Saturday, November 23, 2013

Tough Turkeys

Where in the world is this year going??!!??? I cannot believe it is almost December!

I started thinking this year about some of the tough kiddos I have taught before. These are the kiddos that seem to never be absent but make YOU want to be absent. I think with all of the stress and higher expectations "they" keep piling on us those tough turkeys seem to stand out even more.

We tend to keep having more and more we have to teach but we also have more and more behavior issues each year. There is not enough time in the day to take care of everything but it is so important to help our tough turkeys. We will always have patience when our kiddos struggle academically but we tend to have less and less patience with our tough turkeys' behavior issues.

I have to stop and remind myself that I cannot control a kiddo's behavior but only how I react to that behavior. The only person I can change is myself. One of the most powerful lessons Conscious Discipline has taught me is about how the way we react to the upset of others teaches a child how they will react to the upset of others. Whatever we offer to others we strengthen in ourselves.

Our attitude makes a HUGE difference. There are days that before I even get to school I feel discouraged. I think with all of the higher expectations we are teaching concepts that are not developmentally appropriate. This often frustrates our kiddos and can factor into their behavior problems. We also have kiddos who live in a completely different world with different expectations when they go home. School and School Rules are completely foreign to them. We often forget that we need to be the ones to teach them this different set of rules and expectations. I forget almost daily that each one of the kiddos in my classroom are either extending love or crying out for love. I might be the only one to love that little tough turkey each day.




Each day we need to make a choice to greet all of our kiddos, especially our tough turkeys, with love and patience. 

From My Heart to Yours