Even more improvement

I had posted about Brendan and the constant misbehavior in school and his appalling and drama king behavior at home. I'm very happy to report, and hope I'm not jinxing it, that for 7 consecutive school days that he hasn't gotten into any trouble. The kids will get Xs for misbehavior with 3 Xs generating some sort of punishment and he's gone all 7 days without 1 X. This is basically a record for him for the whole school year. I'm not sure if it's a result of the numerous discussions we've had about his behavior or the Nintendo DS bribe I dangled in front of him if he didn't get into any more trouble before school ends (and I wasn't even expecting him to get no Xs, I'd only said no more punishment homework, detentions or trips to the principal's office). I'm thinking it's more of the bribe since he also said to me yesterday, "If I don't get any more Xs this week, will you take me to see Speed Racer on Saturday?". So he finally seems to be able to get the idea of good behavior = good consequences.

I'm not sure if I want his behavior to be dependent upon bribes, um incentives, but negative consequences definitely wasn't working. I'm also hoping that as he gets into the habit of behaving that maybe the good behavior will be come more naturally. On the homefront there's been less success, but I've also been working hard with the drama behavior and trying to stop it as soon as it starts before he can get into a bad jag. And I've been pretty zero tolerance on the lack of respect. But this has been a huge improvement.

And on another note, now we're waiting on the RSVPs to his birthday party to which his whole class was invited. This is the first real kids party he's had and I'm hoping it goes well (there's a whole other story involved in getting this party off the ground, but that's for another post).

Things have gotten better

I don't know if Brendan has took our conversations to heart, if he's just really intent on getting the Nintendo DS, or if it's one of those unexplained behavior turnarounds, but there has been definite improvement. To start with, there's been no issues at school. The kids get Xs for bad behavior. 3 Xs will pretty much guarantee punishment homework. So far since I last posted he got 1 X on one day and no Xs on any of the other days, and this is fabulous for him. He's been less mouthy at home, although we're still working on the creating drama issue and on whining. I'm hoping that this isn't just a brief respite from the bad behavior, and if you want to keep your fx for us, I'd be very appreciative.

We did just have a quick trip to the Mall of America and had a blast. The amusement park in the mall recently became a Nickelodeon themed park and for my Nick obsessed kid, it was like being in seventh heaven. I sandwiched in the shopping around the Nick time, going to the aquarium there and playing miniature golf. Brendan had Thursday and Friday off from school so we'd flown out on Thursday and returned Sunday. If anything, we could have used another day or so there. The time away has us hyped up for our vacation that's coming in June.

There's some busy times coming up in the next several weeks with school, birthday and vacation. Tomorrow is Brendan's spring show at school. Sunday is Mother's day. He has a school trip next week. His school carnival is on May 22nd and the International Fair on the 28th. The last day of school is June 6th. His birthday party is on the 7th. He has his kindergarten graduation or "step-up" on the 9th. We leave on our trip on the 15th. His birthday is the 19th. We come back home on the 25th and then he starts camp on June 30th. Whew!! But busy can be good. Well behaved busy will be even better.

Here's Mr. B in his glory with Spongebob at the Mall of America -

How do you solve a problem like Brendan?

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

Okay, enough with the Rodgers and Hammerstein, but oh my this little boy has given us a lot to deal with lately. He recovered from the illness onslaught of a couple of weeks ago to go on to get detention at school. Yes, detention in kindergarten. Let's just say it involved pouring a bottle of water on another girl's lap, to make her laugh he said. I don't think that alone would have warranted the detention, but he didn't apologize and I'm sure made no effort to make amends of any kind. That was a Friday, he lost TV privileges over the weekend. We had alot of talk that weekend about impulse control and thinking before you act. He had to do the detention on Monday (sitting in the detention room during lunch and not going out to play after eating - couldn't do it on Friday, because Friday was a half day) and I had him apologize to the girl he poured the water on, but then the very next day he came home with punishment homework to write "I will not fool around in class" because by his own admission he was making "strange noises" and disturbing the other kids. That was Tuesday. On Friday, the computer teacher cornered my mother in the morning as she was dropping Brendan off to tell her that his motor mouth was going during the computer class on Thursday. She asked him 3 times to stop and he didn't. She finally warned him he would have to go to the principal's office if he didn't. He cried and fussed and she had had to send him down. Aaagh!! It's not like this was the first time any of this happened before, well the detention was a new twist, but it was just confounding me as to how to handle this.

I actually made a deal with Brendan on Friday that if he went the rest of the school year (6 weeks) with no detention, punishment homeworks or trips to the principal's office that I'd get him the Nintendo DS for kindergarten graduation. I was actually going to get it for him for his birthday which is 10 days after graduation, but he didn't know that. Well, he'd been pushing for it, but I never said yes. But I felt like maybe I had an incentive he might really want to work for.

He was okay for the early part of the day on Saturday but lost TV privileges for the rest of the because of refusing to listen. Then yesterday Sunday he was so full of drama the whole day, creating crises out of nothing at all, and then the evening was a huge blowout. For some reason he decided to play with my compact. I barely wear any make up except for some concealer or foundation to even out my skin. But he'd found a new compact I hadn't used yet. He'd rubbed some on his face, all over the bathroom. He'd try to clean the bathroom a little, but he'd gouged out huge chunks of the compact and it was ruined. When I saw the make up on him, he told me only "I think your make-up container is broken." He didn't apologize and was just going to go on his merry way. While I was calming down and assessing what damage there was in the bathroom I'd told him to clean up the living room floor that had a whole bunch of his junk on it. I came out a few minutes later and he was just sitting there. I was so angry. I yelled big time, and I don't normally do that. But it was all compounded, the refusal to listen, the lack of respect, the refusal to take any responsibility for his own actions. He cried, I steamed. Eventually I tried to have a conversation with him about showing respect, and listening, and thinking before he acts, and making amends when he does something wrong and it's like he was a brick wall. I tried to talk to him about his behavior and it's effect on himself and others and said I didn't want to have to punish him all the time, I wanted him to learn how to behave and he said he wanted to be punished, he didn't want to listen or behave. And he burst into tears again and kept telling me he didn't want to listen. Finally I told him that was not an option, that he didn't have a choice, that he had to listen, to behave, to think before he acts. I said we're going to work on this together because he has to change his behavior and attitude and it's one step at a time. We eventually got to the point where he was agreeing that tomorrow would be a better day at school and at home. He's getting out of school about now and I'm hoping it was a much better day and that we have a good evening.

Here he was though in one of his happier moments yesterday, doing some indoor gymnastics.

Let's all sing a chorus

Croup, sinus infection and pinkeye, oh my. Croup, sinus infection and pinkeye, oh my.

That pretty much sums up how things are going in my house. At least that’s just Brendan, you can throw in some sleep deprivation and a cold on my part too. This has not been a pleasant week so far. And it came after a really nice weekend. It’s finally started to warm up a little and we got some good playground time in and some nice walks. This weekend looks like it’s going to be a wash, sigh….

Brendan having a great time at the playground on Sunday.



Being a sliding maniac.



He’s shouting “Brendanpalooza” while he goes down the slide in this clip.

Songwriter

Brendan singing his newest creation called "Slam Dunk".

Brendan and his Spongebo obsession (and the planet earth)