Child not Following Directions at School

My son in kindergarten is having trouble following directions. He does follow directions at home. I have been grounding him and taking away his privileges so that he will do better in school. It's not helping. What should I do? - Confused Answer: It's excellent that your son follows directions at home. Of course, he needs to do the same thing at school. Part of the problem might be the number of steps in the school directions compared with the number of directions you give to him at home. There is also the possibility that he doesn't know exactly how to follow the directions that are being given to him at school. Stop grounding him and taking away privileges at home for something that happened hours ago at school. Talk to his teacher about the type of directions that your son is failing to follow and how severe the problem is. Then stress to him the importance of following directions. If the problem is in behaviors like failing to get in line, you could playact similar situations with him so he'll have needed practice in following school directions. If it's with schoolwork, you might need to show him how to follow simple directions like circling, coloring or underlining.