Behavior Management 101

We are super lucky that all the kids are good students, hard workers, and behave themselves in school.  We have made it abundantly clear that we expect nothing less.

Two weeks ago Solomon's teacher, Miss Johnson, emailed me that he was ignoring her student teacher's directions and misbehaving in class and that same day the recess ladies came in to tell her that he had ignored their directions on the playground as well.  When he came home from school that day I said calmly, "Solomon, Miss Johnson told me that you had some problems at school today."  His siblings all froze in their tracks and looked intently at him... then me... then him... something big was going down here and they didn't want to miss anything.

Solomon dropped his head, stared at the floor, stuck out his bottom lip, and refused to respond.  So I said, "Let's go up to my room and you can explain the situation."  Not good for the sibs, who just lost their front row seat to The Smackdown..  Up in my room, I continued to get the lip and complete absence of eye contact, punctuated occasionally with high-pitched, inarticulate whining.  After 30 minutes of attempted avoidance and denial, he FINALLY admitted that he was not following directions and then he cried hysterically for another 10 minutes.  I hugged him and reassured him that dad and I will always love him and it's okay to make mistakes. However, problems at school always mean consequences at home and that for the rest of the night he had lost his TV, computer, and video games AND tomorrow he needed to go to the recess ladies and the student teacher an apologize and tell them what he was going to do differently next time.  He accepted this bad news with resignation, sniffed up the last of his tears, and carried on with his electronically diminished evening. 

The next day I emailed Miss Johnson to find out if he apologized to her.  No he didn't, and he claimed he didn't know who the recess ladies were, so no apology there either and he came back from PE crying because he had gotten the Dreaded Pink Note from the PE teacher Mrs. Wilson for not following directions in PE!  Three strikes.  Bad news.  He slunk in the door at 4:30, avoiding eye contact at all costs, hoping to go unnoticed.  No such luck.  He was dragged back up to my room for another Smackdown.  This time, however, it only took about 10 minutes of pouting/avoidance/whining before he 'fessed up and the crying only lasted about 5 minutes.  But.."because you didn't get the message the first time, you lost all your electronics again tonight AND you have to stay in your room except for dinner AND dad is going to drive you to school tomorrow and walk you in to find all the people you need to apologize to and make sure you do it." 

The next day was not fun for poor Solomon.  Dad witnessed the teacher apologies, but the recess ladies were not in yet, so he told Thomas to verify that Solomon did apologize to them and report out at dinner.  Thomas LOVES to play any role in connection with meting out justice.  At dinner he verified that, yes indeed, Solomon did apologize to the recess ladies.  I said to Solomon, "I'm really proud of you for handling this, honey.  Was it really hard for you?" and he said, "I am very scared, so I go to corner of playground and I pray 'Jesus, make me not be scared' and then I go say 'I am sorry I not listening to you and I do a better job listening now' and they say 'is okay Solomon' and Miss Jenny is hugging me and then I go back to corner of playground and I pray 'Jesus, help me not do any more bad stuff today so I do not have to apologize to anyone else!'"  Beautiful.  How can you not adore a kid like this?

So all is well for several days.  Miss Johnson reported improvement, no Dreaded Pink Notes, everything is cool.  Then last week Solomon came in the door with head down, lip out, but this time he is already holding the Dreaded Pink Note in his hand.  No attempt to avoid the inevitable.  He was going down hard and he met his fate with courage and resignation.  I said, "Solomon!  Another pink note?  What happened?" 

"Mom, I am having a very bad day.  My stomach is hurting all morning, VERRRRRRRY bad, but you say no calling home unless you is barfing so I just stay but my stomach is SO sore and then I eat lunch and it is better but then my head is hurting VERRRRRRRRRY bad, and my eye is hurting too [note to reader:  this is extreme manipulation because he knows we worry endlessly about his eyes so this was really his ace in the hole, used only for dire straits] and then I go to PE and then..... I get pink note for squeezing the chicken."  Big sad tears come out. 

Okay, so...  I'm thinking several things simultaneously:  a) squeezing the chicken????  what?!?!?!?!  I hope that doesn't mean what I'm afraid it means.  b) don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh  c) what am I going to come up with for the next level of consequences?   d) I can't WAIT to tell Brian!!!

But I calmly say "Can you explain exactly what chicken you were squeezing and why this was a problem for Mrs. Wilson in PE?"  Turns out they were playing a game like Steal the Bacon and they were using a rubber chicken as the object to steal.  Mrs. Wilson had asked all the kids to not touch the chicken while she was giving directions but to a little kid who'd never seen a rubber chicken, that thing was crazy cool and begging to be squeezed!  He just couldn't resist!  It's squishy! It's neck doesn't crunch like a real chicken when you twist it!!  But then, Mrs. Wilson, who is really running out of patience with Solomon, laid down the hammer and gave him the Dreaded Pink Note.  As he's telling me all this, and I'm holding the Dreaded Pink Note, and the big sad tears keep rolling down his face, he pulls out a tiny bright orange ticket from his pocket.  This was a "Caught Being Good" ticket that he had also earned for responsible behavior in the hallway.  The poor kid was faced with the evidence of his day:  The giant 8 1/2 x 11 Dreaded Pink Note for squeezing the chicken and the tiny 1x2 Orange Note for doing the right thing.

So he got a lot of hugs and recognition that he has been making many, many good choices every day and we know how hard he has been working to follow directions.  And we know that it's really hard sometimes to be a good listener, but that Mrs. Wilson really needs to know that he understands what is going on and he needs to listen in PE too, even when it's hard.  And yes, he lost all his electronics again tonight, and yes, he was going to have to apologize again, but Dad and I will talk more about consequences when he get home from work.

So when Brian walks in the door I said, "You are not going to believe what Solomon did today!!!" and explained the whole thing to him.  We laughed and laughed and laughed and then Brian said, "I'm going to have some fun with this one!"  So Brian gave Solomon the same firm but loving lecture I did and this time he said, "Solomon, I think you need to write your apology in a letter to Mrs. Wilson and just to make sure you get the point, you'd better write it twice."  (to me:  "So we can keep one, it's going to be hilarious when he's a senior in high school!!!").  So Solomon writes:

Dear Mrs. Wilson,
I am sorry for not listening to you in gym class.  Next time when you tell me to stop squeezing the chicken I will listen to your directions and I will keep trying to follow the directions.
Thank you
Solomon 

So one note got taken to Mrs. Wilson (who has a terrific sense of humor and found all this just as funny as we did) and one note got filed away for future humiliation. 

Since then, all has been quiet.  We'll see how long it lasts.