Saturday, January 19, 2008

For my best friend, Wendy.

Dear Wendy,
Thank you for your comment-pliment. (Haha!Some how that word seems like it should have come from your dad.) I've been feeling guilty about not blogging for about 3 weeks, (not consecutively, but all together) - so your encouragement (or discouragement?) inspires the approval addict in me, hence my post, just for you.

I am wondering, however, what it would take to do the same for you and get you to START a blog?

Well, from the last writing until now, we have been busy with having non-stop visits or traveling out of town ourselves, and catching up or regular life in between. I have some AWESOME books to blog about. I also have some funny stories to tell - but since I'm trying to think of one right now, I can't... :-)

So many of my funny stories are not really mine - but Eli's. 2nd grade continues to be a growing experience. Last week we had been talking about respecting authority at home, and so I challenged him to find unique ways to show respect to the people at school who were in authority over him, and to come home and tell me what he did. I encouraged him, then, each day afterwards to do not only the things he did the day before, but to add a new attempt each day to build on the others and I would be thinking of a reward for him. In my attempts to be very concrete and specific, I said I wanted his actions to be something that was obvious enough to those around him that they would notice a difference, even if I called his teacher to check on his behavior. He seemed to respond to this challenge, and reported something simple each day. I was excited!
It was ironic then, when a few days later, word made it back to us that he was driving his teacher nuts. When I finally checked on it, I found that my instructions had translated to him having a tally sheet on his desk to mark every time he said "yes ma'am" to his teacher, and that he'd told her that he needed to say this "two-hundred times" so his mom would give him a prize. And apparently, he made sure to check with her every time he said it, (just in case I called and asked.)

My next book will be called "Social Skills Suicide: How to set your child up for failure every time....".

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heather! We had been wondering where you went. I'm glad to see you back on, and hope that it is able to happen more frequently.

Always love what you have to say.

C said...

I look forward to writing this new book together. :-)

Timbra said...

heather, i look forward to READING your book, and am hoping it's on the market before alani turns 7 and i can in turn set her up for "failure every single time!" you crack me up and i have missed your blogs! welcome back!

Tammy said...

I made the same mistake with my brood...only it was asking them to be nice to their siblings. I remember a few instances of one of them holding down the other one while they "did something nice for them". Child logic was too much for me! Save me a copy of your book!

Anonymous said...

You did it! I knew it was in you! Thank you, Best Friend Heather! Next coffee's on me.