This one girl was in my dad’s tutor class (my dad is a tutor teacher, he owns a small tutor center), and whenever he tries to speak, she will scream or meow or tries to disrupt the class (it was zoom tutoring) so my dad muted her, she was unhappy, unmuted and screamed again.
So last Sunday, my mom and I visited that girl to find out what make the girl behave that way. So she has 2 brothers and she’s an accidental pregnancy. Her mother attempted suicide back when she’s pregnant with the girl as their youngest kid back then is already 5 and the family don’t want another kid. After she’s born, her grandma take care of her mostly but she still live with her family
The kid just kept meowing, pretending to be a cat rather than talking normally, also, she’s always gaming. Other than that she’s pretty normal. She’s also quite weak at English as nobody at home can teach her.
We get along quite well actually so her mom asked me to help tutor her ($26 per hour, 1 hour per weekday). It had been almost a week but all I did is help her check the homework she sent to me and help her with dictation. I don’t even know if she sent me all her homework. What can I do?
TLDR: A kid didn’t behave in tutor class, we talked to the parents, the mom attempted suicide while pregnant, the kid always pretend to be cat, I need to tutor the kid, I don’t know what to do.
Hi avaia,
Thank you for being willing to help, that’s really cool. You’re going to be spending time with this girl, so you’ll have the opportunity to talk to her just as you would any other person. If you think she is capable of understanding, and you’re willing to take the time, tell her you’d like to help her. Ask her, what she’d like to learn, involve her by giving her choices. Over time, and with a lot of energy on your part she’ll start to trust you and you can set boundaries about her behavior, or she may not be able to get past this without more help, if that’s the case, try to help her find the help she needs. She sounds like she’s got, with reason, trust issues. She’s been taught from birth that she wasn’t wanted, so she became something that was… a cat. It’s the saddest thing, be kind and loving with her, and again, thank you for caring. Peace
This does sound like a complicated situation, and I think it shows how caring of a person you are that you’d want to help her out with this.
I’d say first and foremost, this girl might have difficulties communicating things due to her past, and might have found that she receives the responses she prefers from either screaming or meowing. The most important thing here is opening up a line of communication between you and her. I recognize that your job is to tutor her, but it might be worth spending some time and just hanging out with her and chatting about games she plays, or getting interested in things she’s interested in.
Once she comes to trust you and feel more comfortable, she might be open to communicate to you more and through that you can figure out what’s up and maybe start to help her understand what’s expected of her in situations.
Figuring out how you can communicate together will also help with tutoring. I’m not great at other languages, so when I think of this, I imagine myself trying to teach someone math in another language. Not only do I not understand them, and they don’t understand me, but they don’t know the math either! First step is learning the language so we can talk, then the second step is teaching math
Best of luck Avaia, this is a wonderful thing you do for them, and you can make a huge impact on her life in the position you’re in! Way to go!
Hey, so I can’t help on this . I just really wanted to acknowledge you and what your doing working with a kid in need! I have mental health issues nothing similar to this young child your helping but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone I was really anxiety lol couldn’t sit still with any schooling. I had a teacher that seems to be like you, she did everything she could reached out to people, made sure I had food even bought me cloths and shoes at one point when I could t get them from my family. Your doing something Nobel and life altering for this child if you can stick around and find her help for her issues. That’s brave and the world needs more you! Personally just being there for the child staying by that child’s side helping how you can may just make the biggest difference in itself I hope someone here gets you the answers you need I’m sorry I can’t be more help I just want to tell you your amazing for helping her
