M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Parting Thoughts on Primary Disruptions
By Kathryn H. Kidd

I thought I had a whole email box full of letters to close out this topic on Primary rowdiness, but when I opened the emails this week I was surprised to see that most of them were requests for new topics. It seems that everyone is as eager to move on to another subject as I am!

Here are the few letters I received that are related to the subject at hand. It was intriguing to me that most of them contained caveats concerning opinions we have already run. I attach them here for your consideration, but please don’t send any responses to them. From the contents of my email this week, it’s glaringly apparent that everyone else is more than ready to discuss something else.

I enjoyed the many ideas that were expressed as to how problem children can be nurtured in the gospel. Thank you for informing my approaches.

I am a professional elementary school teacher and was a little alarmed at worldly approaches suggesting the use of medication and external psychological manipulations. These simply delay necessary mental and emotional development and are often damaging to it. The data are proving it. I believe the brethren have warned us about bribes and treats. I know our bishop has. Children should be taught in their formative years that you do what is right because it is right and pleases God. This will strengthen them.

God expects us to be informed by His methods. I always start with all students in all my classes, Primary included, with a discussion of the purpose of being in the class. Together we explore our individual expectations and motivations. Once we establish a common understanding we make a few “laws” to help us all meet our needs.

With all children, but especially with very young ones, things are kept very simple (about five short sentences will do). We invite the spirit to guide us. I print up our constitution (our common purpose is the preamble) and give a copy to each child and post it in the classroom. We all sign it. This is the rule of law that is an eternal principle. When there are problems we refer back to the original covenant. With some students who struggle more, I think it is good to have them make a more specific, personal plan with personal goals.

My five-year-old students reminded me if I forgot, and loved to recite the document of our Christian self-government at the beginning of each class. One of my students stated it well when we were listing things to be thankful for at Thanksgiving time. He said it is a blessing to know how to behave.

Marjohna K. Madsen
Mapleton, Utah

Love the idea of a classroom constitution, Marjohna! That’s something that hasn’t been suggested before, and it could work wonders. Often, adults think they are doing children a favor by not setting boundaries for them, but the opposite is true. Children need — and want — to know where the lines are. Some of them want to know so they can stay within the lines, and others want to know so they can jump over the lines.

It’s the line-jumpers we’ve been talking about recently, so I’m not as convinced as you are about the banning of “external psychological manipulations.” But I certainly agree with you that we should try ideas such as yours first, and only rely on reward systems (even if they just consist of gold stars) as fallbacks if other things don’t work.

Boy can I sympathize. I spent three years as a full-time teacher’s aide in a fifth and sixth grade behavior disorder classroom, and I have come to love those kids! Each year the school sent us to attend a two-day seminar to help us understand the students’ outbursts and how to diffuse some situations by using certain phrases. We also learned how to restrain them if need be. It is a hard thing to understand. Children act out for many reasons.

There are many "home" situations that we as leaders may not be aware of, which could be causing the child anxiety. Mormon homes are not always as they appear. Many conflicting standards are lived in homes.

Hereare some ideas:

• Definitely, get a second teacher.
• Some children have food allergies and eat waaaayyyyy too many simple carbs before Primary; this wreaks havoc on their little systems.
• Some children are on medication, which I am totally against. It has been my experience that parents/guardians do not always administer it properly at home or sometimes will just stop giving it or change prescriptions. (When this occurs, I have seen kids sleep all day during class.) It takes their bodies a couple of days to adjust. Sometimes they are sick for days and do not eat.
• Children do not have the vocabulary to express themselves. I always wished there was a Dale Carnegie class for children so they could articulate how/what they feel.
• Also, find a school(s) that has a class for behavior-disorder children. Ask the teacher(s) what works in his/her classroom.

It is difficult when that one child does command your attention. It is not fair to the other children who do want to participate in Primary and hear the lesson.

Perhaps Heavenly Father is hearing your prayers and is sending you instructions right now. I hope so. Remember that these are the choicest spirits in our care. (Sometimes that is kind of hard to imagine when they are so ornery!)

Funny thing is, the most difficult child in my classroom became a person I understood and cared about the most. (On the first day of school he was smoking in the boys’ room — yes, smoking in the boys’ room.) Close to the end of the school year, I will never forget the few seconds Heavenly Father allowed me a glimpse of this child’s spirit. His true self was that of being happy and joyous — to be and act 12 years old, not to act like his older siblings who were in to drugs.

Good luck and hang on. I know someday we will meet these children in the millennium and they will wrap their arms so tightly around us and with tears in their eyes they will thank us. I know — because I am one of these children.

Lori from Arizona

What a great letter, Lori! The last paragraph was a real clincher.

I know it’s possible to ask for — and receive — glimpses of how God views people we do not understand, because I’ve done it myself. If a teacher of a particularly difficult child has not done that, it might make all the difference. Thanks for the reminder.

And speaking of eating those carbs before Primary …

Great suggestions from veteran teachers about teaching in Primary, but please no more perpetrating the myth of the "sugar high." Don't take my word for it; look it up. Hyperactivity in normal kids is not increased by an intake of sugar. This "old wives’ tale” needs to be buried.

Wendel Brock
Ft. Walton Beach, Florida

Sure enough, Wendel — I googled “sugar high myth” and got 197,000 hits that agreed with your position. (No, I didn’t check them all out.) Who knew?

And before I get letters from parents telling me their children are indeed affected by sugar, I have no doubt that might be the case. Human beings are so highly individual that I would expect any food to have a wide range of effects on a wide variety of people. Any food we put into our bodies has a chemical breakdown and interacts with our individual makeup, either for good or for ill. I know that no matter how many times I read the Word of Wisdom, wheat still makes me sick. The human body is a strange and wonderful thing.

I read many great ideas in the article about helping children behave appropriately while they are in Primary. There are some things that concerned me though. Several readers suggested finding out if the child had ADHD, some suggested going to this child's home, looking in his room.

Some families may take these requests in stride, to others it could seem like an invasion of privacy. As a parent of a child with a few medical diagnoses (ADHD, mild Autism Spectrum Disorders, and so on), I do have some opinions on this.

We in no way feel any obligation to share our child's struggles with the Primary, or the whole ward for that matter. We know that people talk, and it will eventually be shared throughout the ward. By all physical appearances, our child is perfect. By outward appearances there is not a reason for the odd, sometimes to talkative and animated behavior this child exhibits. Other times this child seems totally typical, acts age appropriate. Not often, though.

We have different reasons for keeping this information about our child private. We do tend to be private people, but mainly it is to protect our child. We do have high hopes for our child, just as any other parent of any "typical" child would. We feel that if we share some of his diagnoses, this child will be treated differently by others, even the well meaning ones.

Because of our expectations, which according to the doctors we see are not out of line with lots of work, we want this child treated as normal as possible. Sometimes special needs children are given more leeway than others in different areas, such as behavior. That is not what we expect for our child, we want this child to understand how to behave in public, in Church, to learn social cues and learn to behave appropriately. It is hard work — for us as parents, for our other children, but especially for this child.

That said, I have talked to Primary teachers in the past, particularly when this child was younger. Without telling any medical conditions, I pointed out some ways that might work better in getting and holding this child's attention. I told the teachers some phrases that we use that catch our child's attention better and helps the child with understanding what is being asked. And I have always made myself available to help out in the classroom if needed.

We do these things in hopes that it will help our child learn and grow, to be able to have a successful life as an adult, go to college, marry in the temple, be a good parent, and serve in the Church.

A Reader from Texas

I can’t argue with a single thing you wrote, Texas. Thanks for sharing your parent’s perspective on this sensitive issue.

And finally — as if the teachers weren’t feeling enough stress already — our last letter shows what can happen when a teacher makes an insensitive comment for little ears to overhear:

When I was a little girl I tried to go to Primary. My brothers liked attending the LDS Church and participating in the Scout program, so my mom decided that she would take them to the church they wanted to go to. My father was an inactive member and never attended church. My mother was not a member but attended her own church regularly. I was not used to leaving my mother much and found it hard to go to Primary. I was about 4 or 5 years old.

Well, I remember a wonderful teacher in a little room near the baptismal font. She cut out all these catalogue pictures and put them on a flannel board. I was so excited when it was my time to put them on the flannel board. I think we learned about the creation the first time I went.

The next time my mom took me I was eager to hear more Bible stories. As I sat in what must have been opening exercises or singing time, I imagine I was a bit wiggly and I did not know any of the songs. One teacher leaned forward and asked my teacher who I was. My teacher whispered back and they looked at me and nodded and frowned and made me feel uncomfortable.

I did not know what was wrong with me, but I knew something was wrong. I do not know whether I started to cry or whether I just got up and went to the bathroom and then someone helped me find my mother. I would not go back to that Primary (in those days it was called junior Sunday School) again, and my mom told me that if I wouldn't go, then she wouldn't go to church.

I longed for that teacher's wonderful lessons on that flannel board, but the feeling I got when those two ladies talked about me stayed with me and I wouldn't leave my mother's side. It was many years before I came into contact with the Church again, and it was another twenty-five years before my mother joined the Church.

I urge everyone to be careful when they talk around little children. Children need to know they are loved, and they will act out if they suspect you do not love them or if you are impatient with them.

Anonymous

Your letter was a chiller, Anonymous. It’s always sobering to be reminded how easily we can offend others by our slightest action or inaction. Thanks for the reminder that we are always being watched — even when we’re doing things that we wouldn’t want other people to witness.

Okay, people. Next week we have a shiny new topic to pursue. I’m sure you’re not going to want to miss it, so we’ll see you next week.

Until next time — Kathy

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.

Elbert Hubbard

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