Welcome 2nd Grade!!

No more sleeping late for us! It's back to school time!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Reality Check

Many faithful readers have laughed time and again on my descriptions of T's less-than-stellar behavior. I've gone on and on at times about how she did one thing or the other to get in trouble. I've realized that I don't post often enough about what a good girl she is. Tonight I realized that I've been selling her short. T is fabulously well behaved...Polite, caring, and generally very empathetic to others. Tonight was proof.

For the last few months T has been going to gymnastics on Saturdays. I've become increasingly unhappy with the class, given its size. There are about 12 kids in it with one teacher. At times, T only gets to do each of the three little routines twice. Then class is over. I figured that if I moved her to an evening class, it would be smaller and she would get more practice. Tonight was our first night.

OH. MY. GOD.

Yes, the class was smaller, but IT WAS A ZOO!!!!!!

I've never seen such ill-behaved children in my life. I've also never seen such idiot parents who said and did nothing in response. One little girl had an all-pit tantrum b/c she couldn't go first. The grandmother just let her scream, yell and flail about totally disrupting everyone in the whole place...for like 30 minutes. She never took her out. I was in shock. A few times I saw T wagging her finger at some of the other girls and telling them to stop whatever they were doing.
The other girls were talking with each other, running around, going 1/2 way through a routine and stopping. Zoning out, and doing everything else you could think of. What a reality check!

Finally after watching this nonsense for about 40 minutes, I went to a staff member who was in the office area, and told her my concerns. She totally agreed that it was a particular zoo tonight, and suggested moving T to another night with less children. We're now slated to do gymnastics on Monday nights. T will be the 5th child in the class. Perfect.

Needless to say, T got to play in the tot lot after class for a really long time as a reward for being such a good girl.

I am so proud of my sweet child I can't stand it!

2 Brilliant Comment(s) from Friends:

Manette said...

We parents can often start focussing on the negative and sometimes forget to pat their child on the head and tell them what a fabulous job they are doing. And those of us giving advice about "how to parent" very often forget to include that ALL IMPORTANT behavioral modification tool called PRAISE!!! It is one of the most important tools in parenting and I use it VERY regularly with both of my kids. T is a GREAT kid and when she's around other less well behaved children it makes her GOOD behavior stand out all the more.

I AM SOOO PROUD OF YOU T!!! Awesome job following directions!!!

KaraP said...

I second that. I always check in with ML's pre-school teacher and she tells me she wishes more kids were like Mae-Lei. There are times ML acts up, but we always try to praise her when she does it right too. Try.

A marvelous plan was made in the stars,
to create a miracle across the ocean so far....
Then entwine and weave all the hopes and labor,
it would take to bring us this joy called "Taylor"....
Now three lives are blessed and somewhere in the stars,
the planners are smiling, as we all are.
-Anon.




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