Ed's First Trip to the Principal's Office

Last Tuesday, while waiting at the bus stop, Ed said, "I wonder what is going to happen on the seventh day of school?'

Tuesday was the seventh day, and it was NOT a good one.

Ryan, Jessie, and I were running around doing stuff, and we were at Lowe's getting stuff for the house. We get home just a few minutes before the bus, and when Ed gets off the bus, the first thing he says is, "I'm sorry for all the bad things I do,"

We drive to the house and start talking to Ed. (Kacy helped fill in some details.) Ed was so bad that day! I expect him to get into trouble, to be that kid who breaks every rule he doesn't know about. Like, the kind of trouble where the school starts thinking about making new rules to cover all their bases. But, what Ed did went above and beyond "typical Ed."

The worst parts: he didn't listen to teachers, and he lied.

He got in trouble with four different adults at the school for blatently disobeying: they each asked him do do something (or stop doing something) three times. His teacher, the first grade teacher, the bus driver, and even the principal. And, he did something dumb, but lied about it. He loaded his mouth with water and then spit the water all over the tables outside. Dumb, but mostly harmless, right? But then a teacher asked him if he did it, and with his cheeks FULL of water, he shook his head no.

Anyway, his teacher left this big ol' long message on the phone. On the plus side, Ed was fairly forthcoming with his indiscretions. We made him take a shower and he went to bed. At 4pm. He was NOT happy. He was allowed down for a quick dinner, but remained on his bed for the evening. The next morning, I drove him to school, and made him apologize to the first grade teacher. Then, we had a pow-wow with his teacher and the principal. It was hard to be the parent that morning: knowing your kid was so disrespectful, and even more painful was watching how painful it was for Ed to apologize. He was contrite.

The punishment worked for the remainder of the week: he was great the rest of the week. I hope it sinks in: we will do our best to make sure he knows it is unacceptable to be disrespectful, and that if he gets in trouble at school, he will be in bigger trouble at home. Keeping him on his bed with no toys or books nearly killed him. It was an effective punishment for him. (He hates being confined.) We made sure to make a big deal out of good behavior the rest of the week, and his teacher did the same.

Gotta love our Edsel! (I think he was pretty good in church today, too. He's got a patient teacher (thank-you Krissy!) who makes her lessons fun and age appropriate.)

Cant's wait to start volunteering in all the kid's classrooms. I missed it last year. This year, with only Jessie, I'm going to be able to do it, and I'm going to do it regardless of what is going on with the house. Ah, the house...