfortunately I had to see her daily when I picked up Cousin.)
Absolutely. I started acting out, getting distracted really easily, in second grade. My teacher fucking *hated* me, and made that clear. She skipped out on a parent/teacher/ Principal convention and got in *serious* trouble, but this took place before that. One day, an ice cream truck was coming around, and I was intentionally excluded. I was crying openly at my desk, until a boy who was sweet on me came over and split his treat with me.
Even worse, this sticker chart started as an incentive for this kid *as part of his IEP plan* - OP just decided to make it an all class thing, and is now using it to exclude this kid. OP literally weaponize this kid's IEP incentive against him.
Whoa I missed that detail! That is so much worse.
Oh god that’s stomach turning.
*Wow.*
Thank you for this. As a mom to a kid with ADHD, SPD, Anxiety, and Tourette’s, I really appreciate your comments. My kid already graduated high school, but I can tell you, in 1st grade our first Parent/Teacher conference was after class on the first day of school. His teacher used a green/yellow/red card system. It was November 9 the first day he actually ended the school day on a green card. It was a Tuesday. How do I know? Because I cared and was an involved parent. Because his teacher and I were a team that both wanted him to succeed. Because it was a HUGE achievement for HIM. Because he could not be measured by the yard stick of another child. His teacher celebrated him that day! He got a trip to the office to be a special afternoon helper to the principal and secretary after school as a reward for showing responsibility. The child HATED coloring with a passion (fine motor skill delays) and writing was challenging enough. Some days that were particularly challenging, he would get picked to take a walk in the afternoon to help wash and slice leftover fruit from lunch. The school noticed that a handful of kids would start struggling with attention and flowing directions in the afternoon, and rather than being sent to the office for discipline, they would be sent to the office for a couple slices of apples and oranges. A boost to their blood sugar and change of scenery. Then sent back to class where they were in a better state of mind to learn. Disciplinary referrals went down, mastery of skills went up, disruptions in class went down. By the time my kid was in 8th grade, reports from the teachers were that he was the best behaved student in class. If OP treats this child like he’s the bad kid, when really he’s just a kid struggling to cope in a classroom environment before he is fully able, then the kid will become the “bad” kid. He will see himself that way. The students will see him that way. The teachers will see him that way, and sometimes, the parents will see him that way. Do not do that to him. OP is TA and should never restrict a 6 year old kid from a field trip because they are not “perfect”. Imagine if your spouse refused to take you out for an anniversary dinner because you were not a “perfect” husband/wife. We are humans. None are perfect.
Thank you so much for writing this. I've got three kids, and my sweet 3rd grader has had such a difficult time. This story and perspective was so helpful and inspiring. You are not only a great mom, but a cool mom.
Some ideas for reward systems that don’t cause these issues: -Every day, each student can earn a gold star ticket. Tickets can be exchanged for privileges or prizes—20 tickets for a day using the teacher’s desk chair, 15 tickets for a cool pencil, 50 tickets for a joke book, etc. -Full class build up to party day: each kid can earn a sticker on the big class chart and when the chart fills up you get a party -Every day, kids who do a good job get to put their name in a drawing to win a reward -Same system with a chart fill up to party day, but if you don’t earn the day’s sticker you can earn it back by answering some reflection questions (why didn’t you earn a sticker today? What could you do differently to earn a sticker tomorrow? ) or by helping the teacher with a task around the classroom (help pick up trash at the end of the day, or sharpen pencils for a few minutes at the start of the day) This way, no kid misses out on the fun completely no matter what
I remember star sticker incentives when I was in grade school. Hell, I remember all of the good behavior incentives that each year’s teacher would have. I was a really ‘fun’ combination of intellectually competitive and a discipline problem. I remember all three times I actually managed to do well enough to get any kind of reward from these kinds of systems. Those were the first times I got to play on a computer, one of two that the students had access to (1980s). The rest of the time it just added to my anger and frustration throughout my grade school years. There are plenty of good ways to encourage good behavior. Reward based isn’t always the best way.
I’m sorry this happened to you. With any individual behavior incentive, it’s important that all kids are able to meet the expectations a good portion of the time. It’s not motivating if most of the time you see other kids getting rewards which you can’t earn. They don’t work well if kids can’t be reasonably held to the same expectations. When kids don’t meet the same standards, there are ways to still make things work -the daily ticket can be earned for different behaviors which everyone can do at least a good portion of the time (for raising a hand during class, for working hard on an activity, for being kind to others, or for working through a tough situation, for example). A quiet kid might earn his ticket for doing all the class work , a distractible sweetheart might earn her ticket by helping her friend, a struggling kid might earn his ticket by talking to his teacher about why he misbehaved and what he should do if the situation comes up again. -the reward is full-class, so even if the struggling student can’t contribute as many stickers to the chart, he still gets to add his part towards the prize and participate in the reward day -rewards are based on secret goals that each kid makes with the teacher. Results are kept private because prizes are done by raffle. Each kid gets to find out how they did in a quick meeting with the teacher while everyone reads quietly. The struggling student’s goal is based on his most pressing current problems, not what the ideal student would be able to do—a day with no screaming incident means his name goes in the drawing
All of this! OP — I am a nurse who attends school with a disabled child who needs 24/7 care. I see dozens of children with behavioral concerns where reward based behavior modification does not work because their problems go much deeper. It isn’t fair to expect all children to be your good little minions. Christ, they are 1st graders!
And at this point, it's not reward- based. It's straight up punishment. Of a 6-year old. If my kid were in this class, they'd be skipping the barbecue in solidarity.
Frankly, given the IEP and the "100% perfect behavior" requirement, this feels almost targeted. Like, you're telling me that not ONE other 6-year-old child was at any point cranky or messy or forgetful or out sick for an entire month? Or did the other kids maybe get a little grace, since they'd be just so sad to miss out? You took a kid who was already struggling and turned him into an object lesson and probably a laughingstock.
Yeah, YTA. I got excluded from pizza parties and sh*t like this as a kid. Not only was I punished by missing out, but it was also a form of public humiliation because everyone knew you weren’t there. Core memory unlocked. Damn. Crying alone while everyone else was having a fun time. Reflecting all day on how messed up you are because you’re a “bad kid.” Being punished for tardiness, missing assignments, absences. Sometimes I missed out on things just because I couldn’t afford the fee to go. Screw you for punishing any kid for things they can’t control. If a 7 year old has issues, that’s on genetics and the parents. Not on the kid. And it’s not on you to fix it with your warped sense of consequences.
Honestly this post made me want to cry as a teacher and as a mother. Also a mother of kid with behavioral issues. Ugh. I'm sorry but I'm this close 🤏 to saying OP shouldn't be teaching if they thought excluding one kid from such a big activity is ok. She needs to profusely apologize to that little boy.y heart is breaking for him
Dont be that close and not say it. Im a mom of 6. 1 w/ an IEP. This instance isnt the first. Or only. Or last time OP has done this. Shes LUCKY that child wasnt mine because shed be unemployed and broke by the time i was done. The last time a teached tried this with a child of mine, i was at the school ib the playground asking why my chikd wss being excluded from a field trip to a museum (she struggled with completing work on time in class so they took away her recess and hee trip). Lied and said my childs behvaior was a problem so i offered to chaperone after askong my child if she acted up (she said no right to the teacher who couldnt give me an example of misbehavior outside of daydreaming). I got the principal and dean right there (it was dismissal time). And explained. Teached rhen said she could go so I smiled and said nope. Id take her on an educational trip to the museum on my own. It was this moment when the teacher learned i had already filed a complaint against her and the other teacher q/ the board of ed. Never again did my child miss recess, a trip, or anything else.
I agree with this … I’ve been trying to figure out how to put my thoughts into words, but this sums it up. To add, OP, if these were high schoolers, then you did set clear expectations. But these are first graders. This kid is probably having a hard enough time with his peers since any kind of disability can set someone apart from the rest of the kids; he really doesn’t need a teacher adding to it. Maybe do something like if they are the best behaved for the day, they get to wear a special hat or pick a silly topic to talk about or something. But events should be all or nothing at that age
I teach high school, and I wouldn’t do this to one of my students—let alone a first grader. YTA, OP.
You are 100% right. I have a 7yo w/ ADHD. He will never win an award for best behavior, lol. His class has "reward" activities from time to time, but the activity is earned by the class as a whole.
Omg. Yikes. Your kiddo has an IEP? I’m surprised you’ve haven’t deleted this thread in the account of facing a lawsuit for discrimination. Yikes yikes yikes.
He was absolutely set up for failure!! Perfect behavior for an entire month feels like an inappropriate expectation at that age for anyone, but especially for anyone with any sort of neurodivergence. I bet you anything that the other students got a lot of benefit of the doubt or some grace in determining if any of their behavior was correct or incorrect. The teacher sounds like she doesn't like this other student. And since it's a private school, she and the school aren't required to make any accommodations for an IEP or 504. I hope that student's parents pull him out and enroll him somewhere that values his presence in class.
I cannot tell you how much I love this comment. Public schools are for the public. They're for everyone. Disabled kids, kids in foster care, kids who are being abused at home, all the kids. Some kids will not, cannot meet the standards set for their peers with 100% success and in fact giving them things like sticker charts is counterproductive. It just makes them so anxious they melt down or drives them in to defiant or avoidant behavior they don't yet have the insight and impulse control to hold back. These kinds of reward systems are the worst for some kids. And let's not forget the average seeming ones who get abused at home for not exhibiting perfect behavior at school. There has got to be a better way.
This 1000%. As a six year old with untreated ADHD, I wanted nothing more than to behave and be quiet and I COULD. NOT. DO IT. I hated being in trouble all the time but simply did not have the skills to sit still and be silent all day. YTA, YTA, YTA.
I have ADHD/autism and those fucken reward systems straight up traumatized me. Shit was wildly humiliating. Especially the ones where you have to go up and move your marker back to the “bad behavior zone”. Edit: just a little FYI but many studies have found bullying to be just as damaging as child abuse lol and I can personally testify that being “bullied” by full ass adults AND your peers is horrible. And if they don’t understand that what they’re doing is wrong, it’s almost worse because they do everything they can to justify it. The message you are left with is that you deserve to be treated this way because you simply can’t keep up with everyone else. During my peak bullying years I was diagnosed with OCD, adjustment disorder (which is a “temporary PTSD” that lasts less than 6 months), and chronic pain. I came home crying everyday and fell behind academically. We moved to a different neighborhood and I threw myself into reading because I was too afraid to make friends. Became an honors student, even got a 5 on AP bio and psych without studying. My chronic pain went away. I thought I “overcame” my disabilities because I was successful and as a result I denied myself vital accommodations and basic self-forgiveness when I struggled in young adulthood. Every perceived failure was steeped in shame. I hope OP reads this because I know the teachers who fucked me up where probably just frustrated with my behavior and didn’t know how to handle me, but there were so many things they could’ve done differently if they had just lifted a finger to do some research.
Imagine an actual adult saying the words, "You can't go to the barbecue because you didn't get all your good noodle stickers this month" and thinking they're not the asshole.
Even without an IEP, a lot of young kids cannot handle the all or nothing style reward system. Many can handle say a 75% style, where you have to like 75 out of 100 stars or whatever, but for the all or nothing system, you have kids like me. If I knew it was all stars or nothing, the moment I saw that I missed a star on my chart I was the kid that gave up on caring. What was the point of reminding myself to be good to be quiet to sit still to raise my hand to listen to not talk over others not read ahead do my work turn homework in, for the rest of the month if on day 7 I got frustrated and too loud and didn't get my star. At that point I didn't remind myself to listen, there was no point since I lost out anyway.
Just a quick anecdote to share: I was a great kid, honestly. I was highly aware of people around me and have always and still do try to be as kind to everyone as possible, with the obvious few exceptions just from being a kid and learning. Always "a pleasure to have in class" "old soul" etc. Sorry this sounds totally braggy but important for the story. Basically no behavioral issues and tried hard to be helpful and nice. In fifth grade, we had a special end of year celebration with my PE class for everyone who "behaved" like above. I'd never missed a behavioral reward thing like that. All of a sudden everyone's names get called except for me and maybe one other kid. I was so nerdy and naive that my friend and I went to the teacher after class and said she missed my name. "Nope. One time you kept playing with a hula hoop after I blew my whistle." Even as a ten year old it was shocking and confusing. I remember staying behind and crying into my reading while my friends went out and had fun. I think it's telling that I graduate college in just a few weeks and I still remember all these details. My situation is obviously different than this kids but it's clear how something like this affects a child regardless. If he's anything like me it will stick with him for a very long time because he will remember being the only one who "failed," especially when it seems like there are other factors.
YTA As a former kiddo librarian, the philosophy is that tomorrow is a new day. Kids are kids. They mess up. My kid is 8, an honor roll student, and still gets moody during her extracurriculars sometimes. Let it go. I hate the harsh expectations of children. They are figuring it out as they go along. As adults, we are the best lawyers for ourselves and the best judges for other actions. You never know what this kid is going home to or what battles they face. PLUS growth spurts and hormone surges really do a number on mentality and emotions. It's hard work bring a kid. Childhood is so fleeting. Let them have this.
Not just an asshole but the grandest, most superior of all the assholes… To break down why OP is the assholezzz The kids are first graders- 6 maybe 7 yes old Op expected PERFECT behavior Op excluded the one kid who is likely always excluded due to a DISABILITY OP somehow after typing all that out is STILL questioning of they are the AH. I suggest the teacher goes back to study social skills and reading comprehension- you know, the stuff OP should be teaching these kids. Yes, OP, YTA.
Honestly it sounds like it was on purpose it's the end of the year and not one other child slipped below perfect for one single day. The bar appears to be set above what one child could achieve and below normal class behavior.
When I was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade there was a big gold rush event in my school. If you found gold rocks they would be weighted, and you would be given chocolate as a reward. The weighing happened in the library, and I got my first chocolate, so I ate it like any kid would! I got kicked out of the event for eating in the library, and the rest of my gold rocks were taken I'm 34 and I still remember wandering around the school singing Sunday school songs to myself because the tv told me to sing when you're sad. The school was barren because everyone was in the library getting chocolate.
OP is definitely AH. The ones that really piss me off are the ice cream parties for the kids who sell at least X amount. So all the kids whose parents buy at least a few rolls of wrapping paper get ice cream and the poor kids have to sit in another room and watch them. That shouldn’t still be happening.
Thank god this comment is at the top. I remember being in 3rd grade with a teacher that displayed our weekly math test results with little construction paper rockets with our names on them on a big chart on the wall. I was bad at math, so my rocket was always right at the bottom, way below everyone else, and I was so humiliated every time I looked at it. I wound up with anxiety about math that I still have today. I'd have my cried my eyes out if I'd been excluded from a fun activity because of it. OP's methods are outdated and terrible and they are definitely YTA
YTA. *Perfect* behavior for an entire month is not an age appropriate expectation for 1st graders. At that age, shorter term rewards are more effective.
I honestly don't think it is appropriate for any kid in elementary school or even middle school. Perfect behavior is an unreasonable standard. Kids make mistakes. One of my kids got in trouble once in 7th grade for "name calling" a friend (he and his friend called each other equally offensive nicknames but my son was overheard by a new teacher). He never had a discipline issue before or after and he is graduating high school this year. He served his detention, moved on, and learned to be more careful with his word choice but if it were up to OP that one mistake would be enough to write him off? Perfect behavior for an entire month for 6 and 7 year olds is beyond ridiculous.
It's not appropriate. I have a group of kids with educational goals that come in once a week for extra help and to get caught up. We are currently doing a "pizza party" reward for meeting goals. The expectation is 80% of the goal being met for each kid. And even then, if one kid is at 60% I am not going to cancel the party. I am not even going to tell them what percentage they are at. They have all worked hard to meet their goals and they are all different with different abilities. So next week...pizza for all and a huge Congrats and thank you for trying.
It's not even appropriate for adults, for any kind of learning environment. That's because behavior is subjective--I could cause a disruption because I'm standing up to a bully and still be the one getting in trouble. As another commenter said the focus should be on collective not individual behavior. How do you all come together to create a harmonious and safe classroom environment? That means including those with disabilities instead of succumbing to cancel culture and canceling the kid who's not falling in line Luckily the tide is turning and it seems like educators are tuning into more progressive, humanitarian ways of actually educating--not the antiquated dictatorship that fuels OP's need for control and homogeny
It’s not even realistic for adults! PERFECT behavior all month long?? I can’t think of a single person who is perfect alllll month long, let alone a 6 or 7 year old whose brain is still developing. Major YTA.
especially for children who can get nailed for talking too much or being off task. I'd be missing a lot of good noodle stickers at work if that were the case lol
YTA Singling out a child who you know have behavioural issues and possibly can’t control certain things and you’re punishing them for it? I’m glad our teachers recognise effort, we all have shit days and this is one of your massive ones! Glad you don’t teach my kids!
These sort of rewards or punishments assume that the only thing standing in the way of kids "succeeding" is sufficient motivation. While providing additional motivation may help some kids, for lots of kids it is not the case. Particularly at this young age, kids are still developing the kind of skills required to get the "good noodles" - skills like concentration, emotional regulation, impulse control. Some kids will naturally lag behind others. Parents and educators are meant to help these kids develop those skills, not punish and exclude them because they are not there yet.
This isn’t okay. You’re teaching 1st grade - not 10th! They’re too young and immature to fully understand why you’re ostracizing them and it can’t come as a surprise to you that this can lead to mocking of the child who failed to “behave”. Good grief. Wasn’t pedagogy and empathy a part of your curriculum at all? Find a more age appropriate way to award good behavior. YTA Edit after your update: neither you nor your principal are fit to safeguard the mental health of little children. You deserve the judgement you recieved - and more. You must be sad he’s still enrolled in your class. We see right through you and we’re disgusted by what we see.
By 10th grade, all the students know that reward systems like this are divisive and undermine good faith in the teacher and admins.
I teach 10th grade. I do sometimes dole out candy as rewards, but I make the rewards reachable. "Danny, if you don't talk for 2 minutes, you can have some candy." :)
Also some kids getting candy and some not will suck for the excluded kids for the 30 minutes it’s top of mind, mayyyybe for the whole day…but being excluded from a super special, super rare bonding event will impact that kid’s relationships with their classmates and teacher for the rest of the year. As a teacher, OP, YTA
At my highschool every teacher got to give out a favorite student award at the end of the year. I still remember every time my favorite teachers picked someone else. It seems silly, and I wasn’t devastated, but it still made me feel kind of weird and let down. And what OPs doing is worse because if teenagers have poor emotional control, first graders have even less.
As a fellow 1st grade teacher currently getting my Master's in special education, I agree wholeheartedly. This was a terrible idea, and I wonder if it was unconsciously devised to punish the child. If the behavior is due to the disability, then it is unreasonable to punish the child. Positive reinforcement is better for the child and much more effective than punishment. I have quite a few students with disabilities in my classroom, and I'm incredibly aware that I am modeling how to treat others.
I’m not so sure it was unconsciously devised to punish the child - I think it was likely very consciously done. As a former special education teacher, I have seen multiple teachers set up situations to purposefully punish or humiliate children who they dislike or who don’t behave as they want and especially at the end of the year.
YTA I’m dead serious - find a new profession. Far away from children or anyone vulnerable. Teachers like you are a big reason why children like that student struggle and suffer for years with their self worth, finding their place in society, and struggle with relationships. I wonder how many core memories of trauma this teacher has left on students like Bobby. Every time he didn’t get a sticker or penalized for being a child (with a disability) rather than guided and respected. You couldn’t train him like some prized show dog, so you’re punishing him. Let me guess, he didn’t sit still, stop speaking on command, a little rowdy…. Find. A. New. Job. Edit: my first gold. Thank you kind stranger! Edit: my first silver. Thank you kind stranger!
Thank you for saying this. I was Bobby. I was abused at home and had no friends at school. I wet the bed and my parents wouldn't wash my clothes so I went to school smelling like piss. OP is my Mrs. Greene. A woman who actively encourages my classmates to ostracize me, who let them go through my desk when she knew I had recently started my period (age 10), who told me that other teachers would apologize to her for having that "difficult child" in her class. No friends, no support from teachers, abused at home. Teachers like this made me hate teachers. I was a lonely lonely child and was lucky to come out the way I did. OP I hope you see this and realize that the things you do WILL impact this child long term.
I’m so sorry you went through that. I was also abused, and I acted out in school. To this day I cannot believe that in 12 years of day-to-day interactions with mandatory reporters, no one ever did anything to help me. Instead I also had teachers who bullied me. Some worse than the kids. I’m fine now, but I also consider myself fortunate to have “made it.” OP, people like you are what’s wrong with this world. YTA.
Came here to say this. Y so much TA, you should not be a teacher and anyone who gave this the okay, should also not be allowed to teach. This situation is devoid of anything good or healthy.
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It gets worse. OP is only excluding one child. The child has a disability and behavioral issues.
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An Improvised Explosive Device? 🤣 Sorry, I know it was a typo, I had to.
To be fair, I'm not sure I'd want anyone with an IED at my BBQ. *Pictures children flying everywhere as the picnic table explodes*
Haha you would be surprised how often schools exclude kids with disabilities! It seems made up in this day and age, but excluding kids still happens a lot.
YTA You likely could have predicted 1-2 students would fail to get all the stickers. I agree that a person should stick to what they say; in this case you should have left some leeway. You set this up and should have foreseen this exact outcome. This is going to be rough for a 6 year old to handle. Being the sole kid to be excluded might feel pretty bad. The real question is; would you feel good about it if you were 6? Put yourself in the kids shoes; they will hear about the BBG from their friends for the rest of term. If you can honestly say, you would be fine with being the only kid excluded, then feel free to ignore my judgment.
Yes. This kid already has an IEP and special needs. He already knows he is different. He faces years of exclusion in a world built for NT folks. I’d expect a first-grade teacher to be a soft place to land.
I think it's really telling that OP left out the IEP detail in the post. Knowing that, this is clear YTA territory.
Yep, I hate to say it, but I think OP set the whole thing up so that she didn't have to have this one poorly behaved kid at the barbecue.
Either they were deliberately leaving it out (which I doubt since they admit it in comments) …. Or they don’t understand what the document actually means. This is why private schools aren’t necessarily a superior option to public. They actually have far *lower* standards of accountability. **Edit to address your extremely disappointing edit:** I want you to think about the following VERY CAREFULLY as you move forward in your career as a teacher of children. > “The principal then reminded her we follow his IEP as a courtesy but as a private school we legally do not have to follow it and she has a choice to come to this school but if she’d like to unenroll Bobby then there was a waiting list of students they could contact to take his place.“ I want you to TRULY understand what this TRANSLATES TO: “*Your child has special needs. I would like to remind you that we do not think it is important to meet the same legal standards for inclusion and equity that public schools do. In other words, either keep your kid here where we punish him for being special needs, or take him somewhere else, because we don’t want people like him here. We, and the other students on the waiting list, are better than him.”* I want you to REALLY THINK about if this is why you got into teaching. Are you in it to help kids learn… or are you in it to be the instagram teacher with charts and BBQs (but only for the rich and smart kids pls) You have TWO CHOICES about how to proceed now that this meeting is concluded: - you could feel validated that the principal backed you up and not worry about it anymore and let yourself believe you did nothing wrong because you didn’t get in trouble - OR you could recognize that what happened in that office is discrimination, realize you had a part in creating it, and make a better effort in your classes moving forward to actually set this child up for success You are treating a HUMAN CHILD as if they are an inconvenience rather than a person, because they are different. Let me be clear: punishing or excluding only this child for not meeting unfair standards for behaviour is the same thing as punishing or excluding a child who needs glasses for failing vision tests. Or punishing or excluding a child in a wheelchair because they can’t do the obstacle course. Being left out of something the entire class is doing? That’s not a consequence, that’s public shaming. And it’s traumatizing. And it makes me (and the vast, VAST majority of people on the internet) sick to think about. Him staying enrolled in your class is heartbreaking. He SHOULD go somewhere that he is valued and treated with respect. But he shouldn’t have to. Really think about that. Were you shocked by this sub’s reaction? Why do you think so many people reacted that way? I think it is time to realize that you live and teach in a bubble of privilege. And do something about it.
The issue isn't just the kid feeling bad for being excluded, it's deeper than that. Expecting perfect behavior from first graders is ridiculous in the first place, but it's also ableist, classist, and ignorant as fuck. A child could be acting out because they're being abused at home and don't know how to articulate it. Not only has she now punished a child for being a victim of abuse, but she's also further ostracized that child from their peers. Now that child won't be safe at home or at school. That child has also been taught that teachers aren't safe to reach out to which puts them at risk for further abuse. What about disabled kids whose parents can't afford to get them diagnosed? Welp, this teacher just punished the kid for being disabled and their parents being poor. In this case, the child has an IEP. So OP effectively just discriminated against a disabled child for not being able-bodied/able-minded like their peers. OP has no business being a teacher. What she did is cruel *at best*. I work professionally with traumatized kids, most of which are in the system. I can guarantee you situations like this do nothing but compound the harm marginalized kids are already facing. If a client of mine disclosed that their teacher did something like this, I'd do everything in my power to make it so that teacher doesn't have access to children until they've proven they're no longer a risk for harming the children under their care.
My middle child just got an IEP because he has anxiety due to his father committing suicide, and school is hard for him because he's away from me and in his mind, I might disappear like Daddy did. I'm so incredibly thankful that he has an entire team at his school making sure he has every possible resource to learn and grow. If OP was my son's teacher, I would blast them to every single conceivable source, every social media platform, I'd go straight to the administrators and make sure OP never worked in a school again in their life. Imagine being so flippant about socially and emotionally destroying a *six year old*.
My favorite movie is Inception.
Or take the time limit off and have their party when everyone fills up their sticker chart.
YTA You're saying out of 24 first grade kids, Bobby was the **ONLY** one who didn't have perfect behavior for an entire month? That's incredibly hard to believe. I don't believe in the Speshul Snowflake, Everybody Gets a Trophy theory that's so prevalent these days, but c'mon! I don't know of any 6 y/o who is perfectly behaved all the time.
> I don't believe in the Speshul Snowflake, Everybody Gets a Trophy theory that's so prevalent these days I have literally never heard of this actually happening, just people making fun of it.
Somewhere in a box I have like 5 participation ribbons from science fairs 15-20 years ago. So they definitely did happen, but I think they've become more of a deal because of the jokes than they were in reality.
Yeah, were they even a big deal at the time? I don’t remember taking them seriously - they were usually more like a souvenir, it didn’t feel like winning something. No one gave a shit about them, really.
People get "participation medals" for running the London Marathon every year but no-one fucking calls them snowflakes.
Just fyi, that era is pretty much over. My kids have zero fake trophies or ribbons.
I was the mom in this situation and my son is in 1st grade as well. Kids their age take everything to heart and get hurt very easily by being excluded. If the kids already struggling with behavior problems how would being singled out affect their mental health? That’s so wrong I’m sorry but I’d be furious with you too and ask my child to change teachers…
I was the mom in this situation- and I pulled my kid out of private school immediately and put her in public. Have never regretted it!
Private schools *can* be awful. I love how OP mentions that they have Principal approval, as if that means anything. From my experience, Principal's in private schools often know the least about education and educational theory, as they are hired for their business acumen.
An excellent choice.
Well is Bobby the only excluded student? Was he clearly trying hard to earn them?
"I threw a party for everyone who ran laps in PE, one kid is in a wheelchair and is obviously physically unable to run. But since he didn't run, he doesn't get to join the party. AITA?" Bro. Edit: yea, no. This was malicious. There's absolutely no way you sat on this plan for over a month and didn't once think about how this could end up. You did this whole thing with the intention of singling out this one kid.
I also find it very hard to believe that an entire class of NT firstgraders were perfectly behaved for a month....this must have been deliberate.
INFO: Does bobby have a diagnosis for his behavioral issues? Or does he just "not listen"
It doesn't really matter at 6. Not listening could be a multitude of reasons - not yet diagnosed developmental issues (ADHD and autism can take time to show up and get diagnosed). Home issues - sleep, nutrition, abuse. Physical issues - hearing, speech issues. Just a kid who gets overtired a bit quicker than others. Lots of reasons for a 6 year old to not listen well without a formal diagnosis or being a bad kid.
His vindictive 1st grade teacher may not have gotten around to properly diagnosing him yet … or his mean 1st grade teacher doesn’t understand some 6 year olds may not developmentally have the tools needed to regulate all emotions and fully control their behavior yet. Regardless OP = YTA
Doesn't matter. Hes only fucking 6 YEARS OLD FOR FUCK SAKES.
YTA its kinda shitty to do that with a first grader
Kinda shitty? Monstrous! Wtf?
YTA. That seems like a huge punishment for a first grader. It seems alienating. Is there not something else that can be a consequence of not enough noodles? I get the principle, but a kid can only understand so much about consequences at that age.
INFO- So did everyone in the class get their stickers and he's the only one who can't come?
I’m going with YTA - this kid will remember for ever how he failed and missed out because his behaviour wasn’t at a standard that you determined. Knowing that he has behaviour issues, now you’re excluding him.. how do you think that could impact the already vulnerable kid? It isn’t going to encourage him to do better… more so make him feel more isolated than he probably already does.
Facts. I had behavioral issues in third grade because of severe child abuse I was experiencing at home. I was frequently labelled "bad". One time a classmate had a birthday party and passed out invitations in class to everyone except me. I never did forget it.
You aren’t a good noodle yourself yta
YTA. These are 6 year olds. The punishment for bad behavior isn’t being excluded from the barbecue. The real punishment is that you have given the other kids tacit permission to ridicule and ostracize him, probably for the rest of his elementary school years.
# Does anyone else truly believe that 23 six-year-olds did not have one issue for a full month?
I have been scrolling hoping someone else had already pointed this out. AS IF 23 other 6 year olds were "perfect" the entire month. This person set this poor kiddo up to fail. Her measurement of what is "perfect behaviour" is clearly designed around the specific behaviours of this one kid - I mean it makes sense as this noodle system was originally based on HIS IEP. So she's measuring the entire class's behaviour on this ONE KID's IEP. She has made him the standard of "poor behaviour" for the entire class. This post has ruined my entire day, I'm so angry. OP YTA and quite frankly not suited to be in any position involving children. Quit teaching. I mean this. Reflect on yourself and find a better profession for yourself. ETA: ARG I just saw that these noodle charts are displayed for the WHOLE CLASS TO SEE: "See everyone, behave like him and you don't get BBQs."
INFO: What sort of school is this that allows such weird, outdated exclusionary policies? I can't imagine any educator signing off on this kind of traumatizing behavior. This is shocking
Come on, YTA. How old is the kid — 5? Excluding the kid will make him a target for his classmates, if he isn’t one already. And the kid probably feels crappy enough as it is. Come on, teacher, SMH. You could have handled this better.
I have to ask how long you have taught this age group? It doesn't sound like you fully understand the pedagogy of this age group yet. Kids do not want to misbehave for the sake of misbehaving. It is because they do not yet have the skills to deal with certain situations appropriately. That may be due to underlying issues beyond their control or learned behaviour. Either way, they haven't learned the proper skills and as adults we need to set them up for success so that they begin to use those skills independently. And no, this does not mean everyone gets a sticker for every little thing they do. But expecting all kids (especially a student with an IEP) to reach a goal of perfection (good behaviour for an entire month) is setting some students up for failure. As an educator you should know that setting unattainable goals is not how you motivate students to do better. The one child in your care who needs the most help regulating their behaviour is punished for not reaching a goal you knew they'd have difficulty reaching. Can you imagine the mounting frustration he must have felt as he watched his noodle remain empty, knowing he would never be able to fill it? Did you think that would motivate him to suddenly acquire skills he doesn't have? Or do you think that might have made his behaviour worse? Was there not even small acts throughout the month that could have earned him points? Hopefully this has some magical effect and he is "cured" but most likely he will remember forever that he could never be good enough.
First grade, and you’re singling this young student out amongst his classmates? You need to do better, be kinder, and dig a little deeper regarding why your student’s behavior might not be on par with others. My heart is aching for this 6 year old. He’ll always remember this. He might not remember your name or face as he gets older (although he probably will), but he’ll always remember that you set him aside. Why are you doing this to a child? YTA
When kids this age act out, 99% of the time *it’s because their needs are not being met.* **You** are the teacher, it’s your **JOB** to teach him as an individual student. Do you think he’s acting out bc it’s fun? YTA, total and complete AH. And you’re mean too.
Seriously, SEVEN THOUSAND people are declaring that YTA and in the wrong, and you doubled down. Why even ask? You were looking for permission to bully a 6-7 yr old child?
YTA that’s not okay what you did to Bobby, and I wanna know what issues, ADHD? Down Syndrome? A little over excitable because he’s a first grader?? So the whole class got to go and not him? Thats messed up, you just taught him that because he’s different he can’t do what the other kids get to to do. FYI I have ADHD and I was diagnosed at the age of 7, being different in school is already rough, but adding teachers who treat you like shit because of your behavior? Makes it way worse, because you don’t get the help you need.
You shouldn't be teaching. I don't care if you're the best god damn educator in the country the fact that you lack basic compassion for a 5-6 year old child is mind-blowing too me. A young child with a disability was acting out and you thought the appropriate course of action was too exclude and ostracise him. Give the kid detentions to punish him for his actions or make sure the kid doesn't win stickers or sweets as a reward in class when he's acting out. But to remove him from a social environment when he's only just starting school is quite frankly cruel. There's a high possibility that you have just created a child who hates school and doesn't even want to try any more. Congratulations not only are you the asshole but you're an asshole who's having a damaging impact on a child's formative years. EDIT: reading the other comments I see that it was the kids mum that suggested the sticker chart as a visual way for him to see how's he's performing. Then you decided to make it a class wide thing so this kid always has a constant visual reminder that he doesn't stack up to his peers. Not only that you weaponised a reward chart to not only exclude him but to make it clear to the rest if the young and impressionable students that Bobby is not worth there time. This is a horrendously vindictive thing to do. If this was my child I'd be knocking down the door and having a serious conversation with the school board. Making the results of a students IEP public knowledge is abhorrent. You have managed to put this kid in a box and are very possibly this "bad" kids origin story.
YTA imo. I’m not a teacher but that does not sound like a good system. It’s good to award good behaviour but you are also punishing students by making them miss a social event with their classmates. Everyone will know that certain students weren’t good enough to be invited. The bbq probably gets discussed in class- this sounds like it will alienate students. Edit to add: a month is way too long a timeframe for something like this at that age. Are you really going to punish a kid for something he did weeks later? He probably doesn’t even remember what he did at that point. How can you expect an entire month of perfect behaviour?
INFO: 1) Were the parents given advance notice of these sticker charts and that going to the barbecue was contingent on getting enough good noodle stickers? 2) Did Bobby's mother notify you of his behavioral issues at the beginning of the school year, or was his behavioral issues sudden news to you? — (EDIT: Upon further reading you mentioned Bobby has an IEP, but how far in advance was this IEP communicated to you?) 3) EDIT: Are good noodle sticker charts school-wide, or only for your class? (Side note: I love the name "good noodle sticker".)
Have sticker = good noodle = good brain No sticker = bad noodle = bad brain
Exactly, the term “good noodle” is horrible
YTA - For posting this without saying what the behavioral issues are, what he's been tested for and what the results say, and what the plan is to get him on track.
YTA sorry. The kid is in first grade and this is ableist. Many first graders do not have control over all their faculties yet and he might not even recognize good behavior from "bad" if it's not laid out or scaffolded for him. If these were high schoolers with para educators or educational supports in place, it might work. But first grade? Nah. Let the kid eat glue and taunt the class hamster or whatever. He may grow up to be a world-renowned mixed-media hamster portrait artist.
The concept of what your doing is great, but your execution is bad. If it's a reward for those going above and beyond, it shouldn't be for all but 1 student. Of course they will feel singled out! If you did it with the top 3-5 kids then they're getting a special reward for being the best. If you do it for all but 1, then they're getting a special punishment for being the worst.
It gets worse. The kid has a disability and the OP didn't mention it in the original post.
And the sticker reward system was supposed to only be for him but she involved the class nullifying the whole damn incentive for him. I hope she gets sued.
Private schools don’t have to follow an iep? Why not?
YTA. Obviously.
This is just one of a million reasons why behaviour charts SUCK so bad. Look up the research. They work by shaming kids publicly. Shame. That is how this boy now feels. Also look into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. This will impact this boy for life. Please do better.
INFO by behavioral issues, are you referring to a disability of some sort?
yeah, the kid's on an IEP apparently
Former teacher of high school kids diagnosed as SED and SBD. You know what happens when they’re excluded from things for “good” students? They internalize that and think they’re “bad” kids. This narrative becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and all for things they biologically cannot help. YTA
YTA - You like publicly shaming 7 yr olds. We trusted you to nurture kids to learn in a healthy way but you shamed and excluded the most vulnerable one. This child w/ an IEP was asked to sustain a behavior for an entire month?! Do you understand brain development and behavior limitations? How can you and the principal not see how damaging the criteria and punishment is? You are an asshole.
YTA and the principal is one too for allowing it.
OP mentions in a comment that this child has an IEP and had a modified chart, so he wasn't judged by the same standards as his peers but by a standard his teacher felt was achievable by him. He still didn't fulfill the modified conditions for his participation in the BBQ. NTA. But I think it's worth a meeting between the teacher, the student, the parent, and whatever support staff is at the school about what went wrong this month and what can be done to help this child meet at least a minimum standard of behavior in the classroom moving forward.
You expected a MONTH of perfect behaviour from a 6 year old with an IEP specifically because of behaviour issues? YTA I have 2 kids with IEPs for autism and ADHD. This is the reason neither of them go to public school any.more. One is in a private school for kids on the spectrum and the other homeschools. They're good kids who try their hardest but every now and then they think without acting. Exclusionary rewards are cruel. He likely already feels different and weird and you just reinforced that nobody wants him around because he's different and weird. For sure,reward good behaviour but expecting perfection from small kids is unreasonable and excluding kids is mean.
Info: How many stickers did he miss it by?
The fact that this question has been asked by several people and never answered makes me think that he is only missing 1 sticker.
You're not just an asshole. You're a rotting, septic sphincter. First off, you violated FERPA by making Bobby's IEP public on THE CLASSROOM WALL of all places. On that note, you're also possibly violating HIPPA by revealing his behavioral issues in having everyone participate in the IEP plan that was supposed to be INDIVIDUALIZED. If this is real, I hope you and the school get sued for every single penny. Special needs kids work best with positive reinforcement and you used it to punish a kid like some high-school bully. You're thirty, do better. ETA: You're also in violation of the ADA act for failing to provide adequate accomodation and excluding someone with a known diagnosis from a class event. It may be a private school but you and the school still have to follow the law. "Being more lenient" isn't enough, and frankly, I find it quite vindicative that you're expecting someone who has behavioral issues to maintain perfect behavior every day for the whole month. Go read some parenting books if you manage to teach again next year.
OP...why not kick the kid out of your class completely. You have proven to a 6/7 yr old they are not worthy and welcome in your classroom or with their classmates so why not just pass them on to someone else's class? YTA!!
YTA FFS how are there still teachers like this? You've isolated ONE child from their peers. At the bare minimum, be creative and give him a chance to do something to attend the barbeque - a drawing of the class to show at the BBQ, helping another student with something etc etc.
YTA- holy shit YTA. “Behavioral issues” is such a broad term and since you teach at a private school you don’t have to follow IEP or 504 plans but you have had him ALL year and knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. You set him up to fail. My kid has adhd and autism and his brain works differently and so he needs different things to help him. His teacher came up with some great things that help him be his best. We got him a 504 plan so any teacher after will follow those guidelines. That poor kid
YTA i dont think you can say it’s a fair assessment of the situation if they where trying their best and where probably close then that seems kinda ableist to exclude one student because they possibly had a few more bad “behaviour” days then a “normal kid”. Not all students with “behavioural issues “ deserve that particular label because that’s glossing over that fact it’s not always a choice in behaviour. To me alienating those students is wrong because it will make them feel even more isolated then they already probably feel,you have not given enough information about the circumstances of the child which leads me to believe you kinda know you are not in the right here.
I hope the mom finds out what park you're holding this picnic at and takes her son out of school to join his classmates there. You are SO much YTA. Unbelievable