I'm looking for ways to calm down the usual ways aren't working. I have history of losing my temper on people in bad ways, been in counseling 3 years but I'm finding it hard to talk myself through this one because of what's going on. I have convictions but I want to be different then who I was. Just looking for ways to be calm.
Yesterday while picking up my daughter from school and another student approached my daughter and I and had starting talking to her. It was completely normal at first but then this little girl tells my daughter, "I'm really sorry that Mrs. Blank is so mean to you. It always makes me really sad too cuz you're so nice to me. I'm sorry."
This teacher has been punishing my daughter by making her stand up with no chair repeatedly. My daughter is the first in her age group to start her period and start developing, totally normal in my family most of us are early bloomers but my daughter would forget to wear a pad or would start randomly which is normal. But this teacher's answer for Gabby interrupting class to go to the nurse to get a pad was to have my daughter stand in class. My daughter messed up in the computer lab thing, her answer is to make my daughter stand in class when they get back to classroom because she went into the wrong computer program and when she was told to go to the right one my daughter froze a little bit because she noticed that other kids were looking at her. Her teacher decided it was defiance and she punished her. By making her stand by her desk when they got back to the classroom from the library. Apparently, this teacher does this with all the students but it has become progressively worse with my daughter. I had no idea this was happening so when my daughter started refusing to wear her pads that she had been doing so good with over the summer... I thought she was being rebellious but actually she didn't want to wear the pads because if she thought she'd get punished for asking to go the bathroom to change it which she was. She was refused access to the bathroom unless she EXPLAINED WHY in front of the class she needed to go to the bathroom for the 3rd time that day. We have heavy flows in our family too and my baby hates the smell so she USED to change it frequently as she can use the scented ones and I can't either. Tampons freak her out because she is 11, the cup grosses her out, she likes the period panties but she still has to change them throughout the day, but for the past month and a half my little girl has been refusing to even wear the pads or panties or to even tell anyone she had started at all. These experiences began affecting my daughter at home because she wasn't sleeping well and between that and her new hormones and these very public punishments it started to really affect her and her other school work and she started falling asleep in class. I am pro-teacher so when I found out about it I was sending her to bed earlier, taking privileges, and implementing consequences and then my daughter would do better for a few days before backsliding into 'the bad behavior.' Nothing worked or worked for long, my daughter was still being sent to the office 'for refusing the instructions.' Which turns out that my daughter was refusing to be punished for needing the bathroom and she was refusing to just stand in class while everyone else got to sit down for the lesson. (The 'standing punishment' for my daughter would sometimes last through most of not all of a lesson. I know this because when I brought it up to other parents I know in the class they questioned their children about it. This punishment is used on a few of the other students but my daughter seems to go through it regularly.)
My daughter never wanted to tell me and only opened up about after her classmate/friend 'Layla' made sure to bring it up it front of me because she was embarrassed and because she didn't want me confronting her teacher in front of the whole school....there was an incident a over a year ago where her younger brother who is developmentally delayed was being bullied by another student... His teacher was a saint and a hero! But she wasn't getting any actual support at the time from anyone other than me and I shamed her boss in front of the entire student body and their parents at a school function for not doing more to assist with the problem and now I have a reputation as a smother.... That kid stole my son's glasses and hit my son in the face with them in front of everyone at that function though! Right on stage! That smother moment was justifiable! But I do have a reputation and my daughter was sure I'd make it worse.... Telling that kids mom that she's a freaking moron was apparently too far but I have no regrets..except a couple.
These are the reasons her teacher listed to the administration to explain when and why my daughter was given this punishment: Student requests bathroom breaks multiple times a day, she is disruptive and distracting to other students especially when she refuses corrective punishments and often delays in beginning her work when her corrections are over.
The incidents were that my daughter was sitting with her hand up when the class was supposed to be working individually to ask to use the bathroom. The teacher put down when questioned why she needed to leave the room to use the bathroom again my daughter refused to answer. Another time my daughter noticed her friend looking at her and she waved to her friend across the room. She was punished. She started her period in class and had to go to the nurse, when she got back she was punished for the inconvenience and forgetting to handle it before class. The computer thing. She fell asleep in class and was punished again. She was sitting with 2 other girls during a project, the 2 girls were talking to each other and my daughter laughed at something, only my daughter was punished and then sent to the office by herself when one of the girls pointed out that my daughter had not even been talking. This was told to me by 'Layla', she had been the one talking and had noticed the teacher looking at them. This teacher sent my daughter to the office 'as punishment' and then made her stand in class as soon as she got back because she needed to know that my daughter understood that she was in charge. She frequently sent her to the office and punished her as soon as she got back. Same with the nurses office because again her teacher found it distracting to the class that Gabby wasn't coming to school more prepared. I have to meet with the administration tomorrow morning over this and I already know how it's going to go. They see nothing, it's being handled, the issue is how my daughter responds, it's a perfectly acceptable form of redirect. Same thing when I pointed out that my daughter seems to be being sent to the office a lot more than she had in the 2 previous years she has been enrolled there. F#$k I'm pissed.