A Time For Change

Well I had my meeting with the school's counselor today. Having meetings at school because of your child's behavior is not fun. It feels like you're the one in trouble! I was all stressed out about it yesterday, and I'm sure that contributed to my not sleeping well last night. Not that I sleep all that great to begin with.

The bottom line seems to be that Bella is suffering from "Only Child Syndrome". Yes, she has two siblings, but they are grown and gone and she's the only one home now. She's always been the star of the show at home, but that doesn't translate very well in a school setting. She can't be the center of attention all day, every day and needs to learn that she must wait her turn and that the teacher isn't going to be sitting right next to her all day long. And at this point, if you aren't constantly riding her, she won't do her work. At all. Nothing!! UGH!!!!

But there are things we can do at home to facilitate changes in Bella, so she does act appropriately in school. Hopefully anyway.

Things we need to work on:
- Don't allow her to interrupt conversations. This is a biggie for Bella. She thinks that the whole world must stop because she needs/wants something or has something to say. She does say "Excuse me.", but hasn't learned to then WAIT until being addressed.

- Don't jump up the second she needs something or asks for help. Obviously if it's an emergency or she's in trouble, you move! But for everyday things, she needs to learn to wait. When you have two or more kids at home, waiting is par for the course because you're busier and sometimes everyone has to wait their turn. Only children usually have a harder time learning this.

- More play dates with other children. Kids are pretty good at working out compromises between themselves like siblings do everyday. This reinforces the idea that not everyone wants to do the same thing at the same time and you need to take turns. Bossy kids don't make, or keep, many friends!

- First empathize, then enforce. It's OK for Bella to not want to do her homework (who likes doing homework???), but she still needs to do it so she can master the skills she's learning. And whether she likes (whatever she's fighting) it or not, she's got to do it. Acknowledging her feelings first might go a long way toward changing a stubborn attitude.

- Let her deal with the consequences of her poor choices. She won't finish her dinner? Fine. No dessert. Bad report from school? Fine. No electronic privileges. Again, you can empathize, but enforcement must be followed. Every.Single.Time.

- Don't blather on and on and on (like this post, lol!). Make your point and then drop it. Even negative attention is attention. And The Bella craves attention! There's no point in giving it to her when she's not behaving properly. Better to save and lavish attention when she is behaving!

- Talk about good choices. Kids can't meet your expectations if they don't know what they are! And you have to be specific!! You can't just say, "Be good at school today", or "Focus on doing your work." For her it's more, "Make sure you finish your morning packet within XX amount of minutes", or "Don't stick your tongue out at so-and-so, even if they do it to you first."

- Make sure attention is not related to discipline. Not everything positive can be tied to rewards or only good behavior. Kids need lots of praise when they do get stuff right. So sometimes you have to really look (especially on bad days!!) for things to praise, and do so lavishly. It's better for them to be hooked on praise than reprimands! Also not everything has to be a reward for good behavior. She's too used to hearing about rewards or losing her privileges, but we need to just read a story together or do fun things that have nothing to do with behavior.

- Set her up with her homework, and then let her do it. I can't be constantly telling her to pay attention, focus, get back to work, etc. She needs to learn to be self-starting and self-motivated. I can't be there with her at school and the teacher doesn't have the time to do this either. Plus we all have to learn to get our work done without someone hammering at us!

- Lately she could give any Tween or Teen lessons on sassing and the whole sarcasm thing! Ugh!! She's only six! A quick correction and then done. Getting all mad and lecturing her isn't going to do any good. She'll just tune you out. This is very, very hard for me because it instantly enrages me when little kids talk like that, and this is something new for her. And I hate it!!

- Because Bella came into this classroom into the school year, she's behind on the computer math exercises. The rest of the kids had a two month+ head start. So she needs to do 2 exercises a day at home - minimum, and more on the weekends to catch up. It would also be super swell if she'd do them at school like she's supposed to - but that's on the teacher's time.

- We got a chore chart for Bella a while ago, and then didn't really keep up with it. Today I updated it and went over it with her. Now she knows what she's supposed to be doing, and got the thrill of putting on stars for the things that she's done. She also got to see the "sad face" on one of the things too. Stars are better!!! She's excited about it, so we'll go from there.

- The last thing was my "homework" given to me by the counselor. Thomas and I never do anything together that doesn't also include Bella. Even if it's just watching a movie together at home, we need time away from her and she needs to learn that she can't be included in everything. Going out to eat, going for a walk, whatever...just do it regularly and not with her. And we can't talk about her then either, lol! We've gotten out of this habit and that needs to change both for our marriage, and to also help Bella.

So that's the game plan for the home front. The counselor and the teacher are going to work on a game plan for during the school day as well. It seems awfully labor intensive just to make my stubborn kid do her work!!! I've never had a child just refuse to do their school work before! But she can't sit there and stare out the window, play, or bug other kids any longer. She's too smart for the work she's doing, but they refuse to test her for more/harder work if she isn't doing what she's being given now. So she had better tow the line pretty darn quick!!