Well, it's been an interesting week for David. He got Green all week at school, so he should be rewarded, right? Well, instead, he actually put a knot in a kid's forehead at daycare on Wednesday! So we didn't go to the swimming lesson since I spent time talking to Ms. Nadine, and asked her to keep him occupied, engaged, structured, whatever, so he wouldn't do that to other kids. The next two days (Thursday and Friday) were better at daycare...So Wednesday I had him in time out most of the night, to let him know how serious it was that he did the hitting thing. He was very unhappy, but I think I got the message through.
Monday, however, something else happened daycare: David broke his tooth. Now, normally I don't take this very seriously when he says he "breaks his tooth/teeth" because it's usually him just jarring, and it hurts, then it's over. And it's on a regular basis. But this time, he has a tooth that's actually loose! It's the right front lower incisor, and I think I'm going to take him to the dentist tomorrow if possible, because it hasn't gotten any better. At first I thought it was a genuine loose tooth, but he's a bit young for that, and then he described how some other kid's head came into contact with his tooth to loosen it that way. The part I haven't been able to figure out is the lack of blood, or notice from the daycare. I'm still pondering whether to keep him there, just because he is such a challenge, and they don't seem equipped to deal with his need for structure, but at the same time, Ms. Nadine gives him credit for showing genuine remorse for having caused the first kid with the knot on his head any pain. And she seems willing to put up with him, which I know is a challenge. I was playing with him Friday night, and I continue to gain insight into his behavior. He would take random objects to use as "tools" to gain advantage with me, and even would use his nails...I had to remind him over and over not to do that, not to pick that up while we're playing, because that's not playing! And back to his loose tooth: I was impressed at first that it was loose, and when I told him it would come out eventually, this invited many more tears from him. Poor kid.
Thursday night was his open house. He took great pleasure in showing me around his school. Folsom is two storeys, so he went up and down every staircase, and also went up and down the elevator. We also played the drums they had, and I bought David a "sweet", as he calls it. We were given a rubric for what he's supposed to accomplish by the end of kindergarten, and from what I see he should be done w/ kindergarten by Christmas.
David tells me that he's doing capital letters, and lower case letters at school. He finished his 10 homework items out of the 15 choices, so we're good! And his first field trip will be to MOSI in the first week of October. I also got a progress report from the teacher, and it was all about his behavior needing improvement...as if we didn't know...
So that's another week. We do swimming lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays, he goes to his aunt's house on Tuesdays...the kid is busy. At swimming lessons he doesn't relax, but instead he panics, doesn't trust his own ability to swim. I hear him splutter and cry when she "forces" him to do what he seems to know how to do then doesn't do it...but this is why we have the lessons, so he'll learn.
I hope things are well with you.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
David Weekly, V3 - 27
One of the biggest struggles I have with David is homework. He has the memo book with the 15 assignments, of which he must do 10 before the month is out. So we try to do a few each week, so that we pace ourselves, and make sure to get it done. And yet, somehow, we've managed to do 3 this week. David has discovered that they're not that hard, so he just does them with less fuss. It's becoming a more positive experience. One of the items on David's list is to write a sentence using the word "am". So he wrote, "I am a dinosaur." And the reason for this is that the dinosaurs are supposed to read it, so that way they know who _they_ are, because it would seem that if they didn't read that, they wouldn't know that they were dinosaurs. I love kid logic.
I haven't said exactly what Ms. Perez's discipline system is. It's green for a good day, orange for a single warning, yellow for two or more warnings, and red for a really bad day. Ok, now that I think of it, I did put this last week, but it bears repeating, because David had only one green day. He had a red day, too. It would seem that a little boy pulled a book out of David's hands, and so David hit the other kid. He goes to see Ms. Schaefer every so often. I need to set up another appointment to discuss his behavior, so I can get a handle on what they talk about.
Another thing I've figured out with David's anger issues and fighting. He just doesn't feel satisfied until he gets that hit in. I have to figure out how to give him an alternate way "getting in that hit" without actually him hurting someone...
David was late to school for the first time, and did not want to be in the office to get that tardy slip. He now has a better idea of the penalty for being late, and it motivates him to move when I tell him we'll be late. I wish I could figure out a penalty sufficient to where he'll remember it when he's about to hit someone.
Monday night we had our swim lesson. David plays. Instead of watching the other kids swim (there are 3 or 4 kids, depending on the day, including him), he plays with the toys or whatever. I told him he can learn in two ways: either by watching, or by practicing, or by both...but he wasn't interested. Towards the end of the lesson, his teacher took the "sink or swim" approach, and David swam. He was very very scared, and was crying after he got out of the water...later on I told him that he swam, but I don't think he believed me. He was too focused on being scared. Wednesday night he did better. I stayed away from the immediate area where he was, since I was proving to be a distraction. I was able to watch from a distance, and he did pretty well. He will get the swimming thing, but it will just take time.
For David's lunch, I've switched from PB&J to Lunchables. He seems to like that better, since they have a dessert! He still forgets his lunchbox at school on a regular basis.
Random note: David has suddenly become very interested in money, and coins in particular. I was trying to figure out why, and it turns out that there is a fundraiser of some sort at this school, and they were wanting to put money into the milk jug in his classroom. So he got a decent sized fistfull of change, and put it into the thing when we got to school...
Friday night, he and I went to the beach, in spite of his behavior. He got a flu shot on Friday as well, and cried and cried. Poor kid. He did not want that shot. Dr Sams gave me some ideas on handling his behavior, and it integrates nicely with having the two different "days" each day (school vs daycare). It involves "strikes", which I can use one strike (or two for a red day at school), and a strike for daycare, and then a strike for anything else after he gets home. But I rarely have problems with him at home...
So anyway, we went to the beach. He's been really scratching his legs lately, so when he went in the salt water, OUCH! He was in a lot of pain, and was crying...and then we went to wash it off at the showers they have at beach entrance, and then he was ok with going back in the water. He really liked playing in the waves! He even got covered by the water once or twice, but didn't really complain.
David misses his sissy. He tells me that he reads the way she does, which is simply by looking at the book, but not saying anything. "I read my book the way my sissy does," he says.
So there's a week for you. Hope things are well on your end...
I haven't said exactly what Ms. Perez's discipline system is. It's green for a good day, orange for a single warning, yellow for two or more warnings, and red for a really bad day. Ok, now that I think of it, I did put this last week, but it bears repeating, because David had only one green day. He had a red day, too. It would seem that a little boy pulled a book out of David's hands, and so David hit the other kid. He goes to see Ms. Schaefer every so often. I need to set up another appointment to discuss his behavior, so I can get a handle on what they talk about.
Another thing I've figured out with David's anger issues and fighting. He just doesn't feel satisfied until he gets that hit in. I have to figure out how to give him an alternate way "getting in that hit" without actually him hurting someone...
David was late to school for the first time, and did not want to be in the office to get that tardy slip. He now has a better idea of the penalty for being late, and it motivates him to move when I tell him we'll be late. I wish I could figure out a penalty sufficient to where he'll remember it when he's about to hit someone.
Monday night we had our swim lesson. David plays. Instead of watching the other kids swim (there are 3 or 4 kids, depending on the day, including him), he plays with the toys or whatever. I told him he can learn in two ways: either by watching, or by practicing, or by both...but he wasn't interested. Towards the end of the lesson, his teacher took the "sink or swim" approach, and David swam. He was very very scared, and was crying after he got out of the water...later on I told him that he swam, but I don't think he believed me. He was too focused on being scared. Wednesday night he did better. I stayed away from the immediate area where he was, since I was proving to be a distraction. I was able to watch from a distance, and he did pretty well. He will get the swimming thing, but it will just take time.
For David's lunch, I've switched from PB&J to Lunchables. He seems to like that better, since they have a dessert! He still forgets his lunchbox at school on a regular basis.
Random note: David has suddenly become very interested in money, and coins in particular. I was trying to figure out why, and it turns out that there is a fundraiser of some sort at this school, and they were wanting to put money into the milk jug in his classroom. So he got a decent sized fistfull of change, and put it into the thing when we got to school...
Friday night, he and I went to the beach, in spite of his behavior. He got a flu shot on Friday as well, and cried and cried. Poor kid. He did not want that shot. Dr Sams gave me some ideas on handling his behavior, and it integrates nicely with having the two different "days" each day (school vs daycare). It involves "strikes", which I can use one strike (or two for a red day at school), and a strike for daycare, and then a strike for anything else after he gets home. But I rarely have problems with him at home...
So anyway, we went to the beach. He's been really scratching his legs lately, so when he went in the salt water, OUCH! He was in a lot of pain, and was crying...and then we went to wash it off at the showers they have at beach entrance, and then he was ok with going back in the water. He really liked playing in the waves! He even got covered by the water once or twice, but didn't really complain.
David misses his sissy. He tells me that he reads the way she does, which is simply by looking at the book, but not saying anything. "I read my book the way my sissy does," he says.
So there's a week for you. Hope things are well on your end...
Saturday, September 11, 2010
David Weekly, V3 - 26
David's first day of school went really well! I asked him what he ate for lunch, and he says, "well, I thought about eating the green beans, but I just decided to eat the cake..." Naturally, I told him he needs to eat more than just the cake. David has decided this: "I don't like kindergarten food." So now, I'm packing his lunch. Peanut butter and jelly every day, but he never eats the fruit that I send. What has to happen for him to eat more of his lunch? Also, I did take a few pictures of him on his first day of school.
While David was gone to Amanda's, I received very little information regarding him, what he was doing, what his routines were, etc. It was distressing to not really get a lot of information, especially hearing from David long after the fact that he got kicked out of one of the summer camps he seems have been going to. So, I asked for her for information on what they did for 5 weeks, what his routines were, etc. I was not really prepared for the response I got. It bordered on the paranoid, with her accusing me of having some other motive than simple curiosity for asking all the questions I did. So I've struggled over the last few weeks about how to handle this. I need to keep writing the DW, but I realize now that I can no longer share it with her, nor with any of her family. I don't know if they'll miss it, or if they even read it. I will soldier on, and keep writing about David, in all his wonderfulness and challenge.
David had his first swim lesson on Wednesday, September the 8th, at the YMCA. That morning, he was worried that I would forget his swim trunks, so he made sure I had them before we left for school. Then he was asking if we were going to the swim lesson instead of school. He also told me that he had some kind of swimming something at one of his camps, but I wasn't able to make sense out of it. I would ask Amanda, but she refuses to tell me anything about what happened w/ David in Missouri, making some claim to privacy. So I just won't know.
At the swim lesson, we got rained out. We were there for about 15 min, actually, before the rain and thunder and lightning really started. On the way home, it was a vocabulary lesson! "It's raining," David says. We were making distinctions between "hard rain" vs. "light rain" vs. "sprinkling". He was pretty thorough about it, too.
Last Friday (Sept 3), I had an appointment with the guidance counselor, and Ms. Perez, to discuss David's behavior. He got a red one day, and I realized that I need to work with the teacher and the counselor early to figure out his behavior issues. I think part of it is simply delayed adjustment time after having been with his mom. He's been drawing pictures in school, and they have his Sissy in them. He seems to be missing her. We're going to be working on Respect, as Ms. Perez says that's a big thing in her classroom, and I also will be asking Learning Space to be consistent with that message. Naturally, I look to reinforce this at home, too. The GC speculates that some of his behavior issues may be from bullying or teasing (for example, David being told by another boy that he doesn't like dinosaurs, even though he obviously does), and his only way of dealing with it is to smack the other kid. Ms. Nadine says that David will sit in time out, then go hit the other kid after time out is over, if he feels that he hasn't yet settled the score. Ms. Perez says that the behavior she's seen doesn't appear to be malicious. The GC said she may try to spend some time with him after observing him in class, to see what else she might suggest. She's new, and when I asked her if she had any book recommendations, she had none. She did suggest also, that we target specific behaviors, which we're doing now anyway. She was pleased at the calendar system we have to keep track of what's going on.
Meanwhile, Ms Perez's discipline system is: green, no warnings; orange, one or two warnings; yellow, three warnings; red - lots of trouble, serious disrespect. I see every day what his behavior looks like. It is a bit more nuanced that good day/bad day, so I'm having trouble figuring out a "reward" for particular behaviors, if it's not green. The other problem is that he now has two different sources of both good and bad behavior, since, for example, he got a green at kindergarten, and then had a Very Bad Day at Learning Space. How do I handle that? I don't know.
Thursday, David got into a major fight at daycare, so much that he got a scratch on his face, and an incident report to go with it. I don't know what to do about his behavior. Last week I had to get him out of daycare, because Ms. Nadine couldn't handle him. This is the first time that this has happened. She has been so wonderful to be dealing with his major behavior issues. In spite of that, I may have to move him. There's only so much she can tolerate. I may move him anyway, since it may also just be the environment. I ask him why he hits, and he blames it on his brain, or his body, as if they are separate from him...or he just says, "I don't know." I talk to David a lot about his behavior. I really put him through the ringer on the day I had to leave work early to get him. We got home and he stay in his room for a very long time, until he figured out how to answer my questions, about why, why, why...and give me details about it...and then he fell asleep, and slept for 14 hours. At one point, he did wake up for about 30 minutes. I fed him some dinner, and then back to sleep he went.
Another challenge we have is genuine, true to life, homework. He has a list of 15 things, of which he must do 10, during the month of September. They are things like, "Try to write a sentence with the word 'can' in it." Or, "Draw four things that begin with the letter A." David then picked Apple, Allosaurus, Ankylosaurus, and Alligator. He had to write the words, too. I made him get one of his dinosaur books with the dino names, so he could spell them the right way. It was a struggle, though, to get him to attempt to draw anything. But hey, one assignment down, 9 to go, right?
There is so much that's happend in two weeks, and I know I'm missing a lot of it. I guess I should talk about his new routine in the mornings now: either I will awaken him, or he wakes himself up. We change into that day's clothes (these last two weeks we have a list of colors to wear for that day, as part of a lesson in school - we refer to it every day, and occasionally argue about what day it is, since Ms Perez got the days and dates a bit mixed up. David reads the list without letting on that he is, which is part of why we argue), and he tells me what kind of cereal he wants to eat for breakfast. About 20 min later, we're out the door, about 7:45. It's about 10 min from the house to the school. He sometimes tells me he wants me to drop him off, but then at the last minute says "walk me in." So we walk in every day, I leave him at the door. He goes in the room, and POOF! I don't exist.
So that's two weeks, with most of one week missing. I think I've also decided to go back to Fridays as the release date of this, as it seems to make more sense to me, and gives me less of an excuse to put it off.
While David was gone to Amanda's, I received very little information regarding him, what he was doing, what his routines were, etc. It was distressing to not really get a lot of information, especially hearing from David long after the fact that he got kicked out of one of the summer camps he seems have been going to. So, I asked for her for information on what they did for 5 weeks, what his routines were, etc. I was not really prepared for the response I got. It bordered on the paranoid, with her accusing me of having some other motive than simple curiosity for asking all the questions I did. So I've struggled over the last few weeks about how to handle this. I need to keep writing the DW, but I realize now that I can no longer share it with her, nor with any of her family. I don't know if they'll miss it, or if they even read it. I will soldier on, and keep writing about David, in all his wonderfulness and challenge.
David had his first swim lesson on Wednesday, September the 8th, at the YMCA. That morning, he was worried that I would forget his swim trunks, so he made sure I had them before we left for school. Then he was asking if we were going to the swim lesson instead of school. He also told me that he had some kind of swimming something at one of his camps, but I wasn't able to make sense out of it. I would ask Amanda, but she refuses to tell me anything about what happened w/ David in Missouri, making some claim to privacy. So I just won't know.
At the swim lesson, we got rained out. We were there for about 15 min, actually, before the rain and thunder and lightning really started. On the way home, it was a vocabulary lesson! "It's raining," David says. We were making distinctions between "hard rain" vs. "light rain" vs. "sprinkling". He was pretty thorough about it, too.
Last Friday (Sept 3), I had an appointment with the guidance counselor, and Ms. Perez, to discuss David's behavior. He got a red one day, and I realized that I need to work with the teacher and the counselor early to figure out his behavior issues. I think part of it is simply delayed adjustment time after having been with his mom. He's been drawing pictures in school, and they have his Sissy in them. He seems to be missing her. We're going to be working on Respect, as Ms. Perez says that's a big thing in her classroom, and I also will be asking Learning Space to be consistent with that message. Naturally, I look to reinforce this at home, too. The GC speculates that some of his behavior issues may be from bullying or teasing (for example, David being told by another boy that he doesn't like dinosaurs, even though he obviously does), and his only way of dealing with it is to smack the other kid. Ms. Nadine says that David will sit in time out, then go hit the other kid after time out is over, if he feels that he hasn't yet settled the score. Ms. Perez says that the behavior she's seen doesn't appear to be malicious. The GC said she may try to spend some time with him after observing him in class, to see what else she might suggest. She's new, and when I asked her if she had any book recommendations, she had none. She did suggest also, that we target specific behaviors, which we're doing now anyway. She was pleased at the calendar system we have to keep track of what's going on.
Meanwhile, Ms Perez's discipline system is: green, no warnings; orange, one or two warnings; yellow, three warnings; red - lots of trouble, serious disrespect. I see every day what his behavior looks like. It is a bit more nuanced that good day/bad day, so I'm having trouble figuring out a "reward" for particular behaviors, if it's not green. The other problem is that he now has two different sources of both good and bad behavior, since, for example, he got a green at kindergarten, and then had a Very Bad Day at Learning Space. How do I handle that? I don't know.
Thursday, David got into a major fight at daycare, so much that he got a scratch on his face, and an incident report to go with it. I don't know what to do about his behavior. Last week I had to get him out of daycare, because Ms. Nadine couldn't handle him. This is the first time that this has happened. She has been so wonderful to be dealing with his major behavior issues. In spite of that, I may have to move him. There's only so much she can tolerate. I may move him anyway, since it may also just be the environment. I ask him why he hits, and he blames it on his brain, or his body, as if they are separate from him...or he just says, "I don't know." I talk to David a lot about his behavior. I really put him through the ringer on the day I had to leave work early to get him. We got home and he stay in his room for a very long time, until he figured out how to answer my questions, about why, why, why...and give me details about it...and then he fell asleep, and slept for 14 hours. At one point, he did wake up for about 30 minutes. I fed him some dinner, and then back to sleep he went.
Another challenge we have is genuine, true to life, homework. He has a list of 15 things, of which he must do 10, during the month of September. They are things like, "Try to write a sentence with the word 'can' in it." Or, "Draw four things that begin with the letter A." David then picked Apple, Allosaurus, Ankylosaurus, and Alligator. He had to write the words, too. I made him get one of his dinosaur books with the dino names, so he could spell them the right way. It was a struggle, though, to get him to attempt to draw anything. But hey, one assignment down, 9 to go, right?
There is so much that's happend in two weeks, and I know I'm missing a lot of it. I guess I should talk about his new routine in the mornings now: either I will awaken him, or he wakes himself up. We change into that day's clothes (these last two weeks we have a list of colors to wear for that day, as part of a lesson in school - we refer to it every day, and occasionally argue about what day it is, since Ms Perez got the days and dates a bit mixed up. David reads the list without letting on that he is, which is part of why we argue), and he tells me what kind of cereal he wants to eat for breakfast. About 20 min later, we're out the door, about 7:45. It's about 10 min from the house to the school. He sometimes tells me he wants me to drop him off, but then at the last minute says "walk me in." So we walk in every day, I leave him at the door. He goes in the room, and POOF! I don't exist.
So that's two weeks, with most of one week missing. I think I've also decided to go back to Fridays as the release date of this, as it seems to make more sense to me, and gives me less of an excuse to put it off.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
letter to amanda
Well Amanda, you finally did it. You finally have really pissed me off. I asked you about information about what happened with my son when he was with you, and you basically have the nerve to tell me it's none of my business. I've been so angry that I don't know what to do with myself, or the David Weekly. But I think I know what I'm going to do. I'm simply going to keep writing it, with you in mind, but you're not going to get it anymore. I still don't know if I should send it to either set of grandparents. I worry that they would just send it to you. It sucks for them, assuming that they like getting it...I have an idea, at least, that Matt and Virginia read it, because I asked them, and they said they did. I don't know about the other family, the Kenneys...I don't know if Nancy reads it, what she thinks, or anything. I don't know if Frank reads it, or cares.
So all of those people, who really have nothing to do with your contention that David needs "privacy" between households at the age of 5, aren't going to get to hear about David anymore, if they even read it. Instead, just like you, they're going to get an unexplained silence. I'm sure that you'll talk bad about me to them regarding this. But I guess I'm just going to have to deal, because you clearly don't value communication between 2 adults, whose most important concern should be the child. I have done everything I can to keep you in the loop regarding him, and you never respond, never ask questions, never want to know anything more. All of this is bad for David. I will keep writing the David Weekly because it's still the best thing for him. He will have a record of his life like few people have. He will have a record of his life that will protect him from getting taken away from his father...If you want to know what's going on in his life, I will send you things, if you ask. I will no longer provide you with his schoolwork, nor will I do anything to help you. If you want to see David this Christmas, you will have to come down here to get him, and you will have to bring him back here. I'm done.
So all of those people, who really have nothing to do with your contention that David needs "privacy" between households at the age of 5, aren't going to get to hear about David anymore, if they even read it. Instead, just like you, they're going to get an unexplained silence. I'm sure that you'll talk bad about me to them regarding this. But I guess I'm just going to have to deal, because you clearly don't value communication between 2 adults, whose most important concern should be the child. I have done everything I can to keep you in the loop regarding him, and you never respond, never ask questions, never want to know anything more. All of this is bad for David. I will keep writing the David Weekly because it's still the best thing for him. He will have a record of his life like few people have. He will have a record of his life that will protect him from getting taken away from his father...If you want to know what's going on in his life, I will send you things, if you ask. I will no longer provide you with his schoolwork, nor will I do anything to help you. If you want to see David this Christmas, you will have to come down here to get him, and you will have to bring him back here. I'm done.
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