Ok, I got Angela to school. She was one hour late, but she was clean and smiling by the time we got there. That's a good thing, right? I question weather it's a good idea for anyone at school to give her a hard time about being late. That would be giving her attention for the attention seeking behavior, which would greatly increase the possibility of a repeat performance.
Then again, NOT saying something is probably the most difficult thing for me to do! It's really hard not to get frustrated and mad at the kid when you're watching the bus pull away and she's still standing naked in the bathroom. I just wish I knew how to better handle this. Clearly I'm doing SOMETHING wrong, but WHAT?? Somebody just tell me WHAT I'm doing wrong!
We have a behavior specialist that started coming just before Thanksgiving. Today will be her 3rd or 4th visit. She's here for an hour and a half and has been PLAYING with Angela. Now, I do have to say the "playing" has been choreographed in such a way that the specialist can see where Angela's limits are, what might set her off, etc. Also, there IS a "get aquainted" period before she just starts pushing Angela's buttons all over the place. But...you know... there is A LOT of money going out the door for someone to come "play" with my kid. AND, after this morning, I don't want to watch them "play" anymore. I want someone to give me the scripts to say to Angela when there is a behavior explosion (because that's what they are, explosions) or when there is a flat out refusal to cooperate, like this morning. I mean, Angela is very much like a 5-7 year old, and she's DOING stuff that a child that age would WANT to say or do, but doesn't because they would get into trouble. But, Angela does it anyway because she WANTS that attention, or just doesn't have the impulse control to NOT do those things. (Yeah, you might have to make a graph for that statement to make any sense at all.) But no matter what the reason is, I need help with it.
2 comments:
Michael started refusing to bathe for some unknown reason so we had to resort to little mice stickers - I know it sounds weird but he would get a sticker for taking a bath (2 if he did it w/o a fuss). Then we made a chart of his favorite things and assigned a "mouse value" to it. For example: a trip to the movies had a mouse value of 15 and he got to save them up for other things. Lasted about 6 months before he didn't need that incentive - he negotiated other things he could earn mice for once we agreed that mice were too special to be used for something like a bath - we changed it to picking up his room.
Oh man..sounds like you had a day. I hope things get better and you get some answers...and your ex stops being extremely selfish!!!
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