My child smells?!

[Guest guest]

I just had to throw in my 2 cents worth, on this one lol...

I see two things going on here and they are:

A) You mentioned how well your child is doing in this school. That is

a super positive progessive aspect that I am sure you do not want to

see change or hamper.

1) A teacher is commenting on your child's personal hygiene.

Definition of hygiene: conditions or practices conducive to health.

a. The teacher is close enough to your child on a regular basis

to notice other things about him than just his academic performance.

This is a great indicator that the teachers are involved in their

jobs and the kids.

2) Possibly the teacher thinks you are not close enough to your

child on a regular basis to notice these things so she's pointing

them out to you.

a. IE, parents not involved enough with child's upbringing or

home setting, daily needs there, etc etc.

3.) Possibly the teacher isn't as well informed about a child's

lifestyle outside of the school setting, when it comes to raising an

AS child.

4.) Perhaps the teacher is feeling insecure in her dealings with

your child and hence is trying to pass the ball back to parent and

home setting to exonerate her own shortcomings or insecurities. (but

I doubt this is it, since the child is doing so well at that school.)

ULtimately I would say something like the following, to that teacher

in a private conference with her:

Hello Ms Teacher, thanks for meeting with me like this. I wanted

to take this opportunity to let you know that I am extremely pleased

with the progress my child is showing, due to your efforts at school.

I also wanted to talk to you about must appear to you as lack of

caring or responsibility on our part (the parents), such as his

clothing having an odor or his shoes appearing too small. At home, we

try to eliminate as many 'battlefield' zones as possible, in order

for our child to have as stress free a home to come home to after

school as possible. His shoes are fine, in fact have more than enough

room for growth in them. Now if he has made a comment to 'you' about

his shoes, that I would want to hear about because the shoes might be

distracting him for some tactile reason. Other than that though, the

shoes are indeed a proper fit at this time. As far as an odor to his

clothing, he doesn't have that odor when he leaves this house.

Perhaps someone is helping him gain that odor before you are with

him?, like in a lunchroom, or perhaps there is some sort of bathroom

use issue going on that hasn't been discovered yet there at the

school? His clothing is clean, washed regularly, and he bathes

regularly too. Can we try a little experiment, where you casually

discover if he has an odor when he first arrives at school in the

morning, compared to later in the day? Maybe we can discover where he

is gaining such an odor to his clothing. I would like to find out

asap, because this bothers us, to hear his clothing has an odor when

we are sending him to school " odor free " each morning. Can you let me

know if you discover anything further on this idea? That'd be a great

help to us too, and then we can get this problem corrected.

blah blah blah... something like that, so the teacher doesn't feel

as though you are blaming him, because if that happens then they'll

back off some and become defensive and things will get more difficult.

I mean really, the child could be having some extreme anxiety

moments there at the school that cause him to sweat more, a build up

to a meltdown. This odor comment needs to be chased down and figured

out. Thank gawd summer vacation is in sight!! : )