Three days into the school year, I am feeling good! Overall, I'm meeting with far less resistance than I have in years past. Maturity? Me figuring things out? Maybe a combination, but whatever, I'm happy for it.
The only snags haven't really been school-related.
One "incident" that happened yesterday is one I do feel really bad about, though. So I'll publicly confess my sin in an effort to make myself accountable to never do it again.
One of my boys was supposed to be doing some reading from a particular book yesterday. He had the book, set it down somewhere, and then couldn't find it again. I was doing piano with another child, so I wasn't really aware of what was going on. When he came in the playroom where we were practicing and started playing, I asked him whether his reading was done. He said, in a very huffy voice, "I can't find my book. I've looked everywhere, and I can't find it, so I can't read it."
I let myself get ruffled by his tone of voice, and so I responded equally huffily, and said, "You keep looking for that book! I do not want to see you playing until you have finished your reading!"
"I HAVE LOOKED FOR IT! IT ISN'T ANYWHERE! I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO FIND IT!"
"Well, too bad, you keep looking for it. If it were a million dollars, I bet you would be able to find it, so keep trying!"
He went stomping around the house, making a showing of "looking" for it, and by the time I was done with piano practicing, I was very annoyed. I went into the living room, and spotted the book almost immediately, lying underneath another larger book on the fireplace hearth. At this point, having already responded childishly by getting angry with him (I should know better-- I do know how very frustrating it is not to be able to find something), I should have just given him the book, and then later had a conversation about more effective finding strategies. But instead I made a bad situation worse and said to him, "There! I've just found the book in about two seconds. It's in this room, so look for it until you find it!" I told myself I was teaching him better finding techniques. I told him he needed to look UNDER things, not just on the surfaces. Well, he looked everywhere in the room. Under shelves, under the desk, under the couch, under all the books and papers on the table. Pretty much everywhere except the fireplace hearth. I told him to look around at all the horizontal surfaces to see if there was one he hadn't yet examined. Well, I let this go on far too long, and he never did find it. So I finally told him to look on the fireplace. Of course, he immediately found it once I told him where to look.
Another child was watching these events unfold, even though I had told the other boys to leave the room because it wasn't their business. He came back in, though, and when the child in question finally found the book, he let out a not-quite-suppressed giggle. The child in question had been pushed pretty much to his limits by his mother, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. He marched right over to the giggler, pulled his right fist back, and before I could intervene, delivered a very sound punch straight into his brother's solar plexus.
He knocked the wind out of his brother, who dropped to the floor gasping, and I said in quite a loud voice, "Get into the hall closet right this second and do not come out until I say so!!" Which he very obediently did, to his credit.
I got the other brother calmed down and tears dried, and we had a conversation about not laughing at other people when they are embarrassed.
But of course, I was the direct cause of his embarrassment.
Oh, son of mine, I'm so sorry. Finding things has been a weakness of this child pretty much since he was born. He gets it directly from his father. :-) The concept of looking *under* things hasn't quite penetrated for either of them. I am a very, very good "finder," and cannot understand how my finding-challenged husband and son can't simply use their formidable brain powers to figure out the most likely places, and then systematically look until the object is found! And since I can't understand it, it seems like they're just not trying hard enough. Given enough incentive and instruction, they should be able to find things, right? Well, maybe, maybe not, but what is sure is that the strategy of shaming a child in front of his brothers in order to teach a lesson that isn't particularly important in the first place, and, based on my experience, probably won't be learned anyway, is pretty pathetic.
Bad mommy moment. I'm very sorry, and I am resolved not to fall into that trap again. And that boy is going to have a special treat-run with his mom this weekend.
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