Wise Choices

Wouldn't it just be loverly -for all of us -if every choice we made in life was one that had good results?

I know, for myself, I wish I could say that I've made wonderful and wise choices throughout my life but I know -oh how well I know -that is really quite far from the truth. Actually extremely so!!!

But those words -" wise choices" are words that we along with Kurt's TSS and other therapists who work with him are constantly trying to remind him to try to make "wise choices."

This week has been a really bad week for the little guy as each day, the reports that came back to us from school, from his main TSS, from his behavior specialist as well as his therapist, Miss Randi, increased daily with a rapid shift from mediocre to bad to worst scenario!

Wednesday, the report really agitated his mother as she reached into her mind to try to find something to use to reprimand him that might stay with him in the next day to prevent a rerun of the bad reports. So Wednesday night she told him if she got one more bad report on him this week, he would lose the privilege of having the tv set in his bedroom -which serves really as a night light and to provide the "white noise" you know that he wants to soothe him to sleep.

Well apparently that threat didn't take hold as Thursday there it was -yet another bad day, another bad report and so, when it was time for him to go to bed last night, his room was sans the tv.

And yes, he was upset.

But it was hoped that soon these admonitions to him to make wise choices would catch hold in him however, today -once more -was a really dismal disappointment.

Today, he came home with the dreaded blue piece of paper which indicated he was being punished by his teacher and in essence, by the school, as he had been given a "Level 2 infraction." This means he had broken at least one of the schools cardinal rules and this would go on his school record.

When you first think of the infraction program they use at our school, it can seem to be a bit on the harsh side when it is applied to a little guy just in the early part of first grade. However, considering all the problems that crop up in the schools as the teachers and administrators try to find ways to guide these children in the right direction it has to begin this early in their lives. (Actually, it began last year but his classes in kindergarten did have a bit more elasticity to them to kind of allow for a bit of a more gradual influx of the infraction program.

Although, I know he understood enough about it to realize and often to remember too that an infraction was a very bad thing, to be avoided at all costs.

And yet, this year -thus far -that thought process seems to have decided to go on vacation within him.

This blue paper that my daughter has to sing and the discussions that came about at the supper table between him and me, then the quiet calm questioning and lecture that ensued with his mother when she got home from work, as well as the stern lectures he had received today from his TSS too didn't seem to really sink in to him.

However, perhaps when he finds out what his mother has in store for him this Saturday now -the punishment for not paying attention, not listening, not behaving properly at all -for having hit a little boy in his class because, as he told me and his mother, he "Didn't want that boy to be 'student of the week."

I asked him about why he didn't want the other kid to be student of the week and had then proceeded to hit the other child and he said it was because he wanted to be that! Then his mother explained to me that each child has a specific week assigned to him or her during which that child is then "student of the week" and Kurt's time will come -eventually -but since they go in alphabetical order of their last names, he's at the bottom of the barrel on that list alphabetically speaking!

We -his mother and I -both tried the old method of asking him if he would like it if other kids hit him and of course, his answer was no. He does understand that, somewhat, anyway.

But anyway -after mulling this over tonight, his Mom decided that she would make arrangements for a friend to come by here Saturday afternoon and pick up Maya and take her with her little girl to a Halloween party that the local Moose will be having for the children in the area. Remember, I said the friend will be picking up and taking Maya to that and Kurtis will find himself left behind to spend the entire afternoon with Gram on his case!

I'm quite sure there will be a lot of wailing and whining, crying, pissing and moaning -all that not so nice stuff coming from any 6-year-old for sure -but perhaps a step this sternly administered will bring home the point that when you act like he has done this week, this is what happens!

Normally with him and school work, when new things are introduced, it can sometimes seem to take a long while till he grasps things but when he does understand something, as his TSS puts it, "When it clicks with him, it's there and it is like it is locked in, a permanent fixture then."

I really do hope this plan to deprive him of attending this party will be the move that sinks that nail deeply into that hole and he will then "get it!"

Pray that this has been a wise choice, please!