I love it when they punish themselves

Small funny bonus post.....

Child 1 had a kind of rough day at school today. He just genuinely didn't want to be there, and made sure to inform everyone of that every time they got to close to him. He gets his people hating skills from me, in case you were wondering.

Child 1 asked the teacher not to tell me about his bad day. Apparently he thought he was going to be in trouble. Considering I have days that I snap at my family because I don't want to do things either, I was simply planning on talking to him about it. Usually a little chit chat fixes whatever ails him.

After I got the story of being mean to other kids, a lot of yelling, an occasional swatting of hands and random other things he was doing to show people "LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADY", I asked what his problem was. (I hope I was more tactful than that, but I highly doubt it.) His response was "MOM, can we go home already?"

This is the point where at home I would have hauled his butt to the couch to sit until he stopped with the attitude, but we were in public. And public means Mommy resolves things a little differently. Don't judge. You know you do it too. So I got down on my knees, looked him squarely in the eye and said "What was the problem today?"

What I got next I can only describe as verbal diarrhea. I have no other explanation. He told me everything everyone he's ever known has ever done wrong to him. Last Tuesday "Sally" pulled his hair. And 6 months ago, "Bobby" down the street didn't want to ride bikes with him. And a year ago, someone yelled at him for spitting. Yep, I got all that. None of it answered my question of what the CURRENT problem was.

However, Child 1 then took a deep breath. He looked me right in the eye. And this was his next sentence.......

"Mommy, can we go home and write down the class rules? I was a little bad today and didn't remember them."

I am a firm believer that if a kid picks his own punishment before we even finish talking about what happened, let him do it. So, we came home and wrote down 10 class rules. Our list was maybe 30 words. He wrote them all, asked for help making his letters, asked what the rules meant and how to do them.

During his self imposed punishment, he volunteered the information to me. I went to my doctors appointment without him today. Apparently I am not allowed to go anywhere without his presence. I suppose next month, to avoid the disasters, I just won't mention I have someplace to be!