The Naughty Table

In the video I recently posted of Kayla talking about her day she mentions having to sit at the 'naughty table' at lunch that day. There wasn't any note in her folder about it so when she mentioned it I was caught off guard.

I went to her parent-teacher teacher conference on Thursday and got the scoop on what happened.

The assistant teacher in her room, Mrs. F., is the one in the lunchroom and she talked to me after the conference.

I've been called at home twice to let me know Kayla tried to drink out of someone's juice box and another time or touched someone's food (and the teacher was worried about possible cross-contamination with gluten). The solution was to move Kayla a little farther away at the table so she wouldn't be in arms reach and tempted to touch their food. I hadn't heard anything since that incident so I thought it was over with.

What happened on the day in question is Mrs F warned Kayla twice when she reached out to touch someone's food. She said the third time Kayla looked around to see if anyone was watching and very slowly reached her arm out; well Mrs. F did see her. She told Kayla she had to go sit at the naughty table now for not listening after the first two times.

She said it also broke her heart cause Kayla was crestfallen, she was sitting at the table (by herself because no one else was in trouble that day), with her head down, slowly eating the rest of her lunch. I can just picture her doing that too...being very sad, but also embarrassed. The whole way out to recess Mrs. F heard Kayla talking to herself saying "Don't touch food" over and over.

Kayla is very aware of the "naughty" table - Mrs. F said she's seen other kids at her table have to go sit there. We also have a "naughty" spot at home, so she's familiar with what it means.

I'm glad that Mrs. F did this and didn't coddle to Kayla, but treated her the same she would have if another child did that, after being warned twice. I think it made quite the impact on Kayla too, so hopefully she won't be trying to touch anyone's food anymore! The next day at lunch Mrs F reiterated to Kayla about the 'naughty table' by asking her what would happen if she touched anyone's food and Kayla replied, "sit at naughty table."

I'm not sure why Kayla is doing that - this has never been an issue before. Mrs. F thinks at first it was curiosity about what someone had that was different than what she had; but now she thinks it's for attention. Last year there were 4 adults in her classroom so there was an adult sitting at the table with Kayla. This year there are only 2 adults and they don't sit at the table, so she thinks Kayla is doing it for adult attention.

Hopefully she learned her lesson and that's the end of that!

Other than that she had a pretty good review for the parent-teacher conference!