My son recounted an incident that happened at lunch on Friday. A boy waved his allergen around at him, reaching across another boy to do it, while smiling and saying something about it that he couldn't quite understand, but gathered the boy was teasing him. I told the teacher about this yesterday morning. I told her I have zero tolerance for that kind of stuff and wanted her to talk with the boy/class about what NOT to do during lunch.
My son came home and told me that the teacher pulled my son and the boy into the hall, asked my son what happened, then asked the boy if he did it, the boy said 'no', the teacher concluded my son was lying. Told him
'I'm going to have to talk to your mom and tell her that you lied'.Livid.
Side notes: My son is seven years old. Aside from his food allergy, he is newly diagnosed ADHD. THis can sometimes get in the way of him being able to express his thoughts. Also, this teacher is a long term sub until March. I sat down with her, the principal, and my son when she took over the classroom so we were all on the same page with understanding and handling both the allergy and the ADHD. We most definitely spoke of the need for the two of them to be a team, that the teacher would listen to him, be patient, etc. And no, no 504 yet. I've been waiting to gather what accomodations I feel are needed for his adhd. I'm working on it.
WHat if anything more can I add to this list:
Teacher created a adversarial environment for my son when he attempted to self-advocate.
Teacher essentially called my son a liar.
Teacher damaged the trust that had been established between her and my son.
Teacher did not create an environment where my son could get his thoughts and feelings out about feeling unsafe.
The teacher in a sense, lied to my son, when she told him that she would listen to him about his food allergy, that they would be a team.
The boy, who if in fact, does remember the incident, learned that he got away with it and could possibly do it again, because the teacher won't believe my son.
The boy, who if does not remember the incident from four days prior, now understands my son to be a liar.My son is hurt by the insult of the 'liar' accusation.
My son is leary of trusting that the teacher is on his side.
My son has already concluded that if he needed to tell his teacher anything again, that she 'would say that I'm lying'.
My son now feels that she 'isn't a good teacher'.ETA:
And Going Forward.
Efforts by my son to self-advocate need to be affirmed.
Objectively assess motivation for the accusation. The allergic child is motivated by safety. What would he gain by lying?
Any further conversations with my son needs to be done with the knowledge of his processing difficulty.
How are you going to restore my child's trust?
A 'he-said she-said' confrontation is not appropriate when dealing with a threatening allergy incident.
Beware - my child is now much less comfortable in reporting subjective symptoms of a major reaction in its earliest (ie-- most treatable) stage.
He may attempt to hide symptoms due to feeling INTIMIDATED in his efforts at self-advocacy.I know there's an angle I'm missing. I really want to cover all my bases when I have my 'wth were you thinking' meeting with them. THanks for any thoughts on the matter.