Students with special medical needs?

Question

Hi. I'm a relatively new first grade teacher about to start another school

year. I have a question regarding a situation that arose last year, and I'm wondering how other teacher handle something like this.

When you have a student in your class with special medical needs that require an exception to the rules you have set up for your class (such as being able to use the bathroom at all times without penalty or being able to eat a snack during morning classes), how do you handle this with regard to the rest of the students? First graders are very curious about why a certain student gets special privileges, and I don't want it to seem I am being partial to one of my students. However, I certainly want to keep all my students' private information private.

Last year, I taught a little girl who had a medical issue and needed the accommodations mentioned above. Sometimes during a spelling test, another child would ask to use the bathroom, and I'd always say, "Can you wait until after the test?" The other child would almost always say he could. Right after that, the girl with the medical issue would ask to use the bathroom, and I had to say yes right away. (I'm afraid it seemed especially unfair to my students, since the mother of the girl with the medical issue was my most frequent classroom volunteer.) Other times, students would ask why the girl was allowed to eat a snack after P.E. but they were not.

How do you handle something like this? I ended up talking with the child's parents about it, and we decided together that I would briefly explain it to the class without going into details. (Since we are a Christian school, I was able to work it rather naturally into our morning prayer request time.) How would you handle a situation like this, though, if the parents preferred the information to be kept completely private?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, as you have already intuited, 1st graders don't have a very heightened sense of "privacy" certainly not the way adults perceive it.

It is difficult, but the approach that always worked for me in the end was to be transparent. That didn't necessarily mean that private medical conditions were exposed but it did mean we talked about diversity- and our needs are among them. Using a children's book to broach the subject is a good idea.

I had children with special needs in my classroom as well, sometimes needing to go to the bathroom. I also had a fairly liberal policy- there was a small white board on the inside of the door where a student would write his/her name to indicate the student was heading to the bathroom. The only time that was not allowed was during "rug time" as I told them that was MY time to teach them. When they were working at their tables, they could allocate their time as they saw fit- staying in the bathroom for too long would have negative consequences! So how did I deal with the special student? When he/she needed to go, he/she would simply tap the shoulder of his/her bathroom buddy (generally a responsible and bright student) to accompany him/her to the bathroom. This was something we would have agreed to beforehand when we had our first conversation about diverse needs. I also found students wanted to be the special partner and would behave well to be chosen.

Answer 2

i would say something like, "Class, this is Emmy!" (sorry i just HAD 2 use ur name, lol.) "She's going 2 be in our class this year! But, class, when Emmy wuz born, something happened 2 her so sometimes she gets 2 - " (at this point, list the things that she's allowed 2 do)

they will ask u what happened so u should just say "Emmy doesn't like 2 talk about it ok guys?"

they will - hopefully - get the point.

this wuz hard!

star 4 u, though!