Teacher troubles

[akafred]

At Char's school there are 2 main teachers in her classroom, a classroom assistant, and then there's an aftercare teacher and assistant. Char adores the aftercare teachers, the assistant teacher at her main classroom, and likes the main classroom teacher (I wouldn't say "adores", but they have a pretty good relationship). She strongly dislikes the other main teacher. There's a "lead teacher" and another fully accredited teacher; it is the other accredited teacher she has trouble with.

For background purposes only, she is very young, no kids, fresh out of college and finished the Montessori-specific education over the summer. I like her well enough, but I do think she is probably not experienced enough for a challenging kid like Charlotte and in conversations it seems like she relies a little too much on what books say *should* work instead of what actually does and doesn't work. She also asks about medication sometimes, which I feel is inappropriate if not actually illegal, though I certainly won't take legal action and we did open up the door to the meds discussion last fall when she was dx and mentioned we may trial meds on a break. She does not know we tried a short acting med one day and it actually seemed to have the opposite effect and ramped Char's behaviors and especially verbal energy way way up.

We will be leaving the school sometime this summer, so at this point it is a short term problem, but I'd love suggestions how to help Char improve her relationship with this teacher. She said yesterday that "Miss Ashley is RUINING my LIFE!" Lol!

[mamaturtle]

I am sorry I don't have any advice. I did want to laugh at the comment of teacher ruining Char's life.

[akafred]

The drama is large with this one.

[KC thepouchh8r]

Dd dislikes one of her TAs as well. She's not verbal enough to say I don't like ms. x because Y but I can sense it in the way she talks about her head teacher/the other assistant she does like as well as her body language/behavior when she's waiting at pickup with the TA she likes vs the one she doesn't. I don't know if I would try to improve the relationship in much as teaching we are allowed to like some people more than others who mesh with our personality but we have to treat everyone with respect. I'm interested in hearing responses. Ds is a complete extrovert and seems to universally like everyone while dd is very particular so I'm sure this isn't the last time this will happen.

[hopecounts]

I would focus on helping Char learn to function under the direction of someone she doesn't like.
Truth is she is going to have teachers/bosses/co-workers she doesn't like and she needs to learn to manage her response to this to keep it from impacting her ability to be successful.

I would focus on teaching her to control what she can control (her response) and go from there.
In a private school setting asking about meds is in bad taste but not strictly illegal so I would say that is definitely a 'young and inexperienced' mistake.

* I say this having watched my sister/cousin struggle with this and at 38 she has yet to keep a job for more then a year or two because she dislikes her boss or a co-worker and quits/gets fired. 

[akafred]

That's definitely good advice and what I'm really looking for help with. I have acknowledged she doesn't like her and doesn't have to like her but she still has to try to get along. I just don't know how I can help her help herself in this circumstance.

[hopecounts]

Role Playing might be good.
If she has an issue at school with the teacher, practice how she could've handled it differently.
Run through some previous issues and help her come up with better ways of handling them, that kind of thing.
Maybe find some books/stories that disucss this and read them with her, IIRC one of the Ramona books discusses not liking someone and you can springboard that into talking about if Ramona made a good choice in how she handled it, if not what would've been a better choice.
and so on.

[spooko]

I definitely agree this is a good learning opportunity. Would it help to specifically detail the behavior you expect from her? Something like, "I know miss Ashley isn't your favorite person, but I still expect you to listen when she is speaking and not talk back, etc" Obviously swap out for what specifically she struggles with, but I think it may help to have an explicit list of expectations. It's hard to know what to do when you're feelings are clouding your judgment and apparently char has a lot of feels on miss Ashley lol.