Today, I feel like writing about my first born, who is my only daughter and will always be my beautiful baby girl. I love this girl to pieces. TO PIECES. And, she is so social and outgoing to the point at which it leaves me and my husband wondering where she gets those traits from because we are more introverted. She is probably this way because I encouraged social behavior in her pre-school years. We were very social and active, often attending playdates. I always encouraged her to approach other kids to make friends. I think this is a huge part of who she is now, not that I'm really complaining, I think it is wonderful that she isn't scared to approach other kids and has the desire to make friends.
Our daughter, being the extroverted type of person, tends to come home from school with marks on her behavior card every once in awhile. The mark she gets the most is a T, which means talking. She has gotten NL once, which means not listening. Every time she comes home with marks on her card, she loses her TV(in her room) privileges, to also include any kind of computer/Ipad activity. I also expect her to fully explain to me why she received the said mark. She always struggles with explaining why she received the mark, which frustrates me, and so we(I) spend a lot of time talking about it which wears her down emotionally. There are days that I look at her behavior card (to sign it) the morning of school, which isn't smart on my part but most of the time she doesn't get marks so I don't expect to have any issues. This morning was different, however, she received another T mark.
This morning initially started off great! I woke up, she woke up earlier than normal and decided she wanted breakfast at home instead of school. So, I made her some oatmeal, some toast, and fixed her a glass of juice. Then, I grabbed her behavior card and that's when the morning took a turn. I asked her why she received a T, and she went silent. The most I was able to get out of her was the obvious, because she was talking. I explained to her what her consequences were going to be (loss of TV/Ipad privileges), which she probably expected. Daddy woke up a little bit after our conversation, and was able to get more information out of her by telling her he was going to clean out her room of everything but a bed and a dresser if she didn't explain what happened. Our goal in this is to get her to own her behavior, which she has shown not to do in the past. She usually places the blame on other people. She eventually said her friend asked for help on the work. Which is kind of sad to me because I feel bad for my daughter for the fact that I know she is a kind soul and willing to help anyone in need. However, she needs to know that the rules are different at school, and peer help isn't always welcomed if not otherwise advised. So we explained to her that if someone asks for help on school work, she needs to tell them to ask the teacher. In the end, it's good if she tells us what happened so that we can work through it with her. However, she makes it hard on herself up until the point of explanation because she doesn't want to talk or she says she doesn't remember why she got a mark. We ultimately end up spending way more time on an issue like this than necessary. This is something we are trying to work on with her.
Now, fast forward to me dropping her off at school. This is where this mama really started to feel bad. She was about to be let out of the car by a teacher when I told her that I knew she would get a happy face today because she is a good girl. This caused her to tear up and we hugged and I gave her a kiss on her forehead. The teacher opened the door, and Hailee completely tripped out of the car. :( The teacher asked if she was okay, and she got back on her feet and started to walk, so I yelled "Hailee", and she turned around with sad eyes and shook her head yes and went on her way. This ripped me apart. So now I sit here and I really miss her, I wish I could give her a big hug. I am sad because my goal was to start her day off right, and it backfired so now I feel like she's going to have a bad day because I chose to look at her behavior card this morning rather than yesterday.
Parenting is really hard. Disciplining can be harder. My daughter is a wonderful, kind, and positive spirited person. She doesn't like to get in trouble and she roots for the underdog. There isn't a bone in that girl's body that is mean, troublesome, or hateful. This is why I suspect that I don't like to discipline her because I know she isn't a bad girl. She likes to talk, and that's not a crime. But, I feel as a parent, it's my job to teach her that she needs to respect her teacher, her peers, and she needs to listen at school. I need to teach her this every step of the way, because if I don't, I'm afraid it'll snowball into bigger issues as she gets older.
Something that I deal with that is sad and maybe a little illogical is the fear of a school shooting, or anything happening to her at school. I fear that I will give her a hard time about her behavior and something bad could happen and I could regret it for the rest of my life. But, more importantly and perhaps logically, I also have to think about the future and her growing up to be a responsible, respecting, well behaved individual. I can't live my life in fear of something happening to her, I can only love her to my fullest extent and teach her the good in life, hug and kiss her when she leaves and wish her a really great day..for that is my duty as her mother.
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