When M started school, it quickly became clear that she was a teacher’s pet. She is cute and an easy student to teach. She is a sweet girl and a people pleaser who will pretty much bend over backwards if she thought that was what the teacher wanted.
I could not relate to this child.
*I* have never been a teachers pet. *I* am the kid who has “socializes too much on every report card, every year of my life.
My MOTHER is a teacher’s pet perfectionist.
OH My God, I thought, I am raising my MOTHER. This is not going to be pretty.
And then it happened. In third grade, at age 8. The focus of M’s people pleasing shifted from pleasing teachers to pleasing other kids.
We had a rather surprising parent teacher conference where the teacher (for the first time ever!) did not say the sun rose and set on M. This teacher has seen third grade boundary testing and she is onto that game.
Three times this year, we have received letters home (handwritten by M) telling us she had to stay in at recess for some kind of showing-off shenanigans. After the second one, M was warned that she would lose privileges at home if she brings home a note from teacher. Today, we got another note.
So now, I am in the position of trying to create punishments for exactly the same kinds of crap I have pulled myself my entire. Shenanigans which are quite honestly, ridiculous and not that big a deal…except she too wound up and a little disrespectful (which we all know is why it is FUNNY to the other kids) so we have to show her that when she is out of line we will pull her back into line.
What *is* the correct punishment for a girl who intentionally calls the visiting city manager by his first name THREE TIMES (in a jokey, show offy, way too loud way) after her teacher clearly explained that they should call him Mr. City Manager?
We are trying one week of no TV, no DS and (this is the big one) no recreational reading. M has reading homework most nights, so for the next week I am going to be the one who gets to select what she reads. I am trying to think of really, really boring topics. No more beloved wizard cats, maybe dumptrucks or baseball?
We are talking about the third grade equivalent of someone having one beer to many and making out with one of her girlfriends. You know, because it would be funny to the girls at the table and hot for the guys (ok, that was ME).
I can see this is my parenting destiny to raise a child who is just a leeetle too interested in being entertaining.
Just. Like. ME.
I so get the fun reading being taken away as the biggest punishment. That is the ONLY thing that works in our house.
DULL, dull and even duller is the VERY best. Depends on what she hates most. I have found mine liked books I thought she would hate on subjects of great dullness (any sport to her mind) because they were well written
I can honestly suggest you go to the library and select the books and if you fall asleep after 2 pages, then you are on the right track. They have to be really badly written. Oh and no absolutely no pictures.
Good luck!
This is just my, unqualified opinion, but I’m not sure punishment is always the answer. If peer relationships are stronger than parent-child relationships, the child will want to please her peers regardless of punishment(and punishment may just further undermine the parent-child bond). Here is a good book:
http://www.amazon.com/Hold-Your-Kids-Parents-Matter/dp/037550821X
I tend to think along the lines of natural consequences for things, both as a matter of the philosophy that seems right to me–anyone else’s mileage may vary, of course–and as a matter of pragmatics: my kid is not at all motivated by rewards and punishments. But in a case like this, it’s hard to figure out what a natural consequence might be b/c you’re at home and she’s at school.
Actually, I think it’s rather odd that the school would tell M/you that she needs to lose privileges at home for behavior that happens at school. (I can imagine lots of scenarios in which I would impose some kind of sanction or regulation at home b/c of school, but that’s different from the school deciding that I need to do that.) Seems to me that the teacher needs to figure out something in the moment. I think that my inclination would be to have a teacher conference and say I want to talk about how I can, at home, support the teacher’s efforts to guide M’s behavior at school. (That’s what *I* would do, and I offer this here not as a claim that YOU should do it, just as something to consider. I think the school’s thought that it can mandate punishment at home is more hard to understand than M’s age-appropriate antics.)
What, generally, motivates M?
The teacher took away two recesses and did not request that we punish her at home. After we received the second note home, I told M that she would lose a week of privileges at home if I got another note, thus the no TV/DS/reading.
I forgot to mention that I also asked her to write a letter of apology to the city manager (who I actually know because he has a daughter adopted from China) and to her teacher. She wrote very nice little apology letters, but seemed to enjoy writing them too much for it to really be a punishment.
ALSO, M lied about how many times she called him by his first name. I asked her teacher (when I was emailing her to find out how many books I need to find for next week) who said she said it THREE TIMES. M was given another chance to admit she did it more than once and continued to lie, so she has to go to bed early two times next week. (She clearly knew it was more than once and that she was busted when I told her *I emailed the teacher.)
What motivates M? Right now, it seems that other kids’ attention is motivating her, but we don’t have any playdates planned this week so I can’t take that away. I am also not going to say she can’t visit her grandparents tonight because that punishes ME because I have other plans. So that only leaves DS/TV/Reading. Honestly, I think she wouldn’t mind DS and TV if she could read, but it hardly seems right to take away reading and let her veg out all week with the electronics. She actually doesn’t watch that much TV or play DS that often, so that punishment is also pretty lame.
One more thing: I am 100% supportive of the teacher. I think, actually, we are quite a lot alike in our discipline strategies with M. She is on to M. She knows that M has gotten away with a lot at school in the past (interrupting, making jokes at inappropriate times, talking more than she should)because she is cute and smart. M knows better than to act like that at home, so she needs to be held to the same standard of behavior at school.
The additional punishment at home is because M needs to understand that her behavior does not happen in a vacuum. If she misbehaves, it reflects poorly on the family so she will also be held accountable at home. If she were a different kid who couldn’t make those connections, I wouldn’t expect more from her at this age. But she DOES get it and she CAN dial it back if she knows what the adults around her require.
Mr. A and I know M isn’t a bad kid. We know this isn’t a big deal in any way. In fact, we think it is pretty funny, but I told her she would lose privileges so she will.
Sarah, having read Am Fam for years, there is no reason to believe that M’s peer relationships are stronger than her parent bond. In fact, given all that Am Fam has shared about her parenting, there is no reason to believe that would ever be a problem. I’ve only read the synopsis of the book, which sounds interesting, but don’t understand your comment in response to this particular situation.
I have also read AmFam for years and have a sense that M is generally a mature and responsible kid who does things to please her teacher and parents. However, in this particular situation M was clearly showing off to please her peers. That is how I find it relevant.
Hmmmm… kids will ALWAYS want to please their peers more than their parents (after a certain age), I think, but… whatever.
That’s funny. I have no advice, except that I have the same troubles with my oldest, which is also a mini-me. How can I ever correct/punish him for spending too much time on the ipad or computer when I’m constantly at the computer myself? Sigh. (of course your situation is different, so I think it may be easier to enforce those boundaries, etc. Good luck, though! I personally think that your plan for punishments sounds good)
“Hmmmm… kids will ALWAYS want to please their peers more than their parents (after a certain age), I think, but… whatever.”
I believe the point of the book is that it does not have to be the case.
Sounds like this was also a case of her being disrespectful to Mr. City Manager. She needs to learn there is a time and place for shenanigans, and that wasn’t it. So a punishment to learn respect. Maybe raking a neighbors leaves or writing an apology note to Mr. City Manager?
The apology letter is a great idea!
Suzanne, I agree that it’s normal for kids to want to please peers more than their parents. The synopsis of the linked book starts out with… “Like countless other parents, Canadian doctors Neufeld and Maté woke up one day to find that their children had become secretive and unreachable. Pining for time with friends, they recoiled or grew hostile around adults.” Totally different ballgame.
Oops, that comment was supposed to be addressed to Lilian. Sorry about that.
The mother’s curse always comes true: May you have a child JUST LIKE YOU. It sure worked for me!
Perhaps, to fill the time she will not be able to spend playing games, watching TV, or reading, you could have her learn to knit, and knit a scarf for the city manager and her teacher as a method of apology. Something that is a service based idea, but something isolated so she doesnt have that social interaction reinforcement. Its a challenging task, because you dont want her to stop being social and silly, you just want her to think about WHEN it is appropriate to do so!
Ah, I get it now! Makes total sense. I’d just assumed when you said “M was warned…” that it was the teacher who was warning, not you. I’d be doing the same thing, I think.
With issues like this, I’m usually more interested in trying to regulate and reinforce behavior than I am with punishment, so I’d be trying to think of consequences that are intended to regulate or reinforce respect. The problem is there just aren’t that many analogs to the visit of the city manager! it’s not like you can say, “well, the Mayor is coming to our block on Friday but I’m not going to let you go b/c you were rude to the CIty Manager.”
Would she be motivated in reverse?–which I realize doesn’t address the specific issue of the fact that you have to follow through on your announcement that she’ll lose privileges at home. Would she work toward a reward for NOT getting any notes home from school for X days/weeks/month?
I feel rather inept at this aspect of parenting in part b/c my kid seems totally unmotivated by rewards or consequences, so figuring out how to deal with behavior challenges is itself a challenge for me. So much sympathy from me to you. Sounds like you have a good set of options laid out, given the nature of the original infraction.
Oh, it sucks when the ‘natural consequences’ punishments aren’t easy to find. Behaving respectfully in general is a tricky one, I think, because the things a kid gets to do because of their maturity often aren’t discrete privileges that will come up in the week after behaving badly.
IIRC, the few times it came up in our family, the consequences tended to be of the ‘being treated as a younger kid’ type – the rationale being that you get privileges by being mature & trustworthy, and if you lie, etc., then you can’t get those benefits. Def. easier to do when we were older and *had* more benefits, though.
How about if she (with your help) has to find 3 (one for each name calling of Mr. City Manager) adults that she will address properly and offer help to? You can frame it that appears that she needs some practice understanding how to interact respecfully with adults at school, and because you are not there at school to guide her, she is going to have to practice when you and Mr. A. are around. Then let her address someone respectfully, ask if she can help them with a task and do it. Then after, talk about why that was good. It seems she KNOWS how to act, but perhaps being made to act like that a few times would help her reinforce what she should be doing. And you can use your friends and other adults you know (neighbors) for this. Who knows, maybe she will enjoy it, and so it won’t be a “punishment” per se, but it might help her stop and think. She will also likely get positive reinforcement from the people she helps and that will give her an incentive to behave in the future…Just a thought…maybe a stupid one but that’s what I came up with.
Bravo Wen…love this!
Seconding the Hold Onto Your Kids recommendation. Amazing, life-changing book.
I love Wen’s idea above for this specific infraction, but I also wanted to say that when my son was young the only thing that worked as punishment was no electronics (tv, video games, computer) I still let him listen to music in his room because that wasn’t something he had ever buried himself in and because I had shown him how much more fun it was to clean up with music playing. To him no electronics was like no oxygen. I had also learned from my own mother to limit the time on restrictions. (She used to routinely ground me and my brother for 2 weeks and then 2 days later we were parked in front of the tv again and the issue was never mentioned again.) So I only made my son’s punishments 24 hours EXCEPT for lying. Whenever I knew he was lying to me I would look at him sternly and say “The punishment for lying in this house is 3 days with no electronics, would you like to try again.” And then I’d give him another chance to tell me the truth. He always caved and admitted the truth. I only had to do this a handful of times and now at age 17 he is still very honest with me. I’m not saying this will work with all kids, but it worked like a charm with mine.
I had to chime in and say this is *not* like having one beer to many and making out with a girlfriend, ’cause there’s no disrespect in doing that (well, unless the girlfriend either thought it was too important or didn’t like it, in which case it was either mean or harassment, both of which would be worse than what M did). If there were some mutually agreed upon snogging, even if only to please the crowd, it’s just different, and presumably not something one would punish as a parent (right? I’m just hoping you keep blogging when M gets up to those shenanigans — though I also would understand if you didn’t, ’cause I have no idea how I would deal with those). I’m pretty much opposed to underage drinking even with the currently nutty drinking age, but have no idea how I’d handle it if it happened with my knowledge.
The problem w/ M’s behavior was that she was mildly disrespectful, didn’t listen to the teacher, and lied. I think you’ve done what you could, but it’s the lying that really gets to me. I read a report on lying once, and the bottom line was that smart kids become liers if they can get away with it — that it’s a normal developmental stage to test it out to see if it works, and if it does work, they start to use it. And then, there are teens, who lie because they want more independence than we’re willing to give them (and, well, frankly than is good for them). M might have been trying both on.
Note that there’s no advice up there, ’cause I have no idea what to do in similar circumstances.