Aug. 25, 2007 - Boot Camp - reporting in!
If you missed the beginnings of my Boot Camp postings here is the link.
Reporting in on Boot camp – end day 1
I explained to Daniel what would be expected of him today – that he would be working with me, that I would be giving him his activities and that he was not to ask for the TV. He had already lost the privilege of computer for the day.
Due to the loss of privileges that he received each time he asked me if he could watch a video by the end of the day he was stopping himself after the first word of the sentence! That is progress!
He had no choices of activities until about 3.30 (when I got focused on my own projects! Not a good thing) He spiraled down real quickly and got a bad case of the “I wants” and couldn’t focus on anything. Eventually he was sent outside (something I should have done a lot earlier!) and he was fine for the rest of the afternoon.
Lessons I learnt:
- Consistency works
- A consequence sets the value of the authority (He knew it was important)
- I’ve got to lay aside some of my projects during bootcamp
Reporting after three days
The more conscious I am of what I need to do with Daniel the more consistent I am. I have found him to be focusing a lot more over the last few days. He has set himself up with a game and played it for a period of time and even come back to it later for another session. We have by no means overcome his difficulty playing by himself – we are still working on it – but it is nice to see change.
His answering back has reduced dramatically, which just goes to show that if I mean what I say, and say what I mean the lesson does get through! I need to continue to mean – no arguing – and I am sure we will get there. So much of his training is up to me!
Today is Saturday – He has had free time while I have been writing. I said to him earlier, “You have free time for the moment but you must use it wisely, if you don’t use it wisely and play properly then you will be doing an activity Mummy says, and doing it where Mummy says.” So far he has been happily building a pyramid from books and playing with his pirate ship (I don’t know the connection! LOL). I feel this constant tugging to give him free time because his age tells me he should be able to do this, but his actions tell me he can’t. So this morning it is free time (for 1 hour) with me observing his choices and I’ll step in the minute he is unable to continue with this freedom.
Later on he is going to work with me, side by side, as I do the housework this morning. And then we will do a phonics lesson and then maybe another spot of free play – depending on how he is going. Computer will be left till after lunch. He is still not allowed to ask for TV or Computers.
Boot Camp is going to continue into next week as well.
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