Thursday, October 11, 2007

A good surpise.

McKay is basically a typical 6 year old boy (if such a thing exists). Sometimes at school he gets carried away and plays a little rough with the other boys. And he struggles a little with the "stay in your seat" rule. His teacher says he concentrates pretty well for the most part but occasionally he'll get into a mood where he will use every trick in the book to get up and wander (bathroom, sharpen his pencil, pick up something he dropped, clean his glasses etc.)And at the very beginning of the school year he seemed to be in trouble quite a bit.

I was hard on him those first few weeks, he lost a lot of priviliges at home and it was rough on him. Even though to be really honest I think he was just adjusting to school starting up again and maybe the summer hadn't worn off yet. Plus, he's at a new school this year and he wants to make friends so badly so I think sometimes he just got carried away.

So, on the one hand I understood his behavior and on the other hand I didn't want him to get into the habit of acting up at school. And I definitly didn't want him to get a reputation for being the "bad kid". So, like I said...I was hard on him those first few weeks.

And things started to get better. And better still. The bad reports got fewer and farther between. And then yesterday when I talked to his teacher after school she said that he's doing a lot better. That he has slip ups, like any kid, but that he's concious of his behavior and he's kind to his friends. And most importantly she said he's never disrespectful to her (which can be a problem at home sometimes). It made me proud.

Then today (and this is the point of this post!) he was standing in line to come out at the end of the day and Mrs. G handed him a note and said something to him and he nodded with a bit of a worried look on his face.

My heart sank.

He was staring at this quarter sheet of white paper, I'm sure just wishing that he was a better reader! And I stood there for those 3 minutes until the bell rang just praying that the news wouldn't be too bad.

He walked over and said "I was green today" (which is good). Then handed the note to me and said "My teacher said that this is really important."

I paused before I looked at it. And when I finally did this is what it said.

We will be having an award ceremony tomorrow at 11:45 am
. McKay is going to be recieving a special award.
Please join us in the auditorium and bring your camera!
SHHH! It's a surpise! And to be fair to the children that
are not going to be recieving an award, please do not bring
balloons or other treats.

WHAT?!? Oh my. Holy moly. Seriously?

ok, honestly you'd think that this note said "McKay will be receiving the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow".

I have no idea what this reward will be. I don't even care. It can be the "Doesn't pick his nose much" award for all I care(which it wont be, cause...well....he picks his nose ALOT!) The thing is, the note wasn't bad. And that was my first assumption. And I feel badly about that. Like really really guilty. I saw him with a note from his teacher and I assumed it was going to say something bad.

I don't think I give him enough credit. I want to appologize to him for that. Except he doesn't know that I assumed the worst. And he doesn't know the note was good (he didn't ask what it said, surprisingly. He just kept saying "I was green").

I'm just so excited for him, because I know that when he sees us there tomorrow and he gets his named called for whatever the award is, he'll be on top of the world. He's going to be proud of himself. I want that for him.

Good behavior seems to perpetuate good behavior. He's on a role and I hope it continues.

I'm excited for tomorrow!

No comments: