He messed with a girl on Monday, "set her off" so to speak. She wasn't innocent either, blasting him that he has no friends & no-one likes him. Who knows what MrD was doing to help stimulate her verbal blast. Last year she blasted him for sitting in "her" chair. Like it has her name on it (it doesn't). He purposefully sat in her usual spot. She ordered him to get out of her chair. He replied, "woof" which was taken as calling her a dog (bitch), which he did indeed mean to imply. MrD does not swear, but he dances around it cleverly. We talk about these events, thankfully he will give me the pieces & eventually I get to the bottom of the story. I suspect she may have been blasting him this round because of his relentless armpit fart noises, but MrD wouldn't tell me. Tuesday we talked about ways to get better communication. Like if she is talking like that, he could tell her not to talk down to him. He could go with the classic hands over ears lalalalalalalala to draw attention to her behaviour if an adult is near. He told me on Wednesday he held out his hand & said, "truce" and she accepted. I told him that was a great choice & I'm glad he thought of it. Wednesday he waved his (stinky) shoe into another boy's face. Sigh. When asked why, he said he didn't know. When pressed that he must know why, he admitted he just felt like it, it was funny. I reminded him that the school does have an anti-bullying policy & it can & will be used against him if he keeps it up. He said it was, he got detention. I have asked at the school that the detention be altered to time with the counselor but agreed that he did earn himself a consequence.
My goal this year is to continue to use this blog as an unloading & thoughtful zone for positive & negative events. There is a lot of positive forces in MrD's life which I am thankful. He is still progressing in Taekwan-do & is over the half way to getting his black belt. He is passing his courses for grade 9. He is doing well at Sylvans & almost at grade level. An adult male friend has expressed interest in a platonic friendship of sorts. MrD can help with odd jobs and our friend can help model communication & problem solving while gently guiding better choices. Like a big brother, with the flavour of Behaviour Interventionist. I have had it as a goal for a few years to get a BI for MrD, but it just hasn't been panning out, at all. I am grateful that we have a gentle compromise in that direction now. When it is tough, I white knuckle it. When it is nice, I just have to remind myself to enjoy it, not to take it for granted since those are such precious short time spans.
