Not me. Jack. FINALLY. whew. You know it's hard when you're the mom of a quintessential class clown. You have the kid that's always causing mischief, always making people laugh, loves to be the center of attention. That's why I always felt bad for my mom. LOL. You see, Jack is behaving exactly the way I did in school. Right down to the goofy faces, weird noises, Laugh-track loud laughter, and general "can't sit in this chair for more than 30 seconds before some part of my body starts to twitch".
Yesterday, Jack got off the bus and wouldn't look me in the eye. "It was a bad day Mom". Uh oh, I thought. What now. It turns out that Jack received 3 or so warnings for "singing too loud" in music class. How CUTE I thought. Wrong answer, I know. "Now, Jack..." I said, "You can enjoy singing and sing loud when you want to, but you also have to listen to the teacher. And if she says to sing softer, please just follow directions". He sulked. He cried. He said he was soooo BAD and felt AWFUL and hated that I was mad at him. But I wasn't. I want him to follow instructions. I want him to stay on the teacher's good side and not cause trouble for the other students who may still actually need to learn their alphabet in first grade! Okay that was mean. I know his angst, because I lived it too! He'll be fine. He has to find that fine line between having fun and staying within the boundaries of the rules. A little help from me in the way of "no videos until you get a good report from school" also moved things in the right direction.
Jack: Mom, Mommmmm! (as he hurtled himself off the bus and into my arms). I stayed on "ready to learn" today!
me: You DID??? Awesome. I'm really proud of you.
Jack: (practically swaggering up the driveway) Yeah and it was really easy too!
me: See? I knew you could do it. And guess what?
Jack: I get to watch a video?
me: Well, that's not what I was going to say...
Jack: But can I?
me: I think we can arrange that.
Jack: AND can I have a snack while I watch? (we have a strict no food in the living room policy)
me: Sure. Anyway, what I was going to say was, remember how upset you were yesterday when you thought you were being bad?
Jack: Yeah...
me: Well, now you don't have to feel that way. You can repeat what you did today over and over and get the same result.
Jack: That's impossible.
me: Huh? Why?
Jack: Because I only have Music on Tuesdays, and on the other days I have Art and Gym, so you can't repeat what happened today.
me: (sigh) I just meant repeat the good behavior.
Jack: And you know what else?
me: What?
Jack: I think it helps if you don't send me Lunch Box notes in my lunch bag.
me: Oh.
Jack: Yeah. All the reminders to be good are a distraction to me.
me: Fair enough.
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