Thursday, January 03, 2008

Yet Another "Bad Mommy" Moment or "How to scare your child half to death without even trying"

Arielle started school this year, her first experience with going to school all day. She's been loving it and is absolutely thriving.

Today, though, her first day back after Christmas vacation, we had a little meltdown. Her teacher sent home a note before Christmas, announcing that she was modifying the discipline structure. She's been having some problems with a few of the kids excessively misbehaving - calling each other names, hitting, pushing, etc. So she's tightened up. There is now only one warning before getting a consequence, and she will be calling parents earlier than she did before.

We talked about this at the beginning of Christmas vacation and she was feeling pretty confident about it. Arielle's never had any real problem with handling what is expected of her in a classroom setting.

This morning, though! I reminded her about the new structure as she was about to head for the bus. Big mistake! (I still have a lot to learn about this mommy business, unfortunately.) Her head went down, her lip started trembling, and big fat tears rolled out of her eyes as she announced, "I don't want to go!"

Yes, yet another one for the "how small can Mommy feel?" record books.

By the time I got her calmed down and feeling confident again it was almost time for the bus. In fact, she had to run to catch it - the first time she's ever had to do that. (Usually she's the first kid there by about 5 minutes. She loves school.)

Poor little sweetpea. I hope she gets over the fright I gave her. She's such a good little girl, and tries so hard to live up to what's expected of her. She has absolutely nothing to worry about. If only I hadn't said anything to make her worry!

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