Pumpkin is still struggling with his behavior in kindergarten. When the notes come home from school, I just want to shake my head. I know that this is something that a lot of families with young children face, but when it is your own child you wonder. . . What am I doing wrong? What can I do different? How can I modify my child's behavior? How can I reward good behavior? How can I discourage bad behavior?
Pumpkin is a complete mystery in this department for both us and his teacher. We have met with his teacher twice this school year and have kept in contact via email. Trial and error seems to be the method of choice for dealing with Pumpkin. He is a really great, good kid, but acts before he thinks which is where most of the trouble comes into play. When asked "Should you have done that?" The answer is always "No." So the key seems to be to figure out how to make a five year old think before his acts. A very hard concept to figure out how to teach.
Right now he seems to be a hands-on learner. He has been more talkative about the two class field trips so far this year than anything else. They have been to the fire station and an apple orchard. Both field trips he talked about for days and even told me all about an apple cider press.
He also love to sing and can memorize better using that aspect. He has sang me a really cute days of the week song (sung to the music of the "Adams Family" theme song). And of course the Johnny Appleseed song is one of my favorites from 4-H camp when I was younger.
Another problem is that after 2 1/2 months of school Pumpkin still does not know any of his classmates names. Very strange, I know. We have talked with the teacher about working to solve this and we now have our very own "friends book", so we can look at pictures of his classmates with their names in an attempt to memorize their names. Which is much better than calling them "monkey", "cheeseburger", "cookie", etc....
I am still not sure what to do with Pumpkin. I guess we need to roll with the punches, but it an definitely be frustrating at times. Guess I'll need to keep praying, keep talking about the rules, and keep my chin up because tomorrow is another day to start afresh and anew.
Pumpkin Update: We have seen his pediatrician and she believes that his ears are the source of all of the trouble. So now we are working on his ears. He is on his second set of tubes. The left one is out, but stuck in the ear canal by wax. Right one is still in place but he has fluid on that side. So we maybe looking at a third set of tubes if other measures do not work to resolve the problem.
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