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To: ksen
How'd things go with Jr.? Did he surprise you and accept the responsibility for his actions?

Okay. But it was a rough day for him. He ended up skipping football practice and going with Mom to an inner-city Bible study she works with (it's a great ministry, but another story). Did that so they could go by Penney's on the way home. They were having a sale and he only had one pair of long pants that still fit.

When they pulled in the driveway he noticed his light on. I had already moved the tv out. He went upstairs and when he came back down it was evident he'd been crying. I don't think he'd realized that the Playstation and Nintendo were part of the deal. But, I told him he could earn those back (although he wants to sell the Nintendo 64). He has a list of things he has to do this week and I'll set the Playstation up downstairs. (There's a selfish motive there, it's the only thing we've got to play DVDs!). But the television is out until the end of the school year. I think he got the message that his actions caused this.

It was a bad day all around for him though. He saw some paperwork from school about his 504 plan. Being ADHD he still has one (although I put my foot down and stopped the meds about two years ago). But the form says something like "the meeting will determine if the child should still be considered to have a disability." He'd never seen that before and it disturbed him greatly. My wife had to spend about an hour explaining all the terminology to him.

I've had to fight an uphill battle there against the school, his pediatrician and in a lot of cases the Mrs., but she's seeing things differently now.

It helped this morning that on the way in, I caught an episode of "Focus on the Family" which had "kids" sharing how "Dare to Discipline" had been a good thing in their lives...

28,678 posted on 10/01/2002 7:04:54 AM PDT by Corin Stormhands
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To: Corin Stormhands
I admire your decision to fight the classification of your son as "disabled." From what I understand schools get more funding if they have these sorts of "disabled" students.

We had an older couple over to dinner after church this past Sunday. He used to be a public school teacher, back in the '50's through '70's.

As a "reward" for doing an outstanding job the previous year our friend was transferred to a different school and was given the students who were, as the school called them, "retarded and learning disabled." The school had 30 slots for disabled students, guess how many they came up with? Yep, they came up with 30 students.

Anyway, to make a long story short, our friend told the students he didn't believe a bit of it. He held them to high standards, punishing where necessary (corporally in private), and praising abundantly (publically).

Those kids were the best academically in their whole system, as judged by the standardized tests that kids take.

So hang in there with Jr. Discipline where necessary, and praise where necessary. We love our kids. Too often that turns into permissiveness. If we really love our kids we will do what is necessary to help them perform to the best of their ability.

I'm sure you and the Mrs. do all of that, I was preaching to myself there for a minute, but you are more than welcome to listen in. ;^)
28,692 posted on 10/01/2002 7:24:00 AM PDT by ksen
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