Sandy Southwest

Adjusting Attitudes about School

When Monster finished the 6th grade, we took him out of public school.  Same for Bear and Kala - they were in 3rd and 1st.  It was the best decision, yet this year I have been dealing with horrible attitudes and temper tantrums .  I get attitude about doing any work whatsoever from Bear and then tantrums from the 2 of them (fortunately for Kala, she missed this lovely part od public school and doesn't do this yet! ).

So, after going crazy and yelling at the 2 of them, my mom called.  When I told her of the problem, she had an easy solution: Would they be allowed to do this? and Would they be allowed to treat their public school teacher this way?  and  What would be the consequence for this type of behavior?

Why I didn't think of this, I don't know, but after all of us calming down, I spoke with each with them.  I listened to them (at least to Monster, Bear was in the "I don't care" mode) and told them what is expected of them.

The new (enforced) rules:

1. You will accomplish all school work each day.
2. You will quietly and calmly to the teacher (ME!)
3. You will ask for help withou over-reacting or yelling or screaming.
4. You will not complain nor back-talk about your assignments.
5. You get 1 warning.
6. After that, you get the privilege of doing 10 minutes of "detention" i.e., very boring copywork (trust me here - I have lots of boring college level chemistry/forensic testing books and nursing books), with the loss of any break time until lunch.
7. The teacher has the privilege of deciding if you can get more "detention" time or lose any fun stuff (riding bikes, trampoline, going to the park).

This seems to be working - each of them have only had to get their warning - so, maybe thing will be calmer now (I can only hope)!