Last week was rough

So my last post about school and Braedon was after his first day. You see, Braedon is a *spirited* child. He is very intense, emotional, energetic, and strong willed...not like his mom at all, ahem.

Moving on.

He can be hard to deal with and has a hard time listening and obeying authority. The school uses a color system to let us parents know how our dear children were at school. His calendar is colored everyday and we have to sign it.

Purple: exceptional day
Green: good day
Yellow: warning
Orange: time out/lose some recess
Red: time out in buddy room (principals office) and note/call home

So, Braedon's first day of school-Green
Tuesday: Orange
Wednesday: Green, then yellow-would've been Orange but school was over
Thursday: Orange
Friday: Thank goodness-Green
Monday (week 2): Yellow-still struggling with listening

He was throwing fits at school, laying on the floor and refusing to get up, pushing, hitting, pinching, cutting in line, refusing to listen to anything the teacher asked him to do, not doing his work and wandering the classroom and hall.

So, yeah, it was a rough week. I had to buckle down at home and become Nazi Mom-which I HATE! He tests his boundaries and constantly pushes his limits. I told him there would be no more warnings-there used to be one warning and that was it but for whatever reason, it got to the point where he was getting several warnings before punishment and he knew just how far he could push. Even after several warnings, I would give him "to the count of 3" to which he would wait until I said "3" then do whatever he was supposed to do. So, no more warnings, no more counting. I say do it, and you do it or there will be consequences. It was very hard for me to stick to my guns and he spent the majority of last week in his room. He was able to come down for dinner and then back up he went until it was time for a shower and bed. It was so hard to listen to him cry and just want to come out and talk-he's a social butterfly-but I knew the punishment had to be severe enough for him to know I mean business. I have taken away toys, TV, video games..you name it, he's lost it. But he doesn't seem to care. The only thing that seems to be working is solitude...which was proven when he got a big green smiley face on Friday.

Braedon is definitely a follower and if he sees another student being bad, then he thinks it's ok to be bad as well. I love his teacher-we almost seem to understand each other. She isn't married and has no children but it's as if we would/could be friends. The unfortunate thing is, while she's been a K teacher for 5 years, she just doesn't seem to have the forcefulness that some kids need. I may be completely off base here since I haven't seen her in "action" but she admitted that she has a brood of "rough boys" this year...which is not good for Braedon, you know, since he's a follower.

Today, Chris and I are meeting with his teacher and vice principal to work out a plan of attack, er, for success :-)

In other news-Cohen is so funny when it comes to standing without holding on. He has the balance to do so and does so very well, when he doesn't realize it LOL! If he is holding onto us and we make him let go, he holds his hands out in front of him and slowly lowers himself to a sitting/crawling position. If he's holding onto a peice of furniture, he gets distracted and grabs a toy with one hand, then wants to play with it in both hands. He will stand there for 5 min playing with the toy but the second it registered in his brain that he isn't holding something, he drops what he was playing with and grabs on! It's pretty funny to watch LOL!