A letter to my 6 year-old's teacher:

Dear Mrs. "Kaft",
"My 1st Grader" was very distraught today after school, so much so that I had a hard time deciphering exactly what the causes were. What I was able to glean from his comments is that he kind of “freaked out” during his math quiz, he said he was having a hard time counting by seven’s, and then thought he had to do some hard math problems which he did not understand, but later learned that he was not required to do them.
I am not sure if that makes sense or not, anyway he said he had to struggle to keep from crying in class during the quiz. I vaguely remember a flier being sent home that talked about 90 second quizzes and I am assuming that this is what he was talking about. The fact that they are timed is apparently very stressful to him.
He is also nervous about an assignment that he apparently did not finish in which he has to draw and label body parts. He is afraid that if he does this assignment that he will not be complete some other assignment on time.
In reference to the not knowing which questions on the quiz he needed to do, I asked him if he was paying close attention when the teacher explained what needed to be done, and in reference to the quizzes I told him to do his best and to not get upset by the idea of not doing well, everyone understands he is six years old and does not already know everything and that he is in school to learn and tests just let the teachers know what he does and does not understand.
He then was upset by the idea that I was going to write you because he thought you might yell at him for “not knowing the answers,” and he also did not want to be pulled aside to be talked to. I told him that teachers want their students to learn so they would not yell at them for having questions, and that talking to a teacher one on one would just help him to solve his problems/answer his questions and was nothing to be afraid of.
Please take a moment and try to learn what exactly is confusing him, be it that some of today’s work built upon what was taught on Tuesday when he was out so he did not understand it, or if he’s not paying close enough attention when assignments are being explained, or if needs to ask more questions when he does not understand what is expected of him, or his time management needs development, whatever the problems are it is hard for me put my finger on them since I do not know exactly what is going in his classes and when I ask him about them he gets upset.

Thank you for your help in this matter,

Dissonant Dad