Lunch Detention

Since it was mentioned in yesterday's post: Olivia came home one afternoon with a note in her agenda that said she had to serve lunch detention because she didn’t complete her morning work. The teacher noted that O had been given three hours to do the work. Well. Yes, I can very easily imagine Olivia sitting in that classroom with a worksheet in front of her, staring at it and just…not doing it. I mean, hello. Have you met Olivia. Don’t worry, she didn’t get in trouble at home for this lunch detention. I told her that I understand that sometimes, she simply cannot make herself do the work. And if there isn’t someone sitting next to her, keeping her focused on the work, explaining and re-explaining what she needs to do, the work is not going to get done. I reminded myself (and Tom, who was a bit huffy about the lunch detention, both toward the teacher and toward Olivia) that this teacher is still getting to know Olivia. We have to give both Mrs. H and Olivia time to get acclimated with each other. O and I did the work together at home. It was fine. Later that evening, I asked Olivia exactly what ‘lunch detention’ is. She said she had to stay in the classroom with the teacher and work on her classwork during lunch. She was able to take a bit of time and eat her actual lunch. I asked her if it bothered her that she had to have lunch at her desk in the classroom. What do you think? I think that perhaps lunch detention isn’t much of a punishment as far as Olivia is concerned. She likes being away from the prying eyes of her classmates. I’m betting there will be a parent -teacher conference sooner rather than later between me and Mrs. H and perhaps even Ms. P, the aide. And that’s okay. That’s probably for the best. I think that in the beginning, Mrs. H had very high hopes for Olivia. I want us to continue to have high hopes for her while tempering those hopes with patience and understanding that perhaps those hopes are too high. I think that maybe Mrs. H went into this year with Olivia much like the fourth grade teacher Mrs. K. She took one look at Olivia, beautiful, perfect Olivia and saw a child she honestly believed was capable of so much more than she was doing. She truly believed that Olivia was playing me and Tom; that Olivia had figured out that if she ‘played dumb’ she could get away with doing the bare minimum. I don’t think Mrs. H has had that extreme a reaction to Liv but I do think she believes that Olivia might be doing some of her behaviors on purpose; that is, she’s doing some of it to get out of doing the other, harder work. All of that is simply not true. And we have to understand that some days, the connections in O’s brain work great. She can sit there with a worksheet and answer simple math questions with minimal assistance. She can read a book and answer questions about it, she can do simple social studies questions. But other days, those same connections in Liv’s brain don’t spark. She cannot be left alone with a worksheet and be expected to fill it out. She will scribble the hell out of the worksheet. She will poke holes in it with the point of her pencil. She will sit there and stare into space imagining out all sorts of ‘fan fics’ about TicTockers and YouTubers and classmates. She will not do the work in front of her. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because she simply can’t force herself to focus without someone sitting next to her keeping her focused. It’s not a stall tactic. It’s not an attempt to get out of doing the work. She’ll do the work; hell, she wants to do the work. She just needs someone to remind her every few minutes exactly what she’s supposed to be doing. Believe me, I really think that if she could do the work on her own, she would. Does anyone want someone next to them reminding them every few minutes to write the word? I think not. We’ll get there. I truly believe that too.