Thursday, December 30, 2010

Light at the end of tunnel:

So, we have been struggling with the boys' behavior at school.  It is a daily battle that has me biting my nails each and every day as I pull into the school in the late afternoon...90% of the time, they are very good boys.  They listen, follow directions and interact with each other and their friends appropriately.  But the other 10% of the time, they are pushing and pulling and biting and just not listening.  You can say, "Oh, they are boys."  or "They are two...", but when will this end?  Two days ago, Wade was pulled aside for pushing a friend...Ms. "Biz" was explaining to him how that is not nice and so on, and during that time, the B-man went up and bit the same friend.  Did he do it because Wade was getting attention and he wanted it as well?  Did he do it because they are brothers and he was just helping him out?  Whatever the reason, we have decided to take a different approach and encourage positive enforcement throughout the day and into the evening.  Right when we wake up, we tell the boys that if they try really hard and listen to their teachers all day long, that they will get M & M's when we pick them up. 

We tried on Monday...the M & M's remained in my pocket at pick up time.  I sighed.  Granted, the whole school was crazy, as everybody had just returned from Christmas break and all were a little out of whack...

We tried on Tuesday...the M & M's remained in my pocket at pick up time.  I sighed.  Again.  But the good news is that we almost had a break through.  There was only 1 inncident, but still...1 incident still equals no reward.

And then there was Wednesday.  We did it.  Me, Dad, Ms. Biz, all the other teachers, B-man and Wade.  We won!!!!  They had a perfect day and were rewarded with M & M's 2 times at school, on the way home and rewarded with HUGE praises and celebrations upon walking through the door at home!!!  They were both beaming and so proud.

We never talked about how they lost their M & M's, because that is giving negative attention, that we are trying to avoid...instead, we talked about how if we tried just a little harder the whole next day, how we would be rewarded.  And it worked.  It worked for 1 day, but hey, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Way to go B and W!!! (You both will laugh at this one day, as you did all of this for 3 mini M & M's!!)

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