So, you'd have no idea from looking at this sweet little face, that this boy was
suspended from kindergarten for mild aggressive behavior. Oh my goodness...Talk about a mothering moment when you have absolutely NO idea what to do. Kimball's class was having a rough time. There were a few boys who got consistently out of control, and Kimball had been coming home every day talking about being hit or kids saying mean things. I spent a lot of time talking with the teacher and the principle about this, but the changes were slow in coming. I guess Kimball had finally had enough and he went on a rampage for a week. Every day my stomach would drop when I got a phone call from the principle. The last one saying to come pick him up from school. Oh geez!!
I decided to just keep him home for a few days and reset. We had been talking day and night with him about controlling his behavior when he felt upset, and we just needed to take a break from the situation.
That Sunday I found this quote from C.S. Lewis
“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’
your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of
the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you
will presently come to love him.”
So I thought we needed to help Kimball love the kids in his class. So that was the start of our weekly tradition. Each Sunday we make a huge batch of cookies so on Monday at snack, Kimball (and now Joey too) can hand out cookies to each of the kids. It was so cute the first week to see Kimball so happy passing out the cookies and see some of the other kids come up and give him a hug and say thank you. I also spent the next 2 weeks joining Kimball in kindergaten. I became his unofficial behavior management coach. I sat with him and helped him work though the difficult moments and manage his feeling with out exploding. So, I'm very happy to announce that after MANY prayers, many hours spent day after day in class, that Kimball is doing very well. There are still many tough times, but he is doing a great job of handling him emotions!
3 comments:
You are such a good mom!! I love your solution too, to teach him to love his classmates. And what a fun tradition to make and take cookies every week. You are planting some very important principles into those sweet little boys' hearts. Thanks for sharing this story! I'm glad it's been going well since then, too. :)
Oh my goodness, that is SO funny!! Wow, I think this may be one of your best stories yet, sweet little Kimball getting suspended from Kindergarten.. oh man, that is going to be a fun one to tell for the rest of your lives! :)
But I am VERY impressed with how you handled it with the cookies and everything, wow. Very inspiring, really, to more people than you even realize I bet.
I am so glad Kimball is enjoying school better. And he will be able to brag about being suspended from kindergarten for the rest of his life! Way to go, Lindsay, for coming up with a solution to solve this touchy problem.
Post a Comment