Little Miss Spoiled Brat

by Lacey
(Albuquerque, NM)

I have a daughter named Kadence, and for some reason teachers dread her! Whats even more surprising is that she is only in kindergarten! It was last year when Kadence attended preschool for the first time, that I noticed that her and I were "out-siders" and didn't exactly feel "welcome" at her preschool.

Kadence seemed to immediately developed strange behaviors at preschool. She had millions of accidents in her pants. She never had accidents peeing her pants at home, so this concerned me. It concerned the teachers too, but instead of being compassionate, they treated me as if we had "problems" at home. Kadence would also come home extremely upset about her teacher. She would tell me stories like: "Today I heard my teacher talking to her helper about a boy that she thinks is cute". Or she would say "My teacher is always gossiping to her helper and never pays attention to us on the playground". This became extremely alarming to me because I began thinking that my daughter was being left unattended. I also started noticing that Kadence would get hurt alot in class by other children. When I asked her what her teacher would do, Kadence would tell me that the teacher never payed attention to the kids that would hurt her. I started to wonder if this was related to Kadence having so many accidents wetting her pants at school. Could it be that the teachers were simply not paying attention to my daughter?

I wanted to make sure my daughter didn't have any health issues first before putting the blame on the teacher, so I took her in to see the pediatrician. He ran tests on her to make sure she had no issues with bladder infections etc. He found nothing! So I approached the teachers regarding my feelings that same week. Next thing I knew they called CYFD on me and claimed my daughter must be experiencing things at home! It got so bad that I finally had to take my daughter out of preschool because she was beeing bullied so bad by other kids for peeing her pants! Kadence was so depressed and would literally cry and beg me to stay home! I mean, what kid doesn't like preschool?!?

Kadence has now been in kindergarten for 3 months and I am already experiencing some similar behaviors! Once again my daughter is wetting her pants multiple times a day, everyday at school! Her teacher began getting extremely rude with my daughter and I. She treated my daughter as if she's behaving absolutely ridiculous, and treated me as if I'm just the type of parent that coddles her little girl. This teacher started pulling the same tactics as the preschool teacher "I think there's a problem going on at home". She even set up a meeting with several counselors to speak to me about "whats going on at home". Kadence began complaining about this teacher as well. She would come home depressed and would tell me "mom, my teacher doesn't have manners, she is mean and calls me young lady and gets mad at me for everything". So now I have a kindergartener dreading school all over again and having multiple accidents in class. I'm even getting attitudes with the school nurse. She calls me every time my daughter has an accident and has such an attitude about it as if my daughter is annoying her. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed, unwelcome, and felt like everyone viewed me as some horrible mother!

I decided to speak to the principle and have my daughter moved to a different class. I explained the teachers attitude to the principle, but all she had to say was "Oh no, My staff is very qualified and doesn't act in that sort of way". Regardless of her lack of concern, I had my daughter switched to a new class. I noticed a huge improvement on my daughters behavior! She was loving school, but one problem remained....She was still wetting her pants. I began trying everything to find out whay she was doing this. I tried discipline, and I tried rewarding her on the days she didn't have an accident, but this didn't improve anything! At this point I decided to go to her class and take her into the bathroom myself, and that's when I finally discovered a problem...She was terrified of the toilet! She covered her ears and jumped ten feet back as if I had scared her to death!

Okay, sounds easy enough, right? WRONG! No matter what I did, Kadence was terrified of the bathroom at school because the flush was loud. So this led her to continue wetting her pants. A few weeks later I attended a school assembly and noticed my daughter backed against the wall, squeezing her ears and looking terrified by all the cheering. It was then that I realized Kadence wasn't just afraid of the toilet, she didn't like loud noises in general.

I spoke with the school counselor and she gave me a book regarding Sensory Integrative Disorder. I not only read the book but found this web site and everything started to finally make sense!! My daughter is very sensitive to noise and makes judgements regarding others according to their tone of voice! I started doing at home "tests" with different noises and discovered just how sensitive my daughter is to sound! I immediately scheduled an appointment with her pediatrician and have printed a checklist from this site. We don't see him until next week, but I am certain my daughter is struggling with this disorder.

After the way Kadence and I have been treated by teachers, the principal, and school nurse, I have decided to print the information out from this site and give it to the school! I think the school needs to be aware of this disorder and should stop treating parents as if they are "bad" parents. It's overwhelming as it is trying to understand a disorder, much less dealing with others treating you like there's a problem in your home and treating you like a terrible parent! Thanks for all the info! :)