Suspension

I got an urgent phone call this morning while the bio boys and I were at the library. Apparently D had been having a blow out for about an hour and a half and the school was ready to throw in the towel of defeat for the day. D had been doing so well in our home and in school that I thought he was finally gotten past the school suspensions and long tantrums. I find this is how kids work, especially kids who have higher behavioral needs. Just when you get comfortable, they are going to shake it up on you. My adrenaline was racing when as I got to the school. I was upset with his choices, I was nervous what I was going to encounter when I got there, and I was scared at the behavior I was going to experience once home. Luckily, D was calm once I got there and I think he was relieved I was there and he could go. I am BLOWN away by D's school. They are amazing with him. So patient and kind. He has been so traumatized by school in the past, it is nice that he is finally at a school who is willing to be flexible with him and his needs. I believe this is one of the reasons he does well there compared to other schools he has attended. They don't care which way D goes to get to the destination. If his path needs to be different than other kid's so be it. I find that a lot of kids struggle with school because they are expected to act a certain way, do things a certain way which works well for a lot of kids. Sometimes though, it is disastrous. Anyway, I got a little off topic...So I get D and he is calm. Talk with his school team (principle, counselor, aide)about what went down. They reported that there is another child with similar behaviors to what D used to act like and this child started to escalate and this is when D started to act out and wanting to go home. The reassured me and D that he is doing AWESOME at school and they see him making improvements everyday. They all reminded him that tomorrow would be a better day. That is the beauty about time and choices. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second you are given a new chance to start again. That is what I told D. We discussed how the day has been a little rough but we can always stop and make the choice to start again. You can not let one bad decision ruin the rest of your day, week, month, (you get the point, right?). D and I talked about the "meltdown" once we got home. He said that when this other kid was having his issues, all these bad thoughts kept coming into his head and taking over the good thoughts. He didn't like to see the kid making the choices he used to make. I think it is really interesting that D is triggered by seeing kids making the same poor choices that he used to make. I think this is a great argument for keeping D out of a behavior classroom. So the consequence for his choices are: school at home (oh God, so much busy work) and no TV/Game time. D did ok with this except when I asked him to write himself an apology letter than contained the sentence "You are an amazing boy". Oh boy! Did that trigger him. He was ok with the apology letter to himself (it was his idea) but the thought of writing something positive about himself was apparently very appalling as he spent a long time refusing to do it and repeatedly calling me a "mean girl". I find that it works best with D to state your expectations, the consequences of his choices, remind him you don't care which choice he makes, and disengage. He finally realizes that calling me mean over and over again is not going to get me to change my mind about the letter so he might as well just get it over with and move on. Which he did. Right now he and Bean are working on a picture of what they would do on a beach day. We read a book called "Beach day". while I frantically thought of some more busy work to keep D busy during school hours (only an hour to go!). On another note, I had my re-certification meeting today. I have been re-certified to do foster care for another year. This meeting goes over strengths/weaknesses (hahaha, I don't have any of those!), safety check of the house, etc. House was safe still, and I am doing a good job providing a therapeutic, loving, structured home. This meeting lasted about 45 minutes and 20 minutes of that was spent telling me I am awesome (which is what I decided to focus on while being called names later in the day). I like these annual reviews. I like to get positive feedback that I am doing something right and good. As a stay at home mom and wife, you don't really get feedback/reviews the same way you do at a job. You are just kinda feeling your way around in the dark and hope that you don't screw up your family too much. It is nice to know that an outside organization does not think you are royally f-ing up you kids.