My kindergartner has a color code for behavior in his classroom. Each student has a clip with her or her name on it and everyday they begin the day with their clips in the very middle color.
The chart goes from red (being the worst behavior), through purple (being excellent behavior). Each day, due to each student's individual choices, he or she will lower or raise their clip accordingly.
I picked up my son a few days ago and he could barely contain his excitement.
"Mom! Mom! Guess what?" he exclaimed as I picked him up from school.
"I went to purple today!" He said, beaming.
This was a bit of a surprise for me as he is not a bad kid but he does usually have trouble listening and focusing in a school type of setting. I asked him what he did to deserve his clip being raised to the highest color.
The whole way home he told me about making good choices, getting his work done on time, and listening.
I praised him almost the entire ride home.
That night I was checking my email and I saw that I had one from his teacher. I opened it feeling good, thinking I knew what it was about.
In the letter she had written:
I just wanted to let you know that (your son) had to drop his name to red today. The principal was not involved but the behavior was that he was goofing around and not doing his work. He had to be repeatedly reminded not to continue the behavior.
I was stunned.
Then I was mad. I was so mad. I couldn't believe that my own sweet son had manipulated me. I felt like I wanted to take back all of the praise I had given him earlier.
I was hurt. I felt betrayed and it was probably one of the worst feelings I've received from one of my children.
I told him that his teacher had emailed me and that he needed to go to time-out. The time-out was as much for me as it was for him as I needed some time settle my angry feelings and to think about why he had possibly done this.
I also knew that I needed to separate my frustrations with what was actually going on with him. Reactions are usually based on our own emotions. Not on taking care of others. And I needed to sort through my intense feelings so I could clearly understand his.
I came to the most empathetic conclusion that I could. My son had had a bad day. He may have been having strong emotions that he didn't understand coupled with the fact that school does not cater to young boys whose last wish is to sit still for hours on end and listen and focus.
I realized that my son had reached out to me for the words of encouragement he had been lacking.
I knew what I needed to do. I went and got him out of his room and told him that I understood that he lied to me because he was afraid that I would be upset with him. I told him I understood that he wanted my praise more than my disapproval.
I also told him that I wasn't mad at him for dropping his name to red. I was mad that he had lied to me. I told him that even though I understood why he lied to me, that it was not okay for him to lie like that.
I do wonder sometimes if I'm too hard on my kids. I wonder if my expectations are too high for them. I'm not upset that he made this mistake because I realize that him making mistakes now is the best time to make them.
As we get older, the consequences for our mistakes increase greatly and life is not so forgiving.
