As noted in yesterday’s post, Miles has been struggling this week with misbehaving during the school day and finding himself sent to time-out. We get reports daily, and as this week has progressed we’ve felt more and more dejected each afternoon.
Now, fortunately, Miles is pretty good about letting us honestly know how his day went, “I went to time out,” he’ll say with very little prompting. When it comes to explaining why he got sent to time out, he isn’t always able to articulate this in a way that really reflects reality.
“I was singing a song and my teacher didn’t know it so she put me in time out,” he said yesterday.
“Are you saying that your teacher sent you to time out because she didn’t know the song you were singing?” I replied.
“Yeah.”
Somehow I doubt that’s exactly what happened. More vexing than this, however, was Miles’s response when faced with a choice at school: “If you don’t behave, you won’t get a treat,” his teacher had said.
“I don’t need a treat,” he retorted. “I have treats at home.”
…oh HELL NAW.
And that’s how Miles (and Jaclyn and I) lost Family Movie Night, along with any and all snack treats. I deal with this sort of behavior from kids every day at work, and I know when it’s time to lay the hammer down. Suffice to say, Miles went to bed a bit disappointed tonight.
Thankfully, he woke up today with a different attitude and claimed he was ready to listen better. I told him that saying it wasn’t enough — he had to prove it by having a good day at school AND behaving at home afterwards. If he could pull off this Herculean feat, maybe then we could talk about revisiting Family Movie Night.
And wouldn’t you know it, the little son of a gun had a great day all around.
The Perils (& Pride) of Paternity 