Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Nice try, kid!

Yesterday when I picked up Jackson from school the very first thing he said was, "Daddy, I didn't have a good day again."  Remember that on Monday, Jackson got three check marks at school!  Anyway, I asked him what happened and he told me that he got two check marks, one for not listening and another one at lunch.  Now, for those who follow my blog, you know that we have had a lot of problems with lunch from the day we buried the sandwich in the sandbox to the day we simply just threw it on the floor so we didn't have to eat it...  well, would you believe little mister did a repeat of the latter?

Yep, threw the sandwich on the floor so he didn't have to eat it.  So I asked for some quiet time in the van on the way back home so I could think (and take a few deep breaths, cause boy was I pissed).  When we got home, I had Jackson get out of the van and wait for me to get Peyton settled in the house before I came back out with a city bag and handed him the rake.  "Get to work on the leaves," I said.  As he got started on some yard work, I came back in the house and made a list.  To me, taking your lunch 'that I take the time to make for you every day' to school is a privledge.  Especially when I know why he likes taking his lunch to school...  it's because he gets to be one of the first in the lunch line since he has cold lunch and he gets to bypass the entire hot lunch line and go straight to the table with his other friends who brought cold lunch.  He thinks it's a "cool" thing to get to do all that.  Anyway, that's a privledge so he would not be taking lunch to school the rest of the week, he can eat hot lunch.  Then I went and put his favorite toys away (legos, race tracks, and trains) and he won't get them back until Saturday, and... no cartoon until he has a good day at school with no check marks.  Getting 5 check marks over two days at school is NOT acceptable especially when this is not normal behavior for him at this point at school.  I know that the kids just got back from Christmas break, and I know that he just had a weekend with Nana out of his normal environment, but he's old enough to be able to pull it together and not have problems like this at school (especially hands on problems and lunch problems that we have dealt with before).

The last thing I did was emailed his teacher.  I asked her for suggestions on what to do about lunch, again!  She emailed me back and suggested that we could get more drastic and Jackson could start eating his lunch alone in the office.  So I talked to Jackson about it and we decided that if he has one more problem where he's not eating his lunch, hiding food from the teacher (yes, I found out from the email that Jackson was hiding his food on Monday), or throwing food on the floor that he will start eating in the office the very next day until the end of the school year!  We talked about how Jackson was the only person who could control and make that choice for him.  Personally, as a fat child, I will never understand him avoiding food (I know he's on ADHD medicine) because I ate food all the time!  LOL.

This morning when we got up and had breakfast, I reminded Jackson of all the things he was not getting like no cold lunch the rest of the week, no favorite toys until Saturday, and no cartoons until he had a day with no check marks AND if he came home today, tomorrow, or Friday with one more check mark he would be doing chores over at Uncle Sam's house!  I know it seems like I'm pushing hard, but since we just increased his ADHD medicine a month ago, I really think he can make better choices because Dad and I both know he's incredibly smart!

So tonight as I waited for him in the parking lot across the street from school, I was nervous!  I stopped and bought a bug juice hoping that I could reward and praise him for having a good day at school.  Finally I saw him coming across the skywalk and he made it to the van and right as he opened the door he said, "I did it, Daddy, I had a good day with no problems!"  YES!  THANK YOU GAWD!  It was hard to not want to over do it with the praise and excitement I felt but let's just say he had his bug juice, a huge snack, and dessert at dinner!  LOL. Oh, and yes he got to watch some cartoon! 

Later, I had to laugh when he asked me if he had earned back his toys yet!  So I reminded him of what we discussed the day before and how the toys were gone until Saturday.  Then he turned to me with his big blue eyes and smile and said, "Maybe I can get a treasure from the treasure box for having a good day then?"  LOL.  Nice try, kid!  ;-)

No comments:

Post a Comment