Kids Kicked out of Preschool?

[Vercetti Thug]

I found this article on MSN.

In many ways, Joanah is your typical 4-year-old. He sees Spaghetti-Os as a fashion statement, not just a dinner option.

But an active nature complicated by attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, can make him a handful some days.

For his former preschool, there apparently were too many "some days," which included defying his teacher's instructions and hitting classmates. After just a few months, the school's director called in Joanah's mother.

"They just seemed kind of intolerant," says Lori Napier, of Lakewood, Ohio. "He wasn't a holy terror. Basically, they couldn't handle him -- or didn't want to -- and asked me to remove him."

Joanah, then 3 years old, had joined the unlikely but populous ranks of expelled preschoolers.

Yale researcher Walter S. Gilliam says preschool programs exist to ready young children for kindergarten and the elementary years that lay ahead. So expelling a kid so young, even with problem behavior, just doesn't make sense.

"I can't think of a child who's more in need of a school-readiness program," says Gilliam. "It's like taking sick people out of the hospital."

More likely than a teen

More than 5,000 children were estimated to be kicked out of state-funded preschool programs in a 2005 study of the phenomenon by Gilliam. That's less than 1 percent of the total enrollment of the programs included in the study.

At the same time, preschoolers were far more likely to be kicked out of school than their counterparts in the K–12 system. The preschool expulsion rate of 6.7 per 1,000 preschool students was more than triple that of older grades.

"It shocks a lot of people," Gilliam says.

The study didn't look into the reasons for expulsions, but anecdotal evidence from preschools points largely to aggressive behavior, including biting and hitting, and other hard-to-control behaviors, such as running away.

Reasons for removing a child from preschool run the gamut, however. Gilliam recalls a 4-year-old who was expelled for having marijuana in his backpack. The boy's mother's boyfriend had hidden his stash there when police visited their home. The boy had no idea. But school policy sent him home anyway.

Perhaps more troubling is that Gilliam's expulsion rate calculations do not include students who were transferred to a special education program or other setting. They were simply booted. And that can start a vicious cycle.

"I've seen some children who were expelled from preschool after preschool, and then they got to kindergarten and they were expelled from there, too," Gilliam says.

The rates also don't touch on those families who leave just before the point of expulsion.

Jill Besnoy removed her 3-year-old son, Wyatt, from his private preschool outside New York City after staff repeatedly complained of his "active" behavior, including running away from class twice.

"I moved him because I was so unhappy ... but they were very happy when I said we were leaving," she says.

Visits to doctors and clinicians had showed there was nothing abnormal about Wyatt's behavior, Besnoy says. "He wasn't hitting anyone. He wasn't aggressive. He just didn't like being told what to do. He's 3 years old, you know?"

Wyatt didn't like to stay at an academic station like instructed, or sit still for 20 minutes of class time, things Besnoy sees as "unfair demands" for a little kid.

Not always a "problem child"

Many parents and experts see a preschool system that has lost sight of what's appropriate to expect of a 3- or 4-year-old.

"I think some people have expectations that children that age are able to sit for 20 minutes and listen to a lesson," says Lisa McCabe, associate director and cooperative extension associate of the Cornell Early Childhood Program at Cornell University.

"You stick them in that environment and they start acting out and hitting, and then they're labeled a problem child, when they're not -- you're just expecting things that are inappropriate."

It's natural for a little kid to whack their playmate to get what they want, in part, because it works.

Most young children haven't yet mastered how to "use their words," much less the patience and internal check system to follow through.

"That's one of the problems at this age," McCabe says. "How can we tell the difference between a child who's showing some problem behavior now but in two years will have outgrown it" and the one who is dealing with deeper issues?

A 1996 Canadian study of 2- to 11-year-old children showed that physical aggression peaks between 2 and 3 years of age, and that most kids outgrow the behavior. According to another Canadian study from 2006, only about one-sixth of children, mostly boys from disadvantaged families, show a more persistent pattern of physical aggression.

Biting and hitting are "relatively minor issues," and kids shouldn't be expelled for such behavior, says Beth Green, vice president of the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health at Portland State University in Oregon.

"A lot of kids go through those stages. And a lot of kids are asked to leave for things that teachers should be able to deal with and have the support needed to know how to deal with these types of behavior," Green says.

Even if a child shows more persistent use of aggression, expulsion isn't the remedy, experts say. If anything, it will only make things worse.

Preschool programs help children perform better in reading, math and other subjects when they enter kindergarten, as well as increase their chances of succeeding later in life, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.

The key? Giving teachers the support they need and including social skills lessons alongside those ABCs.

[Kitsune Inferno]

This kinda makes me glad I didn't go to preschool. I would've gotten my ass kicked by some of those kids!

[Vercetti Thug]

Theyr'e just mentally challenged. Lol. (Was that one word?)

[WRX22B1998]

lol 4yr old found with marijuana...

talk about growing up too fast

although its sorta dumb kicking kids out of preschool

[Urbanoutlaw]

I'm guessing their mommies never paddled their asses, just counted at them.

"Stop that or I'll say "stop" again."

Have another diet pop, princess (I noticed diet pop got really popular about the same time ADD/ADHD started to become

an issue, there's probably a connection between the artificial sweeteners & development of unborn children).

[Vercetti Thug]

Did you just make that up? Hey is ADHD a disease of some sort? I know it affects the mind but does it really count as a disease? And aren't there pills for it?

[rockstarrem]

It's not a "disease" it's a mental illness. And yeah theres pills for it.

I think you have it, did you read the article ? I'm not bashing people with ADHD, I have it myself so lulz.

[Connor]

I have ADHD(as well as autism) and people can easily change a little bit for it, to accomedate people with it, but they choose not to, and complicate everything for everyone.

I used to take pills for it, and they just make people violent, giving them more trouble.

Brain scans show that ADHD does exist, but a lot of people are probably being misdiagnosed just because they're whiney little bitches getting in bother all the time.

Sometimes I get really hyperactive if I get too excited, and end up hurting people or saying things I shouldn't, but people who change a little bit for me, get on with me fine, the ones that don't, just get fucked by everyone.

[Vercetti Thug]

I dont know whether some kids have ADHD, or they're just socially awkward. I have a lot of cousins that sometimes get me asking myself that. When I first heard about ADHD (In my health book i think) it made it sound like a terrible mental illness that you are soo unlucky to get. Now, I see it as a treatable disease. I think there's some gross exaggeration going on.

[Connor]

It's not a disease, and it's not treatable, it's meant to be helped by other people. Just like any decent person would help someone in a wheelchair, and some people just wouldn't give a shit about them.

It's a terrible mental illness for the people who actually have it, you wouldn't really know what it feels like to be labelled with it, one minute, people accepting you and adapting, then another time, people just fuking taking the piss out of, "oh yea, it doesn't mean anything". doubled with autism, it isn't fucking nice.

[Vercetti Thug]

I meant treatable as in you can get help for it.

[Connor]

You can't actually get help for it...People try to, but it never works.

Pills just fuck people up(violent, zombified, etc) and psychologists just don't really give any help.

Edited August 3, 2008 by Connor