Pinch Me

She was a tad late (about 15 minutes) and I started thinking, "It was today right?" I even turned tot he Elder and said, "[The Teacher] is coming here today right?"

"I can't hear you."
"You can't hear me? or You don't understand what I'm asking you?"
"I don't understand."
"Did [The Teacher] tell you that she is coming to your house today?"
"Yes."

Pause, as doubt was sinking in at the lack of confidence in his response.

"Did [The Teacher] tell you that, or did I tell you that?"
He looks at the ceiling to think, "Oh, YOU tell me that."

Great, so I still don't have an answer...

I was getting a little irritated because The Hub came all the way home from work to participate in the meeting. But, alas, the doorbell rings and she has arrived. Yay.

It seemed a bit unorganized but it didn't take me long to relax and just start asking her all sorts of advice. She is truly a gift from God and I fear the day that The Elder has to enter "Real School" with teachers who are less knowledgeable and less compassionate as The Teacher. She definitely means business when she teaches (and she didn't hesitate to "bring the classroom into your home" so to speak and set him straight a couple of times). Though I still felt like my every move was being watched and judged, she didn't lead on to me that she was doing that.

I think the part of the conversation that really just let me put my guard down and trust her was how much passion was in her voice as she was talking about "dedicating years to finding strategies to help her students" (all of whom are HFA). And how she has asked/begged the school board to have the kids for longer days (currently he is finished at 11am) and for 5 days a week (4 half-days is full time, which most of his classmates are not full time, meaning they only go 1, 2, or 3 half-days a week). She gave us tips for the holiday trip coming up and will be sending home a few articles on Monday to help us with that, and she even gave us some help with dealing with The Younger.

Is this too good to be true? Am I dreaming? Between his school situation and the dietary changes, I couldn't be happier with our situation. I wish everyone had access to The Teacher. I want to spread my joy! So if anyone has questions about a behavior situation with your child, I'll be glad to pose the question to her and get some answers. I'll start...

Our Behavior Topic was regarding the meltdowns that end up with a naked Elder and a puddle of pee somewhere (not in the proper receptacle). Her advice was to follow the A,B,C pattern (A=antecedent, B=behavior, C=consequence) and try to stop it at the A. So this is what I did.

The A typically is a situation where he wants something and he wants it NOW.
The B is the taking off clothes and peeing on the floor
The C is making him responsible for the mess and having him clean it up.

"I want a muffin."
"OK, you can have a muffin, but after you eat your lunch."
Hopefully that will be the end.
But it wasn't, so then as he was taking his clothes off I said, "You'll need to have clothes on to eat your muffin."
Of course he kept taking the clothes off and then began pointing his stuff to the floor.
"If you choose to pee on the floor, you will have to clean up the mess yourself."
Sometimes this logic is enough to make him stop. But on this particular occasion he continued to point his stuff. Then I just picked him up and carried him to the bathroom and held him in front of the toilet (while he continued to rip his clothes off).
Once he was emptied and eliminated that threat, I let him calm down until I could reason with him again. We also discovered that the word "lunch" or "dinner" is a trigger for some odd reason, so The AP used the word "food" instead and that seemed to help.

It's all trial and error huh?